NEW YORK (AP) — Charlie Javice, the charismatic founder of a startup company that claimed to be revolutionizing the way college students apply for financial aid, was convicted Friday of defrauding one of the world's largest banks, JPMorgan Chase, out of $175 million by exaggerating her customer base tenfold.
A jury returned the verdict after a five-week trial in federal court in Manhattan. Javice, 32, and her co-defendant, Olivier Amar, face the possibility of decades in prison in a case that has drawn comparisons to Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes.
Javice appeared sullen at the defense table as the verdict was read. A lawyer placed her hand on Javice's back. She brushed past reporters and didn't speak as she left court.
Javice was in her mid-20s when she founded Frank, a company with software that promised to simplify the arduous process of filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, a complex government form used by students to apply for aid for college or graduate school.
The company promoted itself as a way for financially needy students to obtain more aid faster, in return for a few hundred dollars in fees. Javice appeared regularly on cable news programs to boost Frank’s profile, once appearing on Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list before JPMorgan bought the startup in 2021.
JPMorgan executives testified that Javice told them she had more than four million clients and would have about 10 million by year’s end, but it turned out there were only about 300,000 customers and a list verifying her outsized claim was largely bogus.
Javice’s lawyer, Jose Baez, told the jury that JPMorgan knew what it was getting in the deal, accusing the bank of making up the fraud allegations because of buyer’s remorse after regulatory changes made the data it received in the deal useless to its hopes of gaining new young customers.
Defense lawyers asked the judge to set aside the verdict, arguing the evidence was not sufficient to sustain the conviction.
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said he would hear arguments on that next week and resolve a dispute over whether Javice and Amar must wear ankle monitors while awaiting sentencing on July 23. Javice's lawyers argued the device will interfere with her new career: teaching Pilates classes for three or four hours a day.
Javice, who lived in Florida, has been free on $2 million bail since her 2023 arrest.
Javice and Amar, Frank’s chief growth and acquisition officer and effectively its No. 2, were convicted on all four counts in their indictments, including conspiracy, bank fraud and wire fraud charges that are each punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
“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,” Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Matthew Podolsky said in a statement.
Javice was among a number of young tech executives who vaulted to fame with supposedly disruptive or transformative companies, only to see them collapse amid questions about whether they had engaged in puffery and fraud while dealing with investors.
Javice founded Frank soon after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, saying she was motivated by her own frustrations navigating the financial aid process.
Frank’s backers included venture capitalist Michael Eisenberg. The company said its offering, akin to online tax preparation software, could help students maximize financial aid while making the application process less painful.
JPMorgan became interested partly because of the potential it saw in Frank's supposedly huge list of satisfied clients. The bank believed those future college graduates could become lifelong bank customers. But after buying the company, JPMorgan said it found evidence Javice had lied about Frank's success.
Frank’s chief software engineer, Patrick Vovor, testified that Javice had asked him to generate synthetic data to support her claim that the company had more than 4 million users.
When Vovor asked if that was legal, prosecutors said, Javice and Amar assured him that it was — and told him they didn’t want to end up in orange prison jumpsuits. Vovor testified that he refused to help.
“I told them I would not do anything illegal,” Vovor told jurors.
Seeking to dent Vovor’s credibility, defense lawyers suggested he was resentful that Javice didn’t want to date him. He denied that.
Prosecutors said Javice ended up paying a college friend $18,000 to create millions of fake names with pedigree information. The results were sent to JPMorgan's third-party data provider, but testimony showed that firm never checked to ensure the people were real.
“JPMorgan is not telling the truth,” Baez argued. “They knew the numbers.”
FILE - Charlie Javice leaves Federal Court, Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.
Iran had no immediate reaction to the news, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.
Meanwhile Monday, Iran called for pro-government demonstrators to head to the streets in support of the theocracy, a show of force after days of protests directly challenging the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian state television aired chants from the crowd, who shouted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”
Trump and his national security team have been weighing a range of potential responses against Iran including cyberattacks and direct strikes by the U.S. or Israel, according to two people familiar with internal White House discussions who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
“The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday night. Asked about Iran’s threats of retaliation, he said: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”
Trump said that his administration was in talks to set up a meeting with Tehran, but cautioned that he may have to act first as reports of the death toll in Iran mount and the government continues to arrest protesters.
“I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States,” Trump said. “Iran wants to negotiate.”
He added: “The meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting. But a meeting is being set up. Iran called, they want to negotiate.”
Iran through country's parliamentary speaker warned Sunday that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America uses force to protect demonstrators.
More than 10,600 people also have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the death toll. It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information. It said 496 of the dead were protesters and 48 were with security forces.
With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.
Those abroad fear the information blackout is emboldening hard-liners within Iran’s security services to launch a bloody crackdown. Protesters flooded the streets in the country’s capital and its second-largest city on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Online videos purported to show more demonstrations Sunday night into Monday, with a Tehran official acknowledging them in state media.
In Tehran, a witness told the AP that the streets of the capital empty at the sunset call to prayers each night. By the Isha, or nighttime prayer, the streets are deserted.
Part of that stems from the fear of getting caught in the crackdown. Police sent the public a text message that warned: “Given the presence of terrorist groups and armed individuals in some gatherings last night and their plans to cause death, and the firm decision to not tolerate any appeasement and to deal decisively with the rioters, families are strongly advised to take care of their youth and teenagers.”
Another text, which claimed to come from the intelligence arm of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, also directly warned people not to take part in demonstrations.
“Dear parents, in view of the enemy’s plan to increase the level of naked violence and the decision to kill people, ... refrain from being on the streets and gathering in places involved in violence, and inform your children about the consequences of cooperating with terrorist mercenaries, which is an example of treason against the country,” the text warned.
The witness spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing crackdown.
The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.
Nikhinson reported from aboard Air Force One.
In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, January. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran shows protesters taking to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)
