The fraudulent billionaire woman begins her life in prison.

Elizabeth Holmes, a former Silicon Valley icon, will be working for $0.12 an hour and using shared bathrooms in a Texas prison.

On May 30, Elizabeth Holmes appeared at Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, to begin serving an 11-year prison sentence for defrauding investors while running the blood testing company Theranos. Holmes's request for bail to appeal her sentence was denied by the judge earlier this month.

Federal Prison Camp Bryan is a prison for over 600 female inmates. The regulations here are less stringent than in other prisons.

This prison has dormitory-style cells, shared bathrooms, few guards, and even no fences, according to the U.S. Federal Penitentiary Service. FPC Bryan primarily houses intellectual prisoners.

Elizabeth Holmes followed prison staff into Federal Prison Camp Bryan on May 30. Photo: AP

However, according to Mark MacDougall, a former U.S. federal prosecutor, life there would not be pleasant for Holmes. "I think that those who say it's pleasant have never actually been here. This isn't a place you'd want to be if you could be somewhere else. There's no privacy," MacDougall told CNN.

Prisoners here are required to work, earning between $0.12 and $1.15 per hour. Holmes also has to wear a uniform of khaki clothing, a far cry from her usual black turtleneck. She is also not allowed to wear jewelry, except for a plain wedding ring and items related to religion. The value of these items cannot exceed $100.

MacDougall said that at FPC Bryan, Holmes would have plenty of opportunities to volunteer. For someone with Holmes's education, teaching is a common choice. Holmes could also spend a few hours with her children and family at FPC Bryan on weekends and holidays.

"Anyone who says Holmes will have a pleasant, comfortable environment in prison is being ridiculous," MacDougall said.

Holmes has appeared on the covers of many major magazines and participated in conferences with celebrities such as former US President Bill Clinton. However, she is also one of the rare Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to be convicted of fraud. Holmes dropped out of Stanford University at age 19 to found Theranos and was once considered the female version of Steve Jobs thanks to her ambitious promise of mass disease testing technology using only a few drops of blood.

Investors, patients, and even fans believed the story. Theranos raised over $700 million from investors, outsmarting even the smartest people in Silicon Valley.

The matter came to light after a 2015 Wall Street Journal investigation. According to the findings, Theranos only performed about 12 out of hundreds of tests using technology they claimed was proprietary. Even the accuracy of these results was questioned. Theranos was later found to be using third-party equipment to perform traditional blood tests, instead of their own technology.

Theranos was once a startup valued at $9 billion, helping Holmes become the world's youngest self-made female billionaire in 2015 with a net worth of $4.5 billion. But now, both Theranos and Holmes have lost everything.

The trial dragged on for years. By early 2022, Holmes was found guilty of four counts of fraud, putting an end to the once-iconic tech icon. Former Theranos COO Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani was also convicted of fraud and has been in prison since last month with a sentence of nearly 13 years.

Ha Thu (according to CNN)

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