Startup Founder Faces 30 Years After Defrauding JPMorgan

A Miami Beach woman convicted of “falsely and dramatically” inflating the success of her financial aid startup is facing some serious time behind bars.

Charlie Javice, 32, was found guilty Friday on charges of wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy, according to a report that same day.

A one-time honoree of the Forbes “30 under 30” list, she’s now looking at 30 years in prison.

Javice was indicted in Manhattan in April 2023, NBC reported at the time.

She was accused of convincing executives at JPMorgan Chase, by far the largest bank in the U.S., to purchase her company in 2021 on the basis of false claims.

Who is Charlie Javice? College financial aid startup founder convicted of defrauding JPMorgan Chase in a $175 million acquisitionhttps://t.co/RWhUL7BWm1 pic.twitter.com/ztePGgKjoK

— The SpotFlix (@The_SpotFlix) March 29, 2025

At the time of the purchase, Javice told CNBC that JPMorgan was a “fantastic place to be.”

Javise founded her company, Frank, in 2017, to serve as an “an online portal with tools that help students apply for and negotiate financial aid, enroll in online courses and find scholarships,” CNBC reported.

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, Javice said she founded Frank because she understood the frustrations of applying for financial aid, according to The Associated Press.

She claimed the company had 4.25 million users, NBC reported Friday. Prosecutors said it actually had only 300,000.

The bank “discovered the con after receiving only a few responses when it sent marketing materials to people on a sham list of names that Javice claimed were real customers,” NBC reported at the time of Javice’s indictment.

In an April 4, 2023, statement, Damian Williams, then-U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Javice was charged with “with falsely and dramatically inflating the number of customers of her company.”

“Javice engaged in a brazen scheme to defraud JPMorgan Chase,” he said.

“She lied directly to [the bank] and fabricated data to support those lies — all in order to make over $45 million from the sale of her company.”

Also convicted after a five-week trial was Olivier Amar, Frank’s chief growth and acquisition officer, according to the AP. He also faces 30 years in prison, according to the AP.

In a statement Friday, Matthew Podolsky, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, trumpeted the convictions.

“Today, a unanimous jury found Charlie Javice and Olivier Amar guilty of orchestrating a brazen fraud,” the statement said.

“And 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, and they now stand convicted by a jury of their peers in federal court.

“This Office will continue to pursue financial fraud aggressively and hold accountable those who put greed above honesty. I commend the career prosecutors of this Office and our law enforcement partners who worked tirelessly to bring this case to trial and secure today’s verdict. Thanks to their efforts, Javice and Amar will now pay a steep price for their lies.”

Sentencing for both is set for July 23, the AP reported.

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