(NewsNation) — Elizabeth Holmes may currently be incarcerated at a Texas prison camp, but supersized images of the disgraced Theranos founder have appeared in California, Florida and New York City’s Times Square.
There’s one man behind the attention-catching billboards: Ryan “Egypt” El-Hosseiny, a Miami-based entrepreneur who claims he has recreated Holmes’ blood-testing technology.
Holmes was convicted in 2022 for defrauding investors with false claims of what her California-based startup, Theranos, could accomplish. Her technology, which she said could detect diseases and conditions from a few drops of blood, never worked.
El-Hosseiny is trying his best to brand the Holmes muse as “innocent,” one billboard at a time.
A self-described “accomplished filmmaker,” El-Hosseiny is working on “Just Blood,” a potential documentary that would reframe Holmes and her doomed startup, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
He’s also branded himself and Holmes as “the inventors” on some of the signs, and claims to have relaunched Theranos this year.
He told media in Florida that the billboards are part of his mission to “free Elizabeth Holmes ” and “take on Big Pharma.”
“I am not a sock puppet in the healthcare space,” El-Hosseiny wrote in a statement to the Miami New Times. “I am an innovator, an inventor, and put quality products before profits. No one did their homework on Theranos. I did, and I’m here today.”
In Februrary, Holmes attempted to have her fraud conviction overturned, but a federal appeals court countered she hadn’t proved there were legal missteps during her trial.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.