A federal 10 year sentence is a very severe punishment. There's virtually no parole federally; once you're in, you're in.
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.
What cryptopunk sucker for love wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to help get her a phone? It simply isn’t that far fetched.
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.
These are state and county institutions, not federal. So I can only imagine what's up at the Feds.
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.
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.
It would make a great movie, like a better reprise of "Shot Caller" feat. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.
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.
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 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.
Conveniently:
Vice President (at the time) Biden, knew Elizabeth and even visited Theranos.
Elizabeth Holmes held fundraisers for Hillary Clinton with Chelsea Clinton.
Just recently, a prominent Democrat Senator was asking for leniency on her sentencing.
I would be supremely surprised if she is not pardoned before the end of Biden's term(s).
The only way I see him pardoning her is if he loses the 2024 election and has some sort of fall out with the Democratic party that causes him to go scorched earth, and I don't both of those happening.
"President pardons Elizabeth Holmes" and "President pardons Sholam Weiss" are very different headlines.
Only one of those will draw public outrage, despite the fact that Elizabeth Holmes was sentences to 11 years and Weiss was sentenced to 845 years. I'm fairly certain that no one would care about the second headline because Trump pardoned Weiss a few years ago and no one said shit.