A Florida woman has launched a “Brazen scam” to sell a student aid startup to JPMorgan Chase for $175 million after dramatically exaggerating its customer base, prosecutors told the ju judge on Wednesday during a closing discussion of the criminal trial.
US lawyer Nicholas Chiucholo urged the ju judge in Manhattan Federal Court to convict Charlie Havis and another former top executive of her company, Frank and another top executive who ran under the name Frank on fraud charges.
Defence counsel Jose Baez sought the acquittal of his 32-year-old client, calling the evidence “incredibly flawed.” He urged the ju judges to “see the evidence, lack of evidence, and disputes of evidence and exoneration of Havis.”
As he spoke, Havitce smiled from time to time and turned his chair around at the ju-degree.
Prosecutors were in Miami Beach, Florida. Forbes 2019 “30 Under 30” list He would have made $45 million from the scam.
The defense presentation came after Chiuchoro quoted emails, text messages and calls to convince her that Javice repeatedly lied to Jpmorgan in the summer of 2021, securing a multi-million-dollar acquisition.
Once founded, Javice seemed like a pioneer in a company that caters to university students. Banks encourage banks to open checks or credit card accounts in the hopes of becoming a lifelong customer.
Founded in 2017 as TAPD Inc., Frank was created to simplify the completion of a free application for federal student aid, a federal form used by students to apply for university or graduate school financial aid.
Chiucholo said Havis, who was arrested and released on bail in April 2023, tried to sell the company, claiming it had over 4.25 million clients in 2021 when it had around 400,000 clients.
When JPMorgan Chase tried to verify the client list, Javice first approached the company's engineering manager and asked if he could create “synthetic data” to show that it had over 4 million customers, prosecutors said.
However, the employee refused, saying that he would “never do anything illegal,” Chiucholo said.
“They would call him a liar,” he predicted the characterization of defense against his testimony. “Because if you believe him, the defendant is guilty.”
Javice ultimately hired an external data scientist for $105,000 to create a synthetic data set showing more than 4.2 million students, prosecutors said.
Javice did not testify at the five-week trial. The ju apprentices were scheduled to begin deliberations on Thursday.
