Founder of Frank sentenced to over 5 years in prison

NEW YORK — A top executive at a startup company that eased the process for college students applying for financial aid was sentenced Wednesday to over five years in prison for cheating JPMorgan Chase in a $175 million acquisition of the company four years ago. The Manhattan federal court sentencing of Olivier Amar came a month after Charlie Javice, the founder of the startup known as Frank, was sentenced to seven years in prison. In sentencing Amar to five years and eight months in prison, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said Amar was "intimately involved in the fraud," including the creation of documents that falsely claimed the company had over 4 million young customers when it actually had fewer than 400,000. "Although you were not the instigator of the fraud or the person who made the most misrepresentations, you were a key part of it," he said. The pair was convicted by a jury in March of presenting fake records to the bank to convince it that Frank had millions of customers when the deal was being negotiated in the summer of 2021. At the trial, witnesses including bank employees testified that the number of customers was important because JPMorgan Chase hoped they would begin using the bank's financial services. Before the sentence was announced, Amar got choked up as he spoke about the harm the scandal had caused his family, saying it was pain "that will haunt me forever." He said he was "deeply saddened" that the company created to make it easier for students to apply for and obtain financial aid was no longer operating, especially since it helped students get to college and stay there. "I'm heartbroken by the suffering caused in the aftermath of Frank's downfall," Amar said. Besides the prison sentence, the judge also ordered Amar to pay $223 million in restitution. That number includes $54 million in legal fees that prosecutors said the bank was contractually required to pay on Amar's behalf because he and Javice worked for the company after the acquisition occurred.