White Collar Criminal Defense and Investigations Partner Ryan L. O’Neill was recently interviewed by BBC News on the Elizabeth Holmes verdict, and is quoted extensively in the May 29, 2023 article, “Elizabeth Holmes is going to prison. Will she ever pay victims too?” Ryan provides insights on the unlikelihood that Elizabeth Holmes will make restitution on the money she has been ordered to pay back to many high-profile investors that were defrauded through her blood-testing start-up company, Theranos Inc.
Ryan told BBC News, "There are very few people - the Bernie Madoffs of the world and everyone else - that can pay the full amount of criminal restitution.” Ryan explained that Holmes will be expected to try to pay back the people she defrauded, and that prosecutors have probably already begun to seize her assets.
Holmes has denied having the $425 million to pay back her victims, and also has a massive legal bill to pay. Ryan said that Holmes and other criminal defendants have no incentive to “make it rich” again because they “know where the money is going to go.”
But Ryan said, "They're [the prosecutors] not going to stop looking. She's not going to be able to put a dollar in her bank account… without the government seizing it."
See BBC for the full article.
