Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos, will begin serving her 11-year prison sentence at the end of this month after losing her appeal to remain free.

She was convicted of defrauding investors in her blood testing start-up. Holmes’ arguments that she could raise “substantial questions” for a new trial and that she needed to care for her two young children, including a newborn, were rejected by a federal judge who found that she failed to demonstrate that her appeal would result in a reversal of her case.

She is scheduled to report to prison on April 27.

US District Judge Edward Davila ruled on Monday that Elizabeth Holmes had failed to demonstrate that her appeal would lead to a new trial.

“Contrary to her suggestion that accuracy and reliability were central issues to her convictions, Ms Holmes’s misrepresentations to Theranos investors involved more than just whether Theranos technology worked as promised,” he said.

During Holmes’ trial, prosecutors had claimed that she was a flight risk because she had purchased a one-way plane ticket to Mexico.

However, Holmes’ attorneys argued that she had only purchased the ticket to attend a wedding with her partner, Billy Evans, and had hoped to be acquitted.

In his ruling on Monday, Judge Davila acknowledged that the ticket purchase was “ill-advised,” but concluded that it did not indicate an attempt to flee.

“Booking international travel plans for a criminal defendant in anticipation of a complete defence victory is a bold move, and the failure to promptly cancel those plans after a guilty verdict is a perilously careless oversight,” he said.

After dropping out of Stanford University, Holmes launched Theranos and was once hailed as the “next Steve Jobs” and the world’s youngest self-made billionaire.

However, the company fell apart in 2018 after it was revealed that its technology did not work as advertised. The blood-testing device, which was supposed to be able to run multiple tests from a few drops of blood, was exposed as fraudulent.

The company’s downfall was chronicled in various media including a TV series, an HBO documentary, and a podcast. Holmes was found guilty of four counts of fraud in January last year and expressed remorse for misleading people.

Her former business partner, Sunny Balwani, was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison for fraud in 2020. Holmes is expected to make another attempt to remain free during the appeals process, which may take at least a year, by appealing to a San Francisco-based court to overturn her conviction.

The BBC has reached out to Holmes’ lawyers for comment.