Fallen US biotech star Elizabeth Holmes faces sentencing on Friday after being found guilty of defrauding investors and endangering patients in a case that has become an indictment of Silicon Valley. Holmes was convicted of four counts in January for convincing investors for more than 15 years that she had developed a revolutionary medical device before the company was fired after a Wall Street Journal investigation. US federal prosecutors are seeking a 15-year prison sentence for Holmes and want her to pay $800 million in restitution to investors who included Walmart’s Walton family, Walgreens drugstore chain and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. The Theranos founder was “blinded by … ambition,” U.S. Attorney Stephanie Hinds said in court filing arguments for the sentence. Holmes became a Silicon Valley star when she said her startup was perfecting an easy-to-use test kit that could perform a wide range of medical diagnostics with just a few drops of blood. At the time, Holmes often dressed soberly in black turtlenecks reminiscent of her hero, the late Apple icon Steve Jobs. She sold investors on the idea that her invention would disrupt medical practice by replacing expensive lab tests with her cheap kits. Her claims helped Theranos raise nearly a billion dollars without ever achieving any real revenue. Holmes’ meteoric rise and rapid demise have been the subject of books, movies and television series that have framed her story as a cautionary tale about the excesses of the tech industry blindly following a charismatic founder. At one point, Theranos’ board included former US Secretary of Defense James Mattis and former US Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and the late George Shultz. Holmes will appear Friday before the same judge who presided over her hours-long trial in a US court in the Silicon Valley city of San Jose, California. ‘Wonderful things’ Lawyers for Holmes, 38, asked for leniency, portraying her as a devoted friend who cares for a young child and has a second child on the way. This was confirmed by 140 letters of support filed in court, including from her family, friends and a US senator. “I am confident that on the other hand, Elizabeth will do amazing things for society with her talents and boundless passion to change the world for the better,” one letter said. This was in stark contrast to the descriptions given at her trial that painted her as an ambitious con artist who harassed her workers. In a letter, Holmes’ aunt, who was an early investor in Thiranos, urged the court to impose a harsh sentence on her, the Wall Street Journal reported. Experts believe Holmes will almost certainly face prison time, given the scale of the fraud and the attention the case has received. Her defense could ask her to remain out on bail pending an appeal. “The government, I guess, is going to fight to start her sentence on day one — they want her to go to prison,” former prosecutor Stephen Clark told the San Jose Mercury News. “This is going to be a tough call for the court. She has another child on the way,” he added. (Other than the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published by a syndicated feed.)

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