Startup founder Charlie Javice arrested, charged with faking data on 4 million customers

Charlie Javice, the 31-year-old founder of now-shuttered student loan software company Frank, has been arrested by law enforcement authorities after being charged with fraud by federal prosecutors. 

Javice, whom Forbes named a rising star in its “30 under 30” issue in 2019, was arrested in New Jersey on Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Tuesday. She faces three charges of fraud and one charge of conspiracy.

Javice was released on $2 million bond Tuesday, and agreed to a curfew and possible electronic monitoring if court officers decide it is necessary. She also agreed not to contact key figures in the case — including investors — except for her mother and her mother’s boyfriend.

The Securities and Exchange Commission also filed a civil complaint alleging that Javice lied about having data on 4 million clients, including making up fake client information, in order to entice JPMorgan Chase to buy her company in 2021 for $175 milliion.

Javice started Frank, a student-aid assistance tool, shortly after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania. As part of the deal to sell the startup to the banking giant, Javice got $21 million for selling her equity stake in Frank, as well as a job as a managing partner at JPMorgan Chase, which came with a $20 million retention bonus, according to the Justice Department. All told, she stood to gain $45 million from the scheme, law enforcement officials said. 

“This arrest should warn entrepreneurs who lie to advance their businesses that their lies will catch up to them,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement.

According to the SEC’s complaint, JPMorgan was eager to buy Frank because the company claimed to have contact information — including names, emails and phone numbers — for over 4 million students, a pool of potential new customers the bank wanted to reach. 

But those numbers were a lie, authorities allege. Frank only had data for about 300,000 customers, and Javice made up the 4.2 million others with the help of a local data science professor, the SEC’s complaint alleges. 

Javice, along with an unnamed Frank executive, “engaged in a months-long scheme to fabricate the data that both of them knew JPMC was paying $175 million to acquire,” the complaint said.

Javice, via a lawyer, denied the allegations.

“Old-school fraud”

The bank discovered the alleged fraud when a test marketing campaign to Frank’s supposed customers flopped. Because JPMorgan Chase had acquired Frank’s internal records as part of the acquisition, it soon found emails in which Javice asked the professor to create “synthetic data” for 4.2 million users and discussed purchasing user databases from a data broker. 

“Rather than help students, we allege that Ms. Javice engaged in an old school fraud,” Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC’s enforcement division, said in a statement. “Even non-public, early-stage companies must be truthful in their representations, and when they fall short we will hold them accountable as in this case.”

Separately, JPMorgan Chase sued Javice last year, alleging fraud, and she countersued. Javice no longer works at the bank.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.