Securities Regulation Daily Wrap Up, ENFORCEMENT—S.D.N.Y.: Startup founder Charlie Javice sentenced to 7 years over JPMorgan fraud, (Sep 30, 2025)
The criminal sentence is a jaw-dropping fall from grace for a startup founder who made the Forbes list for “Finance 30 Under 30” in 2019.
A 32-year-old startup founder who defrauded J.P. Morgan Chase for $175 million was sentenced to 7 years in prison and ordered to pay more than $309 million in combined forfeiture and restitution, jointly with a co-conspirator. Charlie Javice was previously convicted of securities fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy in March 2025 after a six-week jury trial (U.S. v. Javice, No. 1:23-cr-00251-AKH (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 29, 2025)).
“Today’s sentence sends a clear message that brazen frauds will be met with serious penalties,” said Attorney for the United States Amanda Houle in a press release.
In an earlier civil suit, Javice claimed the bank requested fake data.
Fake data. Javice was the CEO of Frank, a startup that offered an online platform designed to simplify student financial aid applications. Javice told J.P. Morgan Chase while pursuing a 2021 sale that Frank had 4.25 million users. In fact, Frank only had 300,000 users.
When JPMC attempted to verify the number of users, Javice and Frank’s “Chief of Growth” Oliver Amar asked Frank’s director of engineering to fabricate a data set. The director declined, citing legality concerns. Javice and Amar then hired an outside data scientist to fabricate the data, which they provided to a third-party vendor, who provided it to JPMC.
In an attempt to conceal the fraud, Javice and Amar bought real student data, but it did not include all the data that the company represented it would.
JPMC bought Frank for $175 million. Javice received $21 million for her equity stake and was to receive another $20 million as a retention bonus.
JPMC then conducted a doomed marketing campaign based on the ersatz Frank data, landing only 10 of 440,000 “users” contacted. Following an investigation, JPMC fired Javice and filed a civil suit against the defendants. Javice countersued, contesting her termination and claiming that JPMC had asked Frank to provide synthetic data.
Javice was charged with fraud in April 2023 and convicted in March 2025.
Sentence. Javice was sentenced to 85 months in prison and ordered to pay $287,501,078 in restitution and $22,360,977 in forfeiture.
The DOJ had requested 12 years, citing over $300 million in losses to JPMC and “hollow” acceptance of responsibility. Javice requested a sentence “substantially below” 12 years, calling her conduct a “series of poor decisions by a young founder under extreme pressure to perform.”
Prior to sentencing, Javice requested bail pending appeal.
The case is No. 1:23-cr-00251-AKH.
Judge: Hellerstein, J.
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