Charlie Javice, who established the financial aid platform Frank and was once featured on Forbes 30 under 30, has received a seven-year prison sentence for committing fraud.
JPMorgan Chase purchased the fintech company in 2021 for $175 million. Subsequently, the bank accused Javice of misrepresenting the number of users; she asserted Frank had 4 million users, but the true figure was only 300,000. It appears JPMorgan Chase failed to thoroughly vet the company before finalizing the acquisition.
Testifying at the trial, former Frank engineer Patrick Vovor stated that Javice requested he fabricate user information before the company was sold. After he refused, Javice turned to Adam Kapelner, a mathematics professor and data scientist, to generate artificial data. Kapelner’s testimony was crucial for the prosecution.
Javice, together with her co-defendant Olivier Amar, Frank’s chief growth officer, has also been ordered to pay $278.5 million in restitution.
