Disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is pregnant, delaying trial for fraud

Elizabeth Holmes, the infamous founder of the now-defunct blood testing company Theranos, is pregnant, new court documents have revealed.

Holmes is awaiting trial on multiple federal fraud charges.

She is accused of defrauding more than 900 million Australian dollars ($ 970 million) to high-profile investors, including Rupert Murdoch, the Walton family, founders of Walmart, and tech billionaire Larry Ellison.

Holmes has always denied the claims, maintaining that he is innocent.

However, given her pregnancy and pending date of birth in July, both her lawyers and the prosecution have requested to delay the start date of her trial to August 31, 2021. Although the father has not been disclosed, Holmes has been married to hotel heir Billy Evans in a secret wedding in March 2019.

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“The parties have met and conferred, and both parties agree that, in light of this fact, it is not feasible to start the trial on July 13, 2021, as is currently scheduled,” the document reads.

“In light of the Respondent’s pregnancy, the parties stipulate and agree, and respectfully request that the Court order that the trial begin with jury selection on August 31, 2021.”

While the fall from grace of the embattled CEO has been well documented, at the height of Theranos, Holmes’s success earned her the title of America’s youngest billionaire.

With a highly publicized needle phobia, Holmes claimed that Theranos had created a blood test that could detect a variety of health problems with just a finger stick.

Praised as the Steve Jobs woman, wearing a matching black turtleneck-inspired uniform, the company landed an AU $ 450 million settlement with US pharmacy chain Safeway in 2012, with another lucrative deal with Walgreens a year later.

In the next two years, Theranos would continue to grow from time to time.

The company achieved a valuation of nearly $ 10 billion ($ 14 billion) and Holmes would appear on the cover of Fortune magazine and land an interview with former President Bill Clinton on the Clinton Global Initiative.

In 2015, Holmes’ credibility began to crack.

Reports that Theranos had been generating false and unreliable results began to circulate and Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou began investigating the company.

In 2018 he would be the author of the book Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, with Jennifer Lawrence scheduled to play the famous businesswoman in an upcoming film adaptation.

In late 2015, a report from the Food and Drug Administration exposed the company for shipping unauthorized medical devices.

Later, in 2016, Forbes slashed the estimate of his personal net worth from $ 4.5 billion to zero.

In June 2018, both Holmes and former Theranos President and COO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani faced wire fraud charges from the US Department of Justice.

Theranos was officially closed in September 2018.

Now awaiting trial, Holmes faces a possible 20-year prison sentence and up to $ 2.9 million in fines. She continues to maintain her innocence.