SAN JOSE, Calif. (NEWSnet/AP) — As Elizabeth Holmes prepares to report to prison next week, the criminal case that laid bare the blood-testing scam at the heart of her Theranos startup is entering its final phase.

The 11-year sentence is the result for a woman who become one of Silicon Valley’s most celebrated entrepreneurs, only to be exposed as a fraud.

But questions still linger about her true intentions — so many that even the federal judge who presided over her trial seemed mystified. And Holmes' defenders continue to ask whether the punishment fits the crime.

At 39, she seems most likely to be remembered as a high-flying entrepreneur burning with reckless ambition whose odyssey culminated in convictions for fraud and conspiracy.

Holmes will begin to pay the price on May 30 when she is scheduled begin her sentence. While the prison location has not been confirmed, an earlier judge’s recommendation mentioned Bryan, Texas.

Her detractors contend she deserves to be in prison for peddling a technology that she repeatedly boasted would quickly scan for hundreds of diseases and other health problems with a few drops of blood taken with a finger prick.

The technology never worked as promised. The lies were uncovered in a series of articles in The Wall Street Journal beginning in October 2015.

While issuing the sentence in November, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila seemed as puzzled as anyone about what happened.

”This is a fraud case where an exciting venture went forward with great expectations and hope, only to be dashed by untruth, misrepresentations, hubris and plain lies," Davila said.

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