Charlie Javice and Olivier Amar, whose student loan application fintech Frank was purchased by JPMorgan Chase for $175 million in 2021, were found guilty Friday of defrauding the bank by greatly inflating Frank’s customer numbers.
Nearly two years after Javice, Frank’s founder, was charged with fraud and 20 months since Frank’s chief growth officer Amar was added to an amended Justice Department complaint, a jury found that the duo lied about Frank having millions of customers and then fabricated data to back up the claims before selling their firm to JPMorgan.
JPMorgan saw Frank – which claimed to simplify the complicated student loan application process – as a way to connect with the 4 million customers Javice and Amar said it had. But in reality, Frank only had around 300,000 customers, and its owners had purchased millions of students’ data to pass off as customer data.
“[W]hile Javice and Amar may have thought that they could lie and cheat their way to a huge payday, their lies caught up with them, and they now stand convicted by a jury of their peers in federal court,” Acting U.S. Attorney Matthew Podolsky said in a prepared statement Friday.
Its purchase of Frank resulted in just 10 new customers for JPMorgan, Bloomberg reported.
Frank garnered Javice, who was in her twenties when she created the app, a spot on a Forbes 30 under 30 list in 2019. Fellow convicted fraudsters Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried are also list alumni.
Neither Javice nor Amar took the stand during their five-week trial.
On March 27, Javice’s attorney, Quinn Emanuel Partner Sara Clark, filed a letter requesting a mistrial on the grounds that the closing arguments of Javice’s co-defendant “painstakingly reiterated the government’s evidence against [Ms.] Javice― walking through every piece of evidence against Ms. Javice for a second time, but removing Mr. Amar from the narrative.”
“This resulted in the jury hearing prosecution’s case against Ms. Javice twice from two different prosecutors,” Clark wrote. “Between the government and Mr. Amar, the jury heard over 270 minutes of argument about the alleged fraud perpetrated by Ms. Javice, and Ms. Javice only received 125 minutes to defend herself.”
Amar’s “antagonistic defense has continuously prevented Ms. Javice from receiving her constitutional right to a fair trial,” Clark wrote.
Separately, Javice and Amar have motioned for acquittal and a new trial, according to a court document filed Monday.
Sentencing will take place in August, according to CNBC.
JPMorgan declined to comment on the verdict. Attorneys for Javice and Amar did not immediately return requests for comment.
