Charlie Javice Has Been Seeking a Pardon From Trump After Defrauding JPMorgan
The entrepreneur sold her startup Frank to the bank for $175 million and was sentenced in September to over seven years in prison for fraud
- Charlie Javice, convicted of defrauding JPMorgan Chase, is seeking a presidential pardon from the Trump administration.
- Javice was arrested in 2023 for doctoring customer lists while selling her company, Frank, to JPMorgan for $175 million.
- Javice, sentenced to over seven years in prison, is appealing her verdict and faces an SEC civil case and a legal battle with JPMorgan.
The entrepreneur Charlie Javice has been seeking a presidential pardon for her criminal conviction for defrauding JPMorgan Chase JPM 2.31%increase; up pointing triangle when she sold her company to the bank for $175 million, people familiar with the matter said.
Javice and people close to her have looked to solicit support from people close to the Trump administration for a possible pardon, the people familiar with the matter said.
A spokesman for Javice declined to comment.
White House officials are considering a plan for President Trump to issue 250 pardons as a way to mark the celebration of the nation’s 250th birthday this summer, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.
Trump’s willingness to issue pardons has led to a wave of requests for clemency, in particular from white-collar criminals.
Javice’s name hasn’t appeared on a formal list of requests made to the Justice Department. A White House official said Trump is the ultimate decider on any clemency-related actions.
Javice has been a thorn in the side of JPMorgan and Chief Executive Jamie Dimon, who have endured years of embarrassment and spent millions in legal bills because of the botched purchase of her startup, Frank, for $175 million.
Javice sold Frank to JPMorgan in 2021, promising the bank it could have access to what she said were her four million young customers to pitch bank accounts and credit cards to. She was arrested in 2023 on charges of fraud after the bank found she had doctored a list of customers and only had a fraction of the number of customers that she had claimed to have.
Prosecutors said that she intentionally created bogus evidence that showed her company had millions of customers who didn’t actually exist. A jury found her guilty on four counts of fraud and Javice was sentenced in September to more than seven years in prison.
She is appealing the verdict and has long alleged that her prosecution has been unfair. After she was arrested, Javice’s attorneys had argued that the Justice Department had improperly colluded with JPMorgan to bring a criminal case against her.
“The Government has worked hand-in-glove with [JPMorgan], receiving curated sets of documents, access to witnesses, and suggestions as to targets for third-party subpoenas,” her then-attorney Alex Spiro wrote in an October 2023 memorandum. “The Government is apparently content to ignore the highly relevant and likely exculpatory materials [JPMorgan] is strategically choosing to hold back.”
During the trial last year, her attorneys also said she was unfairly prosecuted alongside her co-executive Olivier Amar. The effective double trial led each executive to produce more damaging claims about the other, thus prejudicing the jury against the defendants, the lawyers said.
Even after her conviction, some of her original friends and investors have continued to support her, including Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan. Rowan was an investor in Javice’s company and was one of only a few witnesses to testify in her defense during her trial. He wrote a letter to Judge Alvin Hellerstein pleading for leniency, arguing that she still had much to contribute to society.
Earlier this year, JPMorgan sued a trust controlled by Rowan to try to recoup some of the money he earned from the Frank deal. According to the lawsuit, Rowan and other investors in Frank refused to give back the funds it earned after her criminal conviction. The trust and JPMorgan resolved the lawsuit without disclosing terms.
Rowan is also close with members of the Trump administration and was recently named as a member of the Board of Peace, an international effort to pledge billions of dollars to rebuild the Gaza Strip, along with Steve Witkoff, Marco Rubio and Jared Kushner.