Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, recently praised Elizabeth Holmes’s thoughtful focus and “determination to make a difference.” The actress Ricki Noel Lander said Ms. Holmes was “a trustworthy friend and a genuinely lovely person.” And Channing Robertson, who was a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford University, commended Ms. Holmes for her “compassion for others.” Their comments were part of a cache of more than 100 letters that were filed over the last week to a federal judge in San Jose, Calif., in an effort to reduce the punishment for Ms. Holmes, the founder of the failed blood testing start-up Theranos.- Her Co-conspirator: In July, Ramesh Balwani, a former Theranos executive who helped Holmes cultivate her Steve Jobs-like image, was found guilty of 12 counts of fraud.Trevor Milton, the founder of the electric vehicle start-up Nikola, was convicted last month on charges of lying about his company’s technology.Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, is under numerous investigations after his company suddenly collapsed into bankruptcy last week.Tim Draper, a venture capital investor who backed Theranos, wrote that Ms. Holmes was being condemned by society for “taking that enormous risk, sacrificing everything and failing.” He conceded that he did not know all the facts of the case."