Fraud Case Against Charlie Javis

Charlie Javis, the founder of the student loan application startup Frank, was found guilty of defrauding J.P. Morgan by significantly inflating her company’s customer count. The jury concluded that Javis fabricated most of the customer data to mislead the bank into acquiring Frank for $175 million, believing it had 4 million customers when it only had around 300,000. Evidence presented showed that a large percentage of marketing emails sent to purported Frank users bounced back, revealing the scale of the deception. Javis, who faces the possibility of decades in prison, did not testify during her trial and had claimed her actions were misunderstood.