Elizabeth Holmes criticised for daughter’s name that appears to reflect legal battles
Holmes heads to prison tomorrow
The Daily Mail claims it has learned the name of the daughter of disgraced tech mogul Elizabeth Holmes. The paper reportedly obtained the girl's birth certificate, which contained her name – an apparent reference to Holmes’ current legal woes.
Holmes – who was at one time viewed by some tech enthusiasts with reverence otherwise reserved for figures like Steve Jobs – was set to begin an 11-year prison sentence on Thursday after she was convicted for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud through her now-defunct company Theranos. However, the report date was pushed back at the 11th hour as Holmes’ appeal unfolds.
She was captured in paparazzi photos published by The Daily Mail in which she is holding her infant daughter.
According to The Daily Mail, the little girl's name is Invicta – a feminised version of the Latin word invictus, which means "unconquered."
The three-month-old girl is Holmes' second child with hotel heir Billy Evans.
Some commenters on social media rolled their eyes at the child's name and accused Holmes of using the name as a way to further her own victim narrative.
"What’s the opposite of remorse? Yeah that,” Bijan Salehizadeh, an investor who refused to invest in Theranos in 2006 after Holmes left him unimpressed, tweeted on Tuesday. “Naming a kid after a poem that political and war prisoners often cite is precious. The demons of denial are raging. Minimum security prison camp with Jen Shah of RH sadly won’t fix that.”
He is referring to the William Ernest Henley poem, which has long been used as inspiration by individuals facing extreme adversity, most notably by Nelson Mandela during his time as a political prisoner.
Holmes has launched a few last-ditch plays to avoid prison.
Last week, her attorneys demanded that she be given a new trial or have her prison sentence reduced, arguing that they were barred from presenting "compelling evidence" during her trial.
She called her conviction "unjust" and her sentence "severe" in the court filing requesting the move.
Her defence team says it wanted to include exculpatory statements from Holmes' former boyfriend and Theraonos co-president, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, but that they were not permitted.
“Balwani’s testimony is compelling evidence corroborating Holmes’s defense that she did not intend to defraud investors with the financial projections or conspire with Balwani to do so,” the attorneys wrote in the court documents, according to The New York Post.
Their request was denied.
On Wednesday, Holmes made a move to avoid her 27 April date to report to prison by using the same tactic that Balwani used to delay his earlier this year.
Her lawyers informed US District Judge Edward Davila that she won’t be reporting to prison as scheduled because she had filed an appeal of a decision that set the date.
Prosecutors claimed during the trial that Holmes tried to flee the country in January 2022 after her conviction.
“The government became aware on January 23, 2022, that Defendant Holmes booked an international flight to Mexico departing on January 26, 2022, without a scheduled return trip,” the court filing states. “Only after the government raised this unauthorized flight with defense counsel was the trip canceled.”