Elizabeth Holmes has gone to prison. Will she ever pay victims too?

After respective failed attempts to hold her clip down bars, Theranos laminitis Elizabeth Holmes has reported to national prison.

The disgraced entrepreneur was sentenced to implicit 11 years successful situation and ordered to wage $452m (£365m) with her erstwhile concern spouse Sunny Balwani to dozens of high-profile investors they defrauded done a blood-testing start-up.

It's a sizeable measure for the erstwhile billionaire, who has claimed she does not adjacent person capable wealth to wage her lawyers.

In US national court, convicted offenders are sometimes ordered to wage restitution.

This is simply a reimbursement to victims for mislaid income, spot damage, aesculapian expenses oregon different fiscal costs related to the crime.

In Holmes' case, she has been ordered to wage backmost immoderate of the wealthiest families successful America.

After dropping retired of Stanford University, she recruited respective celebrated figures to rise wealth for Theranos, valued astatine $9bn astatine its peak.

Donors included erstwhile Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and the Walton family, known for founding American supermarket concatenation Walmart.

But aft it was revealed her blood-testing exertion did not work, galore mislaid a fortune.

Former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos reportedly gave Holmes $100m portion the Theranos laminitis has been ordered to wage backmost media mogul Rupert Murdoch $125m, according to tribunal documents.

She volition not beryllium capable to conscionable state bankruptcy and shed her debts that way, experts archer the BBC. But victims of her crimes should not get their hopes up astir recouping their cash.

They accidental restitution successful the US has go mostly symbolic, meaning Holmes' investors - and galore little affluent victims of fraud - are improbable to get astir of the wealth they are owed.

"There are precise fewer radical - the Bernie Madoffs of the satellite and everyone other - that tin wage the afloat magnitude of transgression restitution," says Ryan O'Neill, a erstwhile national prosecutor. "It's benignant of a fake number."

Holmes volition inactive beryllium expected to effort to wage these radical and others she defrauded, she adds. Prosecutors person astir apt already begun to prehend her assets, including wealth successful the slope and properties. They volition comparison their ain accounts of however overmuch wealth she has to what she claims she possesses, which could pb to disputes, Ms O'Neill said.

The Theranos founder's debts won't intermission erstwhile she sets ft down bars.

A justice has recommended Holmes study to Federal Prison Camp successful Bryan, Texas, wherever each inmates are obligated to enactment and marque betwixt 12 cents and $1.15 an hour.

Half of the tiny sum she earns - usually astir $25 each 4 months - volition spell to her victims, said Randy Zelin, a prof astatine Cornell Law School.

Once her clip successful situation is finished, she volition inactive not beryllium capable to acquisition immoderate ample assets, including a home, without involution from the national government. The authorities can't, however, prehend assets owned solely by her husband, edifice heir William Evans.

Holmes has acknowledged her dismal fiscal fate, telling the New York Times this period she volition "have to enactment for the remainder of my life" conscionable to wage millions of dollars successful ineligible fees.

But determination are a fig of reasons wherefore her victims and galore others are improbable to get the wealth back.

Criminal defendants don't person an inducement to "make it rich" again, said Ms O'Neill. "They cognize wherever the wealth is going to go."

Others whitethorn effort to fell assets. University of Michigan Law School prof John Pottow says immoderate effort to enactment wealth successful trusts to debar plus seizures. "The richer you get, the easier it is to conception ineligible devices that fell your wealth."

Experts pointed to the lawsuit of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who has been ordered to wage astir $1.5bn to families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting for spreading lies astir the massacre, which they said has led to harassment.

Mr Jones - who has declared some idiosyncratic and concern bankruptcy - has been accused of funnelling wealth to friends and household successful an effort to fell his assets.

Ms O'Neill said that though prosecutors volition beryllium tracking Mr Jones' moves, the Sandy Hook families - who are not arsenic affluent arsenic the victims of Holmes - are improbable to person overmuch wealth from the right-wing InfoWars host, whom she said volition beryllium paying astir of his funds to his lawyers.

In little illustration cases, the US authorities does not person the resources oregon the clip to analyse each defendant's assets, sometimes putting the onus connected victims to way their fiscal moves, Mr Zelin said.

But the headline-making quality of Holmes' fraud - arsenic good arsenic her caller fiscal choices, including surviving successful a $13,000 a period Silicon Valley property - means erstwhile Theranos investors are much apt to support ticker implicit her and propulsion prosecutors to get them their wealth back, experts said.

"They're not going to halt looking," Ms O'Neill said. "She's not going to beryllium capable to enactment a dollar successful her slope account… without the authorities seizing it."