Elizabeth Holmes Faces 20-Years in Prison, Her Husband Stands Beside Her – Who Is Billy Evans?
Why the hotel heir’s marriage to the disgraced biotech mogul has turned heads.
For a few years in the 2000s and 2010s, Elizabeth Holmes seemed like one of the most impressive people in America. Born to accomplished parents — her father was a high-level energy company executive, while her mother held several roles in government — Holmes attended Stanford University, where she studied chemical engineering.
Then, in 2003, not yet 20 years old, Holmes founded a company called Real-Time Cures that was dedicated to maximizing the range and efficacy of medical tests that could be conducted using very small amount of blood samples from patients, per Business Insider. Also that year, she would found the company that saw her go from celebrated heroine of Silicon Valley, and, arguably, the American medical scene at large, to a disgraced, debunked, and convicted felon: Theranos.
RELATED: 25 Wise Quotes About Failure (and Coming Back Stronger Than Ever)
The company promised a whole new approach to medical testing, and over the course of the next 10 years, Holmes quietly but dramatically built Theranos up, adding an amazing roster of people to the board of directors, raising billions in investments — with Holmes wealth soon valued in the billions as well — and securing blood testing deals with the national pharmacy chain Walgreens.
But after a several whistleblowers who had left Theranos worked with a team secretly investigating the company, it was found that the technology Holmes had promised would change blood tests and screening forever did not work. And it quickly came out that Holmes had known as much all along. As smart and ambitious as she may have been, Elizabeth Holmes was a fraud, and by 2015, it all started to crash down.
In late 2015, a Wall Street Journal article exposing Holmes and Theranos came out, and by early 2016 the company was shedding investors and losing deals, and Holmes was largely banned from then medical industry. In 2017, the lawsuits began, initially on the state level. Then, in 2018, Homes was hit with charges of fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission — she was now facing worse than disgrace and loss of equity, but with potentially years in prison.
Which makes it all the more surprising that Holmes had met the man who would become her husband in 2017, and that 2018 was the year their relationship seemed to blossom.
Who Is Billy Evans, Elizabeth Holmes’ Husband?
Billy Evans has been Elizabeth Holmes’ partner since 2017. Almost 10 years her junior, Evans born in 1993, Holmes in 1984, he is the son of a family that built a fortune off of the hotel business, principally thanks to a string of hotels spread across Southern California.
While Evans had held a job as a manager of special projects at a company called Luminar Technologies, a publicly traded company that states it is dedicated to “ushering in a new era of vehicle safety and autonomy,” the young man seems mostly to have lived the life of a wealthy playboy before he met Holmes. Per SCMP, he usually dated models (Instagram models, to be precise) and usually in quick succession, not in the form of true relationships.
RELATED: Who is Adele’s Boyfriend? Here Are the Interesting Things to Know About Rich Paul
But that all changed, somewhat inexplicably, when Evans and Holmes met at a party in 2017. Recall that by that year, already Theranos was falling apart, taking Holmes down with it. She was then in her early 30s, he in his mid 20s, and by all logic the pair should have had no interest in one anther based on their own past precedent and her circumstances at the time. But they bonded quickly even as things got worse for Holmes in a legal and personal sense.
In the early summer of 2018, Holmes was formally indicted by a federal grand jury. Yet later that summer, pictures revealed that she and Billy Evans were at the Burning Man festival having fun with one another, seemingly unaware of the troubles ahead. And by 2019, Elizabeth Holmes and Billy Evans were reported to be engaged.
Today, it’s widely accepted that Holmes and Evans are officially and legally married, though they reportedly wed in a private ceremony and some people still doubt that the couple is actually married in a legal sense.
Does Billy Evans’ Family Approve of His Relationship With Elizabeth Holmes?
Initially, Billy Evans’ family and friends were shocked he was dating and then becoming ever more involved with the seemingly toxic Elizabeth Holmes. His family worried he had been all but brainwashed by the disgraced biomed exec, and his friends staged a sort of intervention to check on him. But the relationship persisted and grew and eventually those in Evans’ orbit had to accept it.
RELATED: Who Is MacKenzie Bezos? Jeff Bezos’ Soon-To-Be Ex-Wife May Become the Richest Woman in the World
Today, the couple live in a mansion near San Francisco and have had one child together, Holmes having given birth to a son in the mid-summer of 2021. That birth helped to briefly defer the close of trial and sentencing for Holmes, but she is set to face her sentencing soon.
What’s Next for Elizabeth Holmes?
At the time of this writing, per USA Today, Holmes is set to be sentenced for her crimes on November 18, 2022. She faces as many as 20 years in prison if the maximum penalties are given for her fraudulent activities.
RELATED: The Real Tinder Swindler: Who Is Simon Leviev and Where Is He Now?
There is one chance left for Holmes to face reduced charges, less severe penalties, and to possibly even be let off: in August of 2022, a witness for the prosecution in the case, former Theranos lab director Adam Rosendorff, met with Billy Evans and expressed regret for the testimony he had given. If Holmes and her legal team can get a new trial based on Rosendorff’s sentiments, then there is a chance the case would go more in her favor without his damning testimony as part of the legal proceedings.
Still, it’s likely Holmes will face at least some time in prison, and for her long, complicated and willful deceit, it’s hard to feel much sympathy for her. Now, for the husband and child from whom she may part, those are easier to pity.
