Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes says she cannot afford to pay back victims

Elizabeth Holmes, the jailed founder of fraudulent blood-testing start-up Theranos, will be unable to pay back her victims when she is released from prison, her lawyers have said.

Holmes has been told to pay $250 (£197) a month for her share of $452m in restitution to 14 investors.

Her co-defendant, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani", is jointly liable for the payments and will pay $1,000 a month.

Holmes' attorneys said on Monday she has "limited financial resources".

The fraudster, 39, once heralded as America's youngest self-made female billionaire, was sentenced in November to more than 11 years in prison.

Restitution is a form of reimbursement available in federal cases to victims of crime for lost income, property damage, medical expenses or related financial costs.

Over the course of their fraud, Holmes and Balwani, 57, raised hundreds of millions of dollars, including from some of the wealthiest families and corporations in America.

Donors they have been ordered to repay include media mogul Rupert Murdoch, former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, the Safeway supermarket franchise and the Walgreens drugstore chain, according to the restitution order.

An earlier restitution order had only included a $25 quarterly payment while Holmes serves her sentence at a minimum-security facility in Bryan, Texas.

But government prosecutors last week said they had made a "clerical error" and proposed a new repayment schedule: $250 a month or at least 10% of her income, whichever is higher, once she is released.

Balwani - who is serving nearly 13 years over his role in the fraud - has been ordered to pay $1,000 a month once he is out.

In their court filing on Monday, Holmes' defence attorneys asked the court to deny the "government-crafted change".

"Ms Holmes and Mr Balwani have different financial resources and the Court has appropriately treated them differently," they added, noting that the court had earlier ordered Balwani to pay a $25,000 fine, but did not impose a fine on Holmes.

Holmes' net worth was valued at $4.5bn at Theranos' peak, reportedly making her at the time America's richest self-made woman, but Forbes earlier this month reduced its estimate of her net worth to zero.

Last month, she told the New York Times that she would "have to work for the rest of my life to try to pay" even her legal bills, let alone restitution.

According to prison records, she can hold a job at the facility in which she is housed, at an hourly wage rate no higher than $1.15.