Theranos' Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison

Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes has been rebuffed in her attempt to stay out of federal prison while she appeals her conviction for the fraud she committed while overseeing a blood-testing scam that exposed Silicon Valley’s dark side.

In an 11-page ruling issued late Monday, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila concluded there wasn't compelling enough evidence to allow Holmes to remain free on bail while her lawyers try to persuade an appeals court that alleged misconduct during her four-month trial led to an unjust verdict.

The judge’s decision means Holmes, 39, will have to surrender to authorities April 27 to start the more than 11-year prison sentence that Davila imposed in November. The punishment came 10 months after a jury found her guilty on four counts of fraud and conspiracy against the Thearanos investors who believed in her promises to revolutionize the health care industry.

Holmes had accompanied her lawyers to a San Jose, California, courtroom on March 17 to try to convince Davila that various missteps by federal prosecutors and the omission of key evidence will culminate in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals exonerating her.

Her prison sentence is scheduled to start roughly 20 years after Holmes dropped out of Stanford University when she was 19 years old to start Theranos in Palo Alto, California – the same city where William Hewlett and David Packard founded a company bearing their surnames in a small garage and planted the seeds of what grew into Silicon Valley.

Holmes could still file another appeal of the ruling Davila's latest ruling, a maneuver that her co-conspirator at Theranos – Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani – successfully used to delay his scheduled March 16 date to begin a nearly 13-year prison sentence. But the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals...