With Elizabeth Holmes not getting her wish to escape a prison sentence Friday, attorneys for the pregnant Theranos fraudster said she faced the “terrifying prospect” of being an incarcerated mother, forced to say good-bye to a much-adored toddler son and a baby she might be separated from soon after giving birth.
After the visibly pregnant Holmes broke down in tears Friday to say, “I regret my failings with every cell of my body,” U.S. District Judge Edward Davila sentenced her to 11.25 years in federal prison.
Holmes, 38, continued to cry as she was surrounded by partner, Billy Evans, and other family members after Davila let her know her fate – as well as the fate of her children, who include her 15-month-old son. The judge gave her a date of April 27 to surrender to federal prison. While Holmes and Evans have not revealed her due date, reporters at the San Jose courthouse said she appeared to be six or seven months along. That means, she should be able to give birth to her second child before she has to be separated from both children for the next decade, by the end of which they’ll both be pre-teenagers.
Holmes’ attorneys argued that the “loving and dedicated mother and partner” shouldn’t have to serve time in federal prison or should, at most, only be sentenced to a maximum of 18 months. TheStanford dropout was convicted by a jury in January of bilking investors in her now-defunct Palo Alto blood-testing startup out of more than $144 million. Federal prosecutors, labeling her a remorseless liar and calling her fraud scheme among the worst white-collar crimes Silicon Valley has seen, asked for her to go to prison for 15 years. Probation officials had recommended a sentence of nine years.
With Davila opting for a sentence closer to what prosecutors wanted, Holmes, who is said to be a hands-on mother, now has to live with the agony of leaving her children behind.
For Holmes, being locked up means she won’t be able to gently greet her 15-month-old when she gets him out of the crib in the morning, as her partner Evans recounted in the sentencing memo her attorneys submitted to the court this week. She and Evans also won’t be able to hold their little boy in their arms while they dance in the kitchen and give him “doubles” — kisses on both sides of the cheek. Holmes also will miss rocking her son to sleep at night, singing “Amazing Grace.”
Evans explained his fears of her being imprisoned: “My heart is broken with the thought of spending any days away from Liz, for a future in which my son grows up with a relationship with his mother on the other side of glass armed by guards.”
Despite Evans’ pleas for leniency, many watching the trial were not moved by Holmes’ plight as a soon-to-be incarcerated mother. People on social media said poor women of color usually can’t count on the public, courts or media to care about their pain when they’re separated from their children.
Many also questioned the timing of both of Holmes’ pregnancies, with some wondering, cynically, whether the she planned them to elicit sympathy for her trial and or her sentencing. Others asked why a woman who claims to be a loving mother would get pregnant after she’s been convicted of crimes that could have potentially separated herself from her children for up to 20 years.
“Elizabeth Holmes doesn’t care about anyone other than herself,” one person tweeted. “If she did she would not have gotten pregnant not once but 2x while pending prison sentence was looming. That’s not thinking of the best interest of her kids. She needs to go to jail. She’s a Fraud.
Women who’ve been previously incarcerated told this news organization in January that they had to deal with limited opportunities for visits and physical contact with their children. Visits with their children took place in a crowded institutional setting — usually after they had to submit to strip searches. They also had to wait in long lines for a pay phone to call their children.
“You can’t mother from a pay phone,” Danielle Metz, who served time in the Dublin Federal Correctional Institution after being sentenced for cocaine distribution, told this news organization in January. For the entire 23 years she was incarcerated, Metz missed her child-rearing day-to-day moments: Taking her children to school, soothing them when they were sick or cheering them on in their many accomplishments.
With the April surrender date, Holmes won’t need to finish out her pregnancy and give birth while in prison. Legal experts also said she’s likely to appeal her case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which could further delay her date for reporting to prison.
If she had not been able to put off surrendering to prison until after her baby’s birth, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) offers two residential programs for mothers and their newborns. The women report before they give birth and are allowed to reside with their babies. However, neither of the programs are located in California. One also is limited to a six-month stay and the other for 30 months.
Andrea James, who heads the National Council For Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, told this news organization that she was on “the brink of insanity” from postpartum depression when she surrendered to serve two years at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, in 2010, six months after giving birth to the youngest of her four children.
“It was like a kick in the stomach, being separated from my son,” said James, a former Boston-area attorney who was convicted of wire fraud. “This child doesn’t understand, this infant who was in your body and slept up against you and breast-fed. You are there one day and the next day you are gone.”
James and other women also illustrated the lifelong trauma that children can suffer when they lose close, regular proximity to their primary caregiver at crucial times in their physical and emotional development. They cited extensive research showing that having an incarcerated parent is an “adverse” event for a child, which can lead to depression, anxiety, aggression and an increased risk of trouble in school and involvement in the criminal justice system.
At best, Holmes can hope she’ll be imprisoned near enough to the Bay Area that Evans or other family members can bring her children for regular visits. The opportunity for regular visits often isn’t available to poor women of color who are serving time, James and others add.
As a non-violent offender, it’s possible that Holmes could end up in the federal facility in Dublin, because the BOP tries to house prisoners within 500 miles of home, Holli Coulman, a prison consultant who served time in federal prison, told this news organization. Under the very best of circumstances, Holmes might be able to see her children several hours once or twice a week, Coulman said.
Metz said she remembers a toy area in the Dublin facility, where she could sit with her children when they came to visit. However, the visits were often stressful. She remembers a lot of crying from children upset about having to leave their mothers.
“You know, at 3 and 7, it was hard to explain my sentence to them,” said Metz, who was granted clemency by President Obama in 2016 and is the clemency director for James’ National Council. “Even as they got older, it was hard to explain why I wasn’t coming home with them and if not, when will I be coming with them?”
This story has been updated.
