Christian Holmes IV and Noel Holmes: parents of American fraudster, Elizabeth Holmes are by her side during her legal crisis!
Elizabeth Anne Holmes is an American fraudster who has been sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2022. Her father, Christian Holmes IV and mother, Noel Anne Daoust have been by her side during all her legal troubles.
Christian Holmes IV and Noel Holmes: parents of Elizabeth Holmes
Christian Holmes IV was born on 1 February 1946. His full name is Christian Rasmus Holmes IV. He was the vice president at Enron, which is an energy company. This company had gone bankrupt due to an accounting fraud scandal. Later, he held various executive positions in government, NGO, business and academic institutes.
Christian’s great grandfather was Dr Christian Rasmus Holmes. He was of Danish descent and wed Bettie Fleischmann, who was the heiress of the Fleischmann Yeast Empire. Dr. Christian gained fame and wealth with this alliance. He himself was a surgeon and assisted in the establishment of the Cincinnati General Hospital and the University Of Cincinnati Medical School.
Captain Christian R. Holmes II was his son. He had served in the World War I and had received the Distinguished Service Cross. Later, he purchased the Coconut Islands and had developed it. He was fond of hosting extravagant parties. Christian used to blame his father and grandfather of throwing away the family fortune in alcohol and women. A family friend, Joseph Fuisz had once said:
“I think the parents very much yearned for the days of yore when the family was one of the richest in America. And I think Elizabeth channeled that, and at a young age.”
Christian had a net worth of USD 5-10 million. Elizabeth’s mother, Noel Anne Daoust was a Congressional committee staffer.
Elizabeth Anne Holmes and her early life
Elizabeth Anne Holmes is the daughter of Christian Holmes IV and Noel Anne Daoust. She is the elder sister of Christian Holmes V. Her birthdate is 3 February 1984 and birthplace Washington DC, the USA. Elizabeth graduated from St. Johns School situated in Houston. Later in 2002, she joined a Chemical Engineering course at Standford. She worked as a student researcher and laboratory assistant at the School of Engineering there.
After her freshman year, she joined the Genome Institute of Singapore. She had revealed that she was raped in Standford in 2003. The same year, she also filed her first patent for a wearable drug delivery patch. In March 2004, she dropped out of the college to start a consumer healthcare technology company with her tuition money.
Elizabeth founded the company, Real-Time Cures. Later, she changed the name to Theranos. Her business idea was to do blood tests via finger pricks and not blood collections by syringes. She had a fear of needles and that inspired her to start this company. And selling this idea, she managed to procure $700 million for the company from investors. Her personal connections with influential people such as Henry Kissinger, Jim Mattis and the like helped her to secure the funds. In 2015, Forbes named her the youngest and the wealthiest female billionaire entrepreneur who is self-made.
Her firm’s chief operating officer was Ramesh ‘Sunny’ Balwani. She, as a CEO, was bad. The working hours at her company were odd and she would track her employee movements and have security guards to observe visitors so that there is no leakage of trade secrets. She was romantically involved with Ramesh during all this time.
The collapse of Elizabeth’s empire and her sentence
In 2015, regulatory bodies and journalists started raising doubts about her claims. They felt that she has misled her investors and government on it. The US Securities and Exchange Commission charged her and her COO of fraud of having raised money through exaggerated claims. She paid USD 500K and settled it.
Elizabeth returned 18.9 million shares to the company, gave up her voting rights, and decided to not serve as officer or director of her firm for 10 years. However, in June 2018, a federal grand jury began a trial on her and Ramesh for fraud. In January 2022, she was sentenced to 11.25 years of imprisonment. This jail term would begin on 30 May 2023. She and Ramesh also have to pay a compensation of USD 452 million dollars to the victims of this fraud.
After the collapse of the company, Elizabeth broke up with Ramesh and started dating the hotel heir, Billy Evans. The couple have two children together.