There Was An Accusessation Against Second Frank College Aid Executive of Cheating

On Wednesday, US authorities unveiled an indictment charging a second former CEO of college financial assistance startup Frank with tricking JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N) into paying $175 million for the firm.Frank’s chief growth officer, Olivier Amar, 49, was charged with wire fraud, bank fraud, securities fraud, and conspiracy.Charlie Javice, 31, the founder of Frank, was arrested in April and later pled not guilty to the same four offenses.Amar’s lawyers, whose whereabouts are unknown, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the United States Attorney’s Office in Manhattan did not reply quickly to a request for comment.According to federal authorities, Javice regularly lied about Frank to the largest U.S. bank, including saying that she had 4.25 million student customers when she only possessed data for roughly 300,000.JPMorgan said it discovered Javice’s deception after mailing marketing materials to people she said were real and discovering that just 28% were delivered and 1.1% were opened, much fewer than in previous similar campaigns.The bank closed Frank in January, and CEO Jamie Dimon called the transaction a “huge mistake.”Separately, the US Securities and Exchange Commission included Amar as a defendant in its civil case against Javice on Wednesday.According to the SEC, Amar obtained “sham lists” of college students’ data from third-party sources, which Frank then misrepresented to JPMorgan as clients.JPMorgan sued Javice and Amar in federal court in Delaware in December.In February, Javice filed counterclaims against JPMorgan, accusing the bank of harmed her reputation and withholding almost $28 million in compensation. She and Amar are attempting to have the bank’s claims dismissed.Luc Cohen in New York contributed reporting, while Bill Berkrot and Leslie Adler edited the piece.