NEW YORK — A Florida woman deployed a “brazen fraud” to sell her student aid startup to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $175 million after dramatically exaggerating its customer base, a prosecutor told jurors Wednesday in a criminal trial’s closing argument.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Chiuchiolo urged a Manhattan federal court jury to convict Charlie Javice and another former top executive at her company, which operated under the name Frank, of conspiracy and fraud charges.
Defense attorney Jose Baez urged an acquittal of his 32-year-old client, calling the proof “incredibly flawed.” He urged the jury to “look at evidence, lack of evidence and the conflict of the evidence” to exonerate Javice.
As he spoke, Javice smiled at times and turned her chair to face the jury.
Prosecutors said the Miami Beach, Florida, resident who appeared on the Forbes 2019 “30 Under 30” list would have earned $45 million from the fraud.
The defense presentation came after Chiuchiolo cited emails, text messages and phone calls to convince jurors that Javice repeatedly lied to JPMorgan in the summer of 2021 to secure a buyout that would earn her millions of dollars.
The company Javice founded once seemed like a pioneer among businesses that cater to college-age students, who banks encourage to open checking or credit card accounts in the hopes they’ll become lifelong customers.
Frank, established in 2017 as TAPD Inc., was created to simplify filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, a federal government form used by students to apply for financial aid for college or graduate school.
Chiuchiolo said Javice, who was arrested in April 2023 and is free on bail, sought to sell the company in 2021, when it had about 400,000 customers, claiming it had over 4.25 million clients.
When JPMorgan Chase sought to verify the client list, Javice first approached her company’s head of engineering, asking if he could produce “synthetic data” to show the company had over 4 million customers, the prosecutor said.
But the employee refused, saying he “would not do anything illegal,” Chiuchiolo said.
“They’re going to call him a liar,” he predicted of the defense’s characterization of his testimony. “Because if you believe him, the defendants are guilty.”
Javice eventually hired an outside data scientist for $105,000 to create a synthetic data set showing over 4.2 million students, prosecutors said.
Javice did not testify during the five-week trial. The jury was expected to begin deliberations on Thursday.
