As Elizabeth Holmes stares down a prison term of an indeterminate amount of years, she remained smiling as she showed up in court Monday for an evidentiary hearing that's a last-bid attempt by her attorneys to get her a new trial. And, she seems to be possibly pregnant yet again.
It's absolutely not weird at all that Elizabeth Holmes, who is nearing the end of her prime child-bearing years, might make an effort to get pregnant a second time just before she faces sentencing for her fraud conviction. Did her lawyers tell her to hurry up and get another bun in the oven? We'll never know.
But KRON4 reports that, while this hasn't been confirmed, Holmes looked "in good spirits, smiling and appearing to be pregnant" Monday morning in a federal courtroom in San Jose.
The occasion is an evidentiary hearing, scheduled on what would have been her sentencing date, after a motion was filed last month by her attorneys for a new trial, following the revelation of some odd behavior by a key prosecution witness.
That witness, former Theranos lab director Adam Rosendorff, was expected to stand behind his original testimony. And his attorneys filed an angry-sounding motion with Judge Edward Davila last week suggesting that Holmes's lawyers were doing exactly what he told them not to — going on a "fishing expedition" and subpoena-ing Rosendorff's phone and email records in their effort to get a new trial.
On the stand again Monday, as KRON4 reports, Rosendorff confirmed what is now obvious, about Holmes being pregnant for a second time.
When asked about his mental state when he drove to Holmes's house in August, wanting to express remorse over his damning testimony, Rosendorff said, "In the weeks and months following Elizabeth Holmes’ conviction, I felt increasingly distressed that a young child would spend the only years of their [childhood] without their mother. [And] I learned that Ms. Holmes may be pregnant again."
Prosecutors today tried to drive home the idea that Rosendorff has nothing to recant. "Were you truthful and honest to the best of your ability?" asked Prosecutor John Bostic, per KRON4, and Rosendorff replied, "Yes."
Rosendorff further said on the stand that while he felt bad for Holmes's family and her child/children, he wasn't trying to "help" her get out of her sentence. "I don’t want to help Ms. Holmes," he said, per the New York Times. "She’s not somebody who can be helped. At this point she needs to help herself. She needs to pay her debt to society."
Judge Davila did not immediately rule on the motion for a new trial, and he seems highly likely not to rule in the defense's favor. But both sides have one more week to file briefs in support of their respective cases before he will rule.
Meanwhile, last week, Davila scheduled Holmes's sentencing for one month from today, on Monday, November 18.
One court watcher throughout Holmes's trial, Anne Kopf-Sill, told KRON4 that Holmes appeared to be between five and seven months pregnant. And even though Judge Davila technically isn't allowed to consider Holmes's pregnancy or motherhood in her sentencing, that doesn't mean he won't. Holmes also has a one-and-a-half-year-old son at home.
"I think she is hoping to get a lighter sentence," Kopf-Sill tells KRON4. "Everyone feels sorry for children that have to grow up without both parents. Even though they may be unsympathetic to Elizabeth … there still is feeling for doing something for innocent children."
Holmes's co-defendant, Sunny Balwani, was also convicted in July in a separate trial on all the fraud charges against him. He does not have the benefit of getting pregnant to delay or reduce his prison time.
Top image: Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes (C) arrives at federal court with her partner Billy Evans (R) on October 17, 2022 in San Jose, California. Holmes appeared in federal court related to an attempt to overturn her fraud conviction. She is facing jail time after being convicted of four counts of fraud for allegedly engaging in a multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud investors in her company Theranos, which offered blood testing lab services. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
