Ex-Theranos executive Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani has reported to prison, according to his attorney.
Balwani, the former chief operating officer of the failed blood testing startup was found guilty in July of 10 counts of federal wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He got a 13-year sentence in December.
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is appealing her own sentence for a similar fraud conviction ahead of reporting to prison on April 27. Balwani, Holmes’ ex-boyfriend, lost his appeal earlier this month. His request to stay out of prison while exhausting the appeals process was previously denied.
“Mr. Balwani turned himself in … smoothly without incident,” his lawyer Jeffrey Coopersmith told CNN. “We will continue to fight for him because we do not believe that he received a fair trial.”
He and Holmes were accused of misleading investors, bilking them out of millions of dollars with phony test results and made-up data. At one point, Theranos was worth $9 billion. They claimed their technology could test for more than 200 diseases with only a single drop of blood. However, the tech had only been used to test for a handful of diseases and had questionable accuracy.
Holmes and Balwani were both indicted in June 2018.
Balwani had been assigned to to Terminal Island Prison in San Pedro, Calif. The prison has had a number of notable inmates in the past, including Al Capone and Charles Manson.
A federal judge has recommended Holmes be placed at a minimum-security facility in Bryan, Texas.