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Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos in 2003, was indicted in 2018, and was convicted in 2022 of four investor-related fraud counts. The verdict was narrower than the allegations that preceded it: jurors acquitted her on patient-related counts and did not reach verdicts on three investor counts. Holmes was sentenced to 135 months in prison in November 2022, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed her conviction, sentence, and restitution order in February 2025. That sequence matters: allegations, a jury verdict, sentencing, and an appeal are distinct stages, not interchangeable descriptions of what was proved.
What is the Theranos timeline?
Theranos’s story runs from its 2003 founding through years of expansion and public claims about blood testing, to federal civil and criminal cases beginning in 2018, Holmes’s 2022 conviction and sentence, and the Ninth Circuit’s 2025 affirmance. The reliable way to follow the timeline is to keep track of the status of each claim: a company’s pitch is not a finding, a government complaint is an allegation, evidence presented at trial is not itself a verdict, and an appellate decision is a later review of the judgment.
- 2003: Holmes founded Theranos after leaving college during her second year. The company’s stated aim was to make diagnostic testing from small samples more accessible.
- As the company grew: Theranos pursued a retail relationship and proposed expanding testing through Walgreens Wellness Centers. Trial evidence cited by prosecutors included Holmes’s representations to investors about expansion despite the rollout having stalled.
- 2018: The SEC filed a civil fraud complaint, and federal prosecutors obtained a criminal indictment. Both alleged misconduct; neither was a jury verdict.
- January 3, 2022: A jury convicted Holmes on one conspiracy count and three wire-fraud counts involving investors. It acquitted her on patient-related counts and did not reach verdicts on three other investor counts.
- November 18, 2022: Holmes received a 135-month prison sentence, followed by three years of supervised release.
- February 24, 2025: The Ninth Circuit affirmed the conviction, sentence, and restitution order.
The dates identify the major legal milestones confirmed by the official materials cited below. They do not establish a date for every business development or describe the present administration of Holmes’s sentence.
What did Theranos claim when Elizabeth Holmes founded it?
Theranos was founded in 2003 with the stated goal of developing diagnostic technology that could use small blood samples and make test results easier to access. That is a description of the company’s ambition, not proof that its technology could reliably perform the tests or produce the results its public claims suggested.
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The distinction is central to understanding the case. A company can have an ambitious technical goal; the legal question in Holmes’s criminal trial was whether her conduct toward investors met the elements of the specific crimes charged. The jury’s verdict answers that question for four investor-related counts. It should not be expanded into a finding that every statement about Theranos, every aspect of its technology, or every alleged harm was established in court.
Likewise, a later account of what the company said should identify it as a claim or representation unless a relevant court or jury made a finding about it. The SEC complaint and the criminal case materials are useful records of what the government alleged, while the jury’s verdict and the appellate decision establish different, later legal outcomes.
How did Theranos expand, and what was the Walgreens connection?
Federal case materials describe a relationship with Walgreens and a proposed expansion of testing services through the retailer’s Wellness Centers. This relationship formed part of the company’s growth story and became relevant to the government’s investor-fraud case.
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At trial, prosecutors cited evidence that Holmes represented to investors that the rollout would expand even though it had stalled. That is a specific description of evidence cited by the prosecution; it should not be broadened into a claim that the jury made findings about every business arrangement or every detail in the indictment. The jury’s verdict was attached to the counts it decided, not to the entirety of the government’s narrative.
For readers watching a documentary or revisiting coverage, this is a useful checkpoint: ask whether a passage is recounting the company’s public pitch, the government’s allegation, evidence presented at trial, or a conclusion actually reached by the jury. Those categories can describe the same episode while carrying different evidentiary weight.
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What did the SEC allege in 2018?
In 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil complaint alleging that Holmes and Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani raised more than $700 million from investors through misrepresentations about Theranos’s technology, business, and financial performance. The amount and characterization belong to the SEC’s allegations. They are not a jury finding that every dollar in that figure was fraudulently obtained, and they are not the amount represented by Holmes’s four criminal convictions.
The SEC complaint against Holmes and Theranos is a primary source for what the agency alleged in its civil case. A complaint sets out a party’s claims; it is not a verdict. Keeping that label beside the figure prevents a common error: turning a prominently reported allegation into a fact adjudicated by the criminal jury.
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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchThe criminal case began separately. The federal indictment was initially returned on June 14, 2018, and alleged schemes involving investors, doctors, and patients. An indictment is a formal accusation, not proof of guilt. The distinction became especially important once the jury returned a verdict that covered some investor counts but not patient-related counts or every investor count.
What did the jury convict Elizabeth Holmes of?
On January 3, 2022, the jury found Holmes guilty of one conspiracy count and three wire-fraud counts concerning investors. It acquitted her on patient-related counts and did not reach verdicts on three investor counts. In short, the criminal verdict was four convictions, acquittals on patient-related charges, and no verdict on three additional investor charges—not a conviction on every allegation in the indictment.
The Department of Justice’s announcement of the jury verdict reports the outcome. The DOJ’s case summary and case materials provide further context for the federal prosecution. These sources should be read with the verdict’s limits in mind: the convictions concern investor fraud, while the jury acquitted Holmes on patient-related counts.
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A jury’s decision not to reach a verdict on a count is also different from either a conviction or an acquittal. It means the jury did not decide that count in that trial. It does not convert the unresolved count into a finding of guilt, and it should not be silently folded into the counts on which the jury did return a verdict.
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That makes the most accurate short description “convicted of investor fraud on four counts,” not “convicted of defrauding patients” or “convicted on all charges.” The broader indictment described allegations involving multiple groups; the verdict reflects the particular charges the jury resolved and the outcome on each group of counts.
When was Holmes sentenced, and how long was the sentence?
Holmes was sentenced on November 18, 2022, to 135 months in prison—11 years and three months—followed by three years of supervised release. The Department of Justice described the sentence as more than 11 years for defrauding Theranos investors.
The DOJ sentencing announcement is the source for the 135-month term and supervised-release period. Sentencing is a separate stage from the jury’s decision: the verdict established guilt on specified counts, while the sentence set the punishment. DOJ also said Holmes was ordered to surrender in April 2023. That surrender instruction is not, by itself, a reliable source for her current custody status or any later change in sentence administration.
It is also worth distinguishing a prison term from a calendar date for release. The 135-month sentence is the term imposed, but calculating a current release date would require verified information about how the sentence is being administered. The materials cited here do not establish that current status, so this timeline does not infer one.
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What happened to Holmes’s appeal?
On February 24, 2025, the Ninth Circuit affirmed Holmes’s conviction, sentence, and restitution order. That is the latest appellate endpoint confirmed by the official materials in this timeline. The 2025 HHS Departmental Appeals Board decision discussing Elizabeth A. Holmes recounts the Ninth Circuit outcome.
An affirmance means the appellate court left the challenged judgment in place; it does not create a new jury verdict or change the original counts on which Holmes was convicted. The criminal verdict remains four investor-related convictions, with acquittals on patient-related counts and no verdict on three investor counts. The appeal is later in the chronology, but it does not erase those distinctions.
The record includes a separate HHS Departmental Appeals Board decision issued in 2026, available on the Board’s 2026 decision page. The existence of that later agency decision should not be mistaken for a new criminal trial verdict. The criminal timeline described here ends with the appellate affirmance confirmed in the cited materials; any claim about what a later decision changed requires support from that decision’s specific contents.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How should you read the timeline without confusing allegations and findings?
Use the legal status of each statement as a guide. A timeline becomes misleading when it moves from “the SEC alleged” to “Holmes did” without identifying a verdict or other finding that supports the change in wording.
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|---|---|---|
| Company claims | What Theranos or its representatives said they intended or could do. | That the technology performed as claimed. |
| SEC complaint (2018) | The SEC’s civil allegations, including the more-than-$700-million figure concerning Holmes and Balwani. | A criminal conviction or a jury finding about every dollar. |
| Criminal indictment (2018) | The charges prosecutors brought, including allegations involving investors, doctors, and patients. | Proof of those allegations or guilt on every count. |
| Trial evidence | Evidence presented to the jury, including the investor representations about a stalled retail rollout cited by prosecutors. | A verdict on every allegation or business detail discussed in court. |
| Jury verdict (2022) | Four investor-related convictions, acquittals on patient-related counts, and no verdicts on three investor counts. | A conviction on patient-related counts or all charges in the indictment. |
| Sentence and appeal | The 135-month sentence and the Ninth Circuit’s 2025 affirmance of the conviction, sentence, and restitution order. | A verified present custody status or a new verdict on unresolved counts. |
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This separation is more than careful phrasing. It lets readers understand how a company’s public story became a legal case without treating every allegation as proven or diminishing the significance of the jury’s actual findings. For a documentary, article, or courtroom record, the most useful questions are: Who is making this statement? At what point in the case? Is it an allegation, evidence, a jury finding, a sentence, or an appellate ruling?
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Why does the Theranos case remain a cautionary story?
The case is often told as a dramatic shift from startup founder to convicted fraudster, but a clear chronology shows what that shorthand leaves out. The 2003 founding and the company’s stated objective belong to the business history; the 2018 SEC complaint and indictment record allegations; the 2022 verdict resolves only particular criminal counts; sentencing and appeal follow as distinct steps. The legal record is both serious and bounded.
For readers assessing a documentary’s account, the key is not to collapse a technical promise, a business relationship, a civil allegation, and a criminal conviction into one undifferentiated story. The SEC’s more-than-$700-million figure is tied to its allegations about funds Holmes and Balwani allegedly raised. The jury convicted Holmes on four counts concerning investors, but acquitted her on patient-related counts and did not decide three other investor counts. The Ninth Circuit later affirmed the judgment. Each statement is important, and none should be used as a substitute for the others.
That is the most accurate way to understand what happened to Theranos and how Holmes went from founder to convicted defendant: the public claims and company expansion drew scrutiny; civil and criminal authorities brought separate cases in 2018; the jury reached a limited but consequential verdict in 2022; the court imposed a prison sentence; and the Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment in 2025. The timeline is not a claim that every detail alleged during the company’s rise was proved at trial.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does it mean that the jury did not reach a verdict on three counts?
Those counts remained undecided by that jury; they were neither convictions nor acquittals. A no-verdict outcome should not be counted as proof of guilt or treated as part of the four convictions.
Why do reports give a $700 million figure if Holmes was convicted on four counts?
The figure comes from the SEC’s 2018 civil complaint about what Holmes and Balwani allegedly raised from investors. It is not the amount of money a jury found attributable to Holmes’s four criminal counts.
Does the 2025 appeal mean the jury reconsidered the patient-related charges?
No. The Ninth Circuit’s affirmance concerned the conviction, sentence, and restitution order already before it; it did not turn the patient-related acquittals into convictions.
Can the sentence end date be calculated from the 135-month term?
Not from the term alone. A current release date depends on sentence administration, and the official materials cited here do not verify Holmes’s present custody status or release calculation.
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