This is completely wrong. Prisoners in the federal prison system must serve at least 90% of their sentence. Holmes will not be getting out -- or have unfettered internet access -- anytime before late 2032 at the soonest.

Define “unfettered” in this context. And I wasn’t implying that she’d be free.

Access to an email-like system for a per-minute fee. No other internet access.

See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrlinks

There are. Cell phones. In. Prisons. People who have never even seen a fraction of the wealth that Elizabeth Holmes defrauded people out of are able to get them. She can very well wind up on a Web3 social platform anonymously by 2027, trading crypto while funding SciHub.

"unfettered" != "potentially available if you're willing to break the law"

Pretty much single person there was willing to break the law, by definition.

So if going down the slightly-less-legal route, the below story was pretty neat. A hacked together prison computer, network attached.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/04/inmates-built-co...

I am sure there are further carrots and sticks inside the prison, and of course 11 years is not life so she isn’t immune to extra punishment for more crimes.

We are talking about the penitentiary here, chap.

I think it's possible someone gets her a phone. But she can't get away with streaming or even posting selfies. She'd have to stick with texting or using pseudonyms.

From my friend who was in: they get some daily time, and all their email is monitored. I could send him mail, but it was through the prison's website, not a regular email.

I imagine the web surfing they can do is fairly limited, but I didn't ask.

I also found out that you can buy anything in prison, including a cell phone, or drugs. Ratting out the people who actually sell the stuff is a great way to get yourself killed.

Holmes is not getting sent to any of the prisons featured on OITNB.

That video says probably Dublin, CA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFFxLwvGLhU

I'm a native English speaker and I'm having trouble parsing this. Could you clarify?

From what I’ve been told, compared to the State penitentiaries, the Feds is relatively easy. Using this is a reference, for a person like Elizabeth Holmes, I reckon that 11 years will not be as punishing as the person I am responding to imagines. If anything, at some point, she may be given access (either legally or illegally) to a smartphone device that will enable her to interact with the outside world (as is very common in prison, the phones aren’t cheap but I don’t think she’d have trouble getting a hold of one).

> From what I’ve been told, compared to the State penitentiaries, the Feds is relatively easy.

I mean, "relatively easy" doesn't mean it's a cake walk, especially since in the US many State systems are barbarically abusive. She will be in prison with an extremely regimented schedule, being told exactly what to do.

Correct, she's probably not going to need to join a gang for protection, but it is still nearly 10 years in lockup assuming she gets maximum good behavior credits.

Yes 11 years of your life is 11 years of your life, but in reality a woman like her, with her (deviated) skill set and profile, can easily handle it in a manner that will convince the average person that she got off lightly. People who are less educated and have less influence are capable of pulling off what I’ve been describing (getting a cellphone and going on Facebook/Meta) while in Federal prison.

It will be far less regimented than lets say, joining the army. Up at 5AM, stand for the count. Report to prison job for a couple of hours a day. 5pm, in your cell, standing for the count. Lights out at 10pm. You can exercise, go to the library, watch TV, play cards, whatever is available during most of the day.

No such thing as legal smartphone in federal prison. Also remember she's not going to be rich anymore.

> No such thing as legal smartphone

what does "legal" have to do with it?

They have "currency" in prison (cigarettes or something), but it's hard to translate your actual money into that currency. Your visitors can't just bring you a whole bunch of cigarettes on visiting day.

Things like cellphones are typically smuggled in via guards, for actual real money (either by inmates in possession of cash or paid from by someone outside of the prison environment). "Prison currency" tends to be valued at a fraction of its real value (so a $200 cellphone may end up costing $1000 once all of the middlemen are involved)

For some weird reason people love giving people they perceive as rich (even if they have no money anymore - even if they famously lost it) lots of money for nothing.

So illegal smartphone it is.

What cryptopunk sucker for love wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to help get her a phone? It simply isn’t that far fetched.

She's very rich by normal person standards - her husband is a millionaire. Her family is also quite wealthy/well connected (she was childhood friends with Tim Draper's daughter, that's how he became the first Theranos investor).

Several Maryland jails have tablets for inmates. Complete with video calling, messaging (monitored email and SMS), IHeartRadio, Pluto, Tubia, Coursera, Khan Academy and a bunch of games.

These are state and county institutions, not federal. So I can only imagine what's up at the Feds.

I reckon you might be spitballing to an unnecessary degree about the phone. Cell phone possession is a federal crime, and if she gets ahold of an illegal one that isn't a factor of federal prison being a cakewalk, they proliferate in high security state prisons, either way it's going up someone's ass. She won't be giving zoom lectures on it though. I doubt it's something she will get involved with much, planning on use of one to make your decade easier is a good way to spend a a lot of the time in solitary confinement with privileges removed and maybe get time added.

That said, you are correct she probably will be going to a fairly cruisy minimum or low security prison. Due to the nature of federal crimes, with a heavy bimodal distribution of severity (i.e., financial/bank/tax fraud... or murdering a judge or during a bank robbery) you can end up in a very gnarly place or a 'Club Fed'. She will get to play volleyball and do watercolouring, maybe even swimming or roller skating, and there may not be a fence, but she's still getting locked in her cell in evenings, will have to do whatever job she's assigned to, will be around at least a few hardened exploitative types and wont be going anywhere for most of a decade at least.

Yes absolutely I am spitballing (according to iOS dictionary it’s an informal suggestion of a scenario). The scenarios that I’m describing are just vehicles to describe essentially what you’re saying in the second paragraph. But as absurd as things are in the world, just don’t take the possibility for granted if she can pull it off.

She may not be hardened, but she’s proven to be exploitative. And with her education and experience, is possibly as great a threat to her peers as anyone else with a more violent rap sheet.

You've got a great point that she has proven to have a skill for social manipulation, I wonder to what degree that was specific to convincing old powerful men to invest and projecting the 'Steve Jobs' mysterious tech guru image in public — It would be interesting to see how her charms work in a women's prison. Like, she did it for years during public appearances and at work, but will she keep using the fake baritone, around the clock, for ten years?

It would make a great movie, like a better reprise of "Shot Caller" feat. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.

It is generally true that Federal prisons are less unpleasant than state prisons. Federal prisons have people convicted of things like interstate wire fraud. State prisons have most of the rapists and murderers, as these are rarely Federal crimes.

> Federal prisons have people convicted of things like interstate wire fraud.

https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen...

Half are in for drugs, one fifth due to Weapons, Explosives, Arson and one in ten because of sex offenses.

These ratios are still much better than state prisons. I have visited both kinds.

She will be out in 3-4 years; because of her race and gender. I think the OP didn't mean the "not".

No, I meant “from people” not “for people” but thanks cause I didn’t know I had a typo. I do not mean that she’ll be out. I never knew for sure until it was mentioned that there’s no parole in the Feds, but I’ve never heard of anyone paroling out of the Feds before anyhow.

But I can imagine a scenario where someone can put a few dollars “on her books” so she can pay a guard to smuggle an iPhone in to her.

No.