Elizabeth Holmes' Lawyers Argue She Can't Afford $250 Per Month In Restitution

Lawyers for Elizabeth Holmes, the former disgraced Theranos founder who is now starting an 11 year prison sentence, have filed motions arguing that their client "cannot afford" to pay victims $250 per month once she leaves prison.

The payments are to be made as part of the $452 million in restitution she is required to put up with her former in-house boytoy Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, the Washington Post wrote this week. 

Lawyers for Holmes argued that Liz has “limited financial resources” - because it's tough to make a living in this town when you're not ripping off gullible VC's.

Holmes' lawyers argued: “The Court had before it substantial evidence showing Ms. Holmes’ limited financial resources and has appropriately treated Ms. Holmes and Mr. Balwani differently in sentencing; and the Court issued the Holmes and Balwani Amended Judgments within twenty minutes of each other, which suggests any differences between the two judgments were not inadvertent.”

While Holmes is in jail, she's expected to make restitution payments of $25 every 3 months. After, she was ordered to pay victims $250 per month or 10% of her wages, whatever is higher. Balwani must pay $1,000 per moth in restitution when he's released. 

Rupert Murdoch, who invested $125 million, is owed the largest sum. Holmes' lawyers have argued she has “essentially no assets of meaningful value”.

Eugene Gorokhov, a defense lawyer specializing in white-collar crime, explained the restitution system to The Washington Post: “The restitution system is designed to be applied generally — one size fits all. It obviously breaks down when you apply it to outliers like Holmes who owe an eye-popping amount.”

The US Court Of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dismissed Elizabeth Holmes' request in mid-May to remain free while her legal team attempted to overturn her fraud conviction, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

Holmes, the disgraced founder of blood-testing startup Theranos, was found guilty of four fraud and conspiracy charges in January 2022. She received a sentence of over 11 years in prison. 

She surrendered to authorities at the end of May to begin serving her time. 

Balwani began his 13-year prison sentence in April after being convicted on 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy last July.