Charlie Javice, founder of student financial aid assistance company Frank, has been found guilty of defrauding JPMorgan Chase in its $175 million acquisition.
Javice and co-defendant Olivier Amar, who was Frank's chief growth officer, were each convicted on all four counts they faced: securities fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy. Sentencing is scheduled for July and August.
JPMorgan agreed to buy Frank in late 2021, but, lin December 2022 the bank sued Javice, accusing her of creating a list of millions of fake users to get the deal completed.
Acting Manhattan US Attorney Matthew Podolsky accused Javice of falsely assuring the US bank that Frank had 4.25 million customers, not the 300,000 it actually had.
Prosecutors stated that Javice committed “a brazen scheme to defraud” JPMorgan and “lied directly to JPMC and fabricated data to support those lies — all in order to make over $45 million from the sale of her company.".
After the trial Podlsky stated: "While Javice and Amar may have thought that they could lie and cheat their way to a huge payday, their lies caught up with them."
Jamie Dimon, the bank's longtime chief executive, has called the Frank acquisition a "huge mistake".