Charlie Javice, founder of a startup purchased by JPMorgan Chase in 2021, was convicted in federal court Friday of defrauding the bank by vastly overstating the company’s customer list.
The jury decision comes after weeks of testimony in New York over who was to blame for the flameout of a once-promising startup. Frank, founded by Javice in 2016, aimed to help users apply for college financial aid.
JPMorgan has accused Javice, 32, of duping the bank into paying $175 million for a company that had more than 4 million customers, when in reality it had fewer than 300,000.
The largest U.S. bank by assets sued Javice in late 2022 after attempting to send marketing emails to some of the thousands of “customers” it thought Frank had. In its suit, JPMorgan released emails in which Javice hired a data scientist to generate a fake roster of customers.
Then, in April 2023, the Justice Department charged Javice with four crimes including wire and bank fraud, counts which carry multi-decade maximum sentences. Javice was arrested at Newark Airport on April 3 of that year and had been out on bail.
Javice had pleaded not guilty and said she was innocent throughout the trial; her lawyers blamed JPMorgan for rushing to close the Frank acquisition because it feared that other suitors would emerge.
A spokesman for New York-based JPMorgan declined to comment on Friday, while the office of a lawyer representing Javice didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.