Frank founder Javice seeks Trump pardon after JPM fraud conviction

Charlie Javice, the founder of the college-finance startup Frank, is seeking a presidential pardon from Donald Trump after her fraud conviction, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Javice was convicted in December on charges she defrauded JPMorgan Chase in the bank's $175 million acquisition of Frank in 2021. Prosecutors said she fabricated user data – claiming 4.25 million customers when the real count was under 300,000 – to inflate the startup's value.

The pardon request, filed through a lawyer with ties to the Trump administration, argues the case was an overreach by federal prosecutors. Javice's legal team contends the data inflation was a common startup growth tactic, not a criminal scheme, and that JPMorgan's due diligence should have caught the discrepancy before closing the deal.

JPMorgan, which wrote off the entire Frank acquisition in 2023, has not commented on the pardon request. The bank's internal review found no evidence its deal team was aware of the data gap before the acquisition closed, according to people familiar with the matter.

The case has become a reference point in M&A diligence discussions. JPMorgan's post-deal discovery of the user-count mismatch – and the subsequent write-down – is cited by deal lawyers as a cautionary example of how quickly a startup's core asset can evaporate under scrutiny.

Javice's sentencing is scheduled for June. A pardon would require a formal application to the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney, which typically reviews requests before they reach the president's desk. No timeline has been set for a decision.