Pregnant Elizabeth Holmes to be jailed for fraud

[AuntieJoyce]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-63685131

Just wondering what MNers think about this. Bold or selfish decision to conceive two children whilst awaiting serious fraud charges that mean you could be away from your children, in this case for 11 years?

She committed a massive fraud. And made unfounded allegations. I have no sympathy.

Very selfish imo, and I wouldn't be surprised if she was thinking the judge would go easier on her due to it. She deserves the sentence she got, just a shame for the kids that their mother is selfish and a felon.

Bold, selfish and calculated.

I saw the headline this morning but didn’t read the article, I didn’t know she was pregnant.

To me, it was a bold attempt at avoiding jail that hasn’t worked.

Selfish. I’m fairly sure she was hoping having kids would mean a more lenient sentence. Apparently she boasted to someone that people as pretty as her don’t get jailed. I’m assuming she knew her product didn’t work. Though I admit she does a good job of proclaiming her innocence.

Her Dh is stupid for going along with it all as well. Poor kids. And he’ll be a single parent now.

Conception to avoid jail time? High risk strategy

Maybe she got pregnant because it would be her last chance? Selfish though.

To be fair, she knew that length of sentence would be likely and she probably won’t be able to have kids by the time she gets out (she’s 38 now).

So I do think it will be difficult for the family, but I might have done the same in that situation, people will go to great lengths to have kids regardless of the circumstances.

I knew someone who got pregnant while awaiting trial. She said it was suggested she may not receive a custodial sentence or much reduced one if she was pregnant or had baby. She claimed this came from her her solicitor. Wether it did come from them, I don’t know.

She was wrong. She went to prison, gave birth and after a period the baby went to live with their father. It really impacted the child growing up without her mum, then having her mum back who then tried to remove the child from the father to be the resident parent. It was a huge mess.

I have no sympathy for people who do this. Only the children involved.

She's 38 now, and would have been 36 or 37 when her first child was born. Facing a long prison sentence in your late 30s, it's a now or never decision whether to have children.

A gamble that didn't pay off. Or maybe it did, she got 11 years, but prosecutors were asking 18+ I think.

Poor kids. She and her husband (it takes two to tango!) have created a situation that is incredibly traumatic for both children, but particularly the one she's pregnant with bow. What is the situation for the baby she's currently carrying? Is she going straight to jail, and having the baby in jail? Or is she going to be allowed house arrest until she's had it? How long does the baby stay with her post-delivery? I couldn't find any details in the news article I read this morning.

I can’t tell from the article if she got pregnant with her first child before or after she was charged, but the trial was in January and she is currently pregnant with her second. Perhaps she was hoping the judge would give her a lighter sentence, or perhaps she wanted her first child to have a sibling and this was the only chance. It does seem selfish to have a baby knowing you will be separated from them for several years.

I believe her first pregnancy delayed the trial.

The woman seems like a sociopath and I would be shocked if the pregnancies/ children were an attempt to reduce her sentence. It would be in keeping with the way she attempted to use and manipulate people that got her in to this mess in the first place.

@SirSamVimesCityWatch - she’ll prob go to jail, have baby in jail, and baby will stay with her for the first few weeks but with lots of extra visiting time for the dad and sibling. Baby will then go home with dad. She’ll be in a white collar criminal kind of jail which are generally much softer/more flexible so will get lots of visitation time in family rooms (it’s not like the kids will be facing her through a plastic screen). It’s a long way from ideal but given the high incarceration rates in the US it’s not that unusual for prisoners to have babies.

I’d not thought about this aspect of it. Makes it somehow worse

Thanks for the details, golden, I did think that US jails are probably well set up for this, sadly. Poor babies, all of them, who get born into this situation. To do it deliberately is an appalling decision from Holmes & her husband.

She doesn't go to prison until April, so she will have the baby and some time together before she goes in.

She's an absolute piece of work but I am so sad for those children. She's the only mother they've got and she's going to just be gone one day. Incredibly sad.

She's also very unlikely to serve 11 years. She will get early release under an extension to the already stipulated period of house arrest.

She doesn't really take responsibility for her actions either. She keeps talking about being sorry for her failings. This implies that she tried at something & just failed. This didn't happen, she defrauded people, cheated them with grandeur claims that she had a test that could identify illness by a few drops of blood.
She probably will never learn but she should never be trusted again.

She won't serve anything like 11 years, but it will be long enough to be very damaging to the children.

It would have set a poor precedent if she received no jail time for what she did. Incredibly callous and deliberate.

I wonder what Sunny will get.

Bearing in mind the whole background of what she did, it's likely that she's some kind of psychopath who would have had zero empathy about the impact on the children she decided to have.

She's arrogant.
Am pleased she's getting more than slap on wrist.

I can't judge on conceiving kids when she was going to go to jail, she didn't have great choices if she wanted to have babies, and at least those kids have lot of other supportive relatives to look after them regardless of what happens to her jail sentence.

Very selfish of her as her children are now consigned to seeing her on regular prison visits which is time consuming and upsetting.