Disgraced tech entrepreneur Charlie Javice, who was convicted of committing a $175 million fraud against J.P. Morgan Chase, is hoping to land a pardon from President Donald Trump, according to a new report.
The Wall Street Journal detailed that Javice is soliciting support from people close to the president and his administration, hoping that those connections can potentially lead to freedom. The outlet had previously reported that President Trump was considering a plan to give out 250 pardons to coincide with the nation's 250th birthday.
Javice was sentenced to 85 months in prison last year on charges related to a fraud scheme involving J. P. Morgan Chase. Prosecutors said that she inflated the success of her tech startup while selling the company.
"Javice perpetrated a $175 million fraud—repeatedly lying about the success of her startup company and even hiring a data scientist to create fake data to back up her lies," U.S. Attorney Amanda Houle said at the time. She added that the "sentence sends a clear message that brazen frauds will be met with serious penalties."
Javice founded Frank in 2017 as an online platform meant to target college-bound young people. by offering to simplify the process of filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. When Javice decided to pursue a sale, the company had about 300,000 users. However, she made it look like it had 4.25 million users.
When Chase was buying Frank in 2021, Javice set out to construct a fraudulent dataset to mislead them. She first approached Frank's director of engineering, but he declined to create the fake data.
Prosecutors detailed that "Javice then approached an outside data scientist and hired him to create the synthetic data set. After the data set was created, Javice provided that synthetic data set to an agreed-upon third-party vendor in an effort to confirm to JPMC that the data set had over 4.25 million rows."
Chase went ahead with the purchase, with plans to market Chase products, like bank accounts and credit cards, to that user base. It was only after the purchase that Chase learned the truth. Javice was arrested on fraud charges in 2023.
As of yet, Javice's name hasn't appeared on the formal list of pardon and clemency requests that have been made to the Justice Department.
