Elizabeth Holmes’ lawyers say she can’t afford a $250 a month refund

Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes has said she cannot afford $250 a month in restitution if she is released from prison in 11 years.

The mother-of-two was found guilty of four fraud-related counts last year and was sentenced to just over 11 years in prison, a sentence she began last month.

Holmes and Ramesh ‘Sunny’ Balwani, her business partner and former love interest, were ordered by the court to pay more than $452 million in restitution to a number of victims of their fraud.

A lawyer for Holmes argued before a judge that she has “limited financial resources” and that she should not have to pay $250 a month in restitution after her release.

Holmes’s husband Billy Evans, as well as her parents, visited her about a week after her imprisonment

Federal prosecutors say there was a clerical error in a lawsuit that resulted in no official post-jail payment schedule for Holmes.

The judge ordered Balwani to pay $25 a quarter while in prison, and at least $1,000, or at least 10 percent of his earnings, once he is released.

Holmes’s legal team has not objected to the $25 quarterly payment while she serves her time, but says prosecutors should not assume that the judge’s failure to assign a post-jail payment schedule is an mistake.

Her lawyers on Monday tried to reject prosecutors’ proposed correction, arguing that the court had “substantial evidence showing that Ms. Holmes had limited financial resources and appropriately treated Ms. Holmes and Mr. Balwani differently at sentencing.”

For example, Balwani had to pay a $25,000 fine, while Holmes did not. He has now begun serving a 13-year prison sentence.

In a long New York Times Profile last month, Holmes said she couldn’t pay her legal bills, much less get a refund.

“I have to work for the rest of my life to afford it,” she said.

Holmes and Balwani owe $125 million to Theranos investor Rupert Murdoch, and to a lesser extent to 13 other victims of their fraud, including Walmart and Safeway.

Holmes has said she cannot afford to pay the court-demanded nine-figure sum, which is common in cases of massive financial fraud. However, the government is obliged to set up a payment scheme for convicts.

Balwani was sentenced last year to 13 years in prison plus three years’ probation for conspiracy and fraud

Elizabeth Holmes arrives at the minimum security federal women’s camp where she will spend the next 11 years after ripping off the tech world with her start-up, Theranos

The casual outfit she reported to prison in was very different from the poised, red-lipped, black-turtleneck tech CEO she once was during her blood-testing hoax heyday

Holmes smiled as she walked into prison to serve her sentence at the end of May

Restitution funds are often not paid out in full, although the court sometimes looks for ways to collect a portion of the money, even if it comes from assets.

Late last month, Elizabeth Holmes reported to a minimum security prison outside of Houston. About a week later, her parents and husband, Billy Evans, visited her for a full day.

While in prison, her family is allowed to visit once a week.

Her long-awaited arrival in Texas jail comes more than a year after her conviction and about six months after she was convicted in November of a $945 million investor defraud.

At the exact same time that Elizabeth reported to jail in Bryan, Texas, 1,500 miles away, on May 30, Billy’s mother took the couple’s two children—Williams and Invicta—to Seaworld in San Diego, California.

Holmes was pregnant with Invicta when she was sentenced.

The convicted fraudster spent her last days of freedom enjoying the sun with her family — without any hope or possibility of another last-minute reprieve that would allow her to avoid jail for much of May.

She will be serving her out-of-state prison sentence — miles from the $9 million San Diego mansion she shares with partner Billy Evans and their two children.