Olivier Amar

Olivier Amar
Born:	c. 1974 Montreal, Canada (Israeli citizen)
Charges:	Bank fraud; wire fraud; securities fraud; conspiracy to commit fraud
Sentence:	68 months (5 years, 8 months) federal prison; $223 million restitution (includes legal fees)
Facility:
Status:	Awaiting incarceration; expected to be deported following sentence

Olivier Amar (born c. 1974) is an Israeli-Canadian technology executive and convicted felon who served as Chief Growth and Acquisition Officer at Frank, a college financial aid startup. He was convicted in 2025 alongside Frank founder Charlie Javice of defrauding JPMorgan Chase in its $175 million acquisition of the company by vastly inflating the number of customers Frank claimed to have. Amar was sentenced to 68 months (5 years and 8 months) in federal prison, with expected deportation following his sentence.

Background

Early Life and Education

Olivier Amar was born in Montreal, Canada. He is an Israeli citizen who immigrated to Israel from Canada.

Amar studied at Bishop's University in Quebec, Canada, from 1993 to 1996, where he earned a degree in marketing.

Career Before Frank

Amar built an extensive career in technology and digital marketing, primarily based in Israel. His career included:

• Account Executive, Insight Communications — Early career position
• VP Online Marketing and Digital, GetTaxi (2011-2012) — Marketing leadership role at the Israeli ride-hailing startup that raised over $30 million
• CEO and Co-Founder, MyPermissions (2012-2016) — Co-founded the privacy management startup with Avi Charkham

MyPermissions

In January 2012, Amar co-founded MyPermissions with Avi Charkham, an app permissions and privacy management platform. The service enabled users to view and manage what data apps were accessing from their social media accounts including Facebook, Twitter, and Google services.

The company received recognition including:

• CIO.com "Security Startup to Watch" (2014)
• Geektime "Cyber Security Startup of the Year" (2013)
• Third place at LeWeb Startup Competition
• Time Magazine "Top 50 Apps" (2013)
• Time Magazine "Top 50 Websites" (2013)

MyPermissions attracted over 500,000 users across 99% of the world's countries. Amar served as CEO from 2012 to 2016.

• Strategic Advisor and Chief Marketing Officer, IM Creator (2016) — Advisor role at the website building platform

Frank

Role at Frank

Amar joined Frank as Chief Growth and Acquisition Officer, effectively serving as the company's second-in-command behind founder and CEO Charlie Javice. Frank, founded in 2017, was a for-profit platform designed to simplify the process of completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), charging students a few hundred dollars in fees for assistance with the free government form.

JPMorgan Acquisition

In 2021, Javice began pursuing the sale of Frank to larger financial institutions. Both JPMorgan Chase and another major bank expressed interest and began acquisition processes. Javice and Amar repeatedly represented to these banks that Frank had 4.25 million customers or "users," explicitly defining users as individuals who had signed up for an account with Frank and for whom Frank had at least four categories of data: first name, last name, email address, and phone number.

In reality, Frank had fewer than 300,000 actual customers—approximately 7% of the claimed number.

The Fraud

When JPMorgan sought to verify Frank's user numbers—information critical to the bank's decision to proceed with the acquisition—Javice and Amar fabricated data. According to prosecutors:

1. Attempt to Create Synthetic Data Internally

Javice first approached Frank's director of engineering, Patrick Vovor, asking him to create an artificially generated ("synthetic") data set to inflate customer numbers. Vovor raised concerns about the legality of the request, to which Javice responded (in part in French): "We don't want to end up in orange jumpsuits." Vovor refused to participate.

2. Hiring Outside Data Scientist

After Vovor refused, Javice hired Adam Kapelner, a mathematics professor at Queens College with Wharton connections, paying him $18,000 to create a synthetic data set of 4.25 million fake student profiles. This fabricated data was then provided to a third-party vendor who confirmed to JPMorgan that the data set contained over 4.25 million rows.

3. Purchasing Real Data

Simultaneously, Javice and Amar sought to purchase actual student data on the open market to cover up their misrepresentations. They purchased a data set of 4.5 million students for $105,000, but it did not contain all the data fields Javice had claimed Frank maintained. Javice then purchased additional data sets to augment the purchased list.

After the JPMorgan acquisition closed in September 2021 for $175 million, Javice and Amar provided the purchased data to JPMorgan as "Frank's user data" for a marketing campaign. When JPMorgan sent marketing emails to approximately 400,000 of the supposed customers, 70% bounced as undeliverable and only 1.1% were opened—exposing the fraud.

Amar's Specific Involvement

According to prosecutors and court testimony, Amar was involved in:

• Assisting with the fabrication of documents falsely claiming Frank had over 4 million customers
• Participating in efforts to purchase data lists to cover up the misrepresentations
• Being present when Javice discussed the synthetic data scheme with Vovor

During trial, Amar's defense portrayed him as "out of the loop" during acquisition talks and claimed he had no direct involvement in misleading JPMorgan, with his lawyer telling the court that Amar was a "bystander" to the alleged deception.

Federal Case

Criminal Charges

In April 2023, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment against Charlie Javice. In July 2023, prosecutors added Amar to the case in an amended indictment. Both were charged with:

• Securities fraud
• Wire fraud
• Bank fraud
• Conspiracy to commit fraud

The SEC also filed a civil complaint against both defendants.

Trial

The trial began on February 18, 2025, before U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein (age 91) in Manhattan federal court and lasted six weeks.

Key prosecution witnesses included:

• Patrick Vovor, Frank's director of engineering, who testified about the "orange jumpsuit" comment and his refusal to create synthetic data
• Adam Kapelner, the data scientist who testified about creating the fake data set for $18,000
• JPMorgan employees who described the due diligence process and discovery of the fraud

Antagonistic Defense Strategy

Amar's defense pursued what Javice's lawyers characterized as an "antagonistic defense"—arguing that Javice had deceived Amar just as she had deceived the banks. Javice's legal team filed a motion for mistrial arguing that Amar's closing arguments "painstakingly reiterated the government's evidence against Ms. Javice" and that "the jury heard prosecution's case against Ms. Javice twice from two different prosecutors."

Javice's motion to sever the trial from Amar was denied.

Verdict

On March 28, 2025, after approximately six hours of deliberation, the jury found both Javice and Amar guilty on all four counts: bank fraud, securities fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit fraud.

Prosecutor Nicholas Chiuchiolo told jurors that Javice and Amar had "time and again" pitched the business falsely and sold Frank for "$175 million worth of lies," becoming multimillionaires while "JPMorgan got spreadsheet with fake names."

Sentencing

Amar was sentenced on November 5, 2025, by U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein—approximately one month after Javice received her 85-month (7 years) sentence on September 29, 2025.

Prosecution Arguments

Prosecutors sought at least six years in prison for Amar, arguing that while he was not the fraud's mastermind, he was an integral participant in the scheme.

Defense Arguments

Amar's lawyers sought no prison time, arguing that:

• He did not engineer the fraud
• He was not the instigator of the scheme
• He lost his livelihood and reputation as a result of the case
• As a Jew and Israeli citizen, he would face serious threats in prison

Sentence

Judge Hellerstein sentenced Amar to:

• 68 months (5 years and 8 months) in federal prison
• $223 million in restitution

The restitution figure includes $54 million in legal fees that JPMorgan was contractually required to pay on Amar's behalf because he and Javice worked for the company after the acquisition.

In imposing sentence, Judge Hellerstein stated: "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 characterized Amar as "intimately involved in the fraud," including the creation of documents that falsely claimed the company had over 4 million customers.

Courtroom Statement

Before sentencing, Amar became emotional as he addressed the court about the harm the scandal had caused his family, describing pain "that will haunt me forever." He expressed being "deeply saddened" that Frank, a company created to help students navigate financial aid, was no longer operating:

"I'm heartbroken by the suffering caused in the aftermath of Frank's downfall."

Deportation

Court papers indicate that Amar, a Montreal native and Israeli citizen, expects to be deported following completion of his sentence.

Legal Fees Controversy

One of the notable aspects of the Frank case was the extraordinary legal fees JPMorgan was required to pay for both Javice and Amar's defense. Under the terms of the Frank acquisition agreement, JPMorgan was contractually obligated to cover legal defense costs for employees who worked at the company post-acquisition.

By November 2025, JPMorgan had paid a "breathtaking" $115 million in legal fees for Javice and Amar combined—far exceeding the approximately $30 million spent on Elizabeth Holmes's defense in the Theranos case.

Following the sentencing, JPMorgan asked a Delaware judge to terminate its obligation to continue paying the defendants' legal bills.

Comparisons to Other Cases

The Frank case drew frequent comparisons to the Theranos case involving Elizabeth Holmes, though defense attorneys argued important distinctions:

• Frank's product actually functioned and helped students complete FAFSA applications
• Unlike Theranos's blood-testing technology, Frank's platform did not endanger anyone's health or safety
• The fraud involved customer data inflation rather than false claims about medical technology

Retired FBI agent Gregory Coleman, who investigated the "Wolf of Wall Street" Jordan Belfort, told Fortune that Javice appeared to be more aware she was making overstated claims that snowballed into outright lies, whereas Holmes exhibited "psychopathic tendencies" in her testimony.

Personal Life

Amar resided in Port Washington, New York, at the time of his involvement with Frank. He has a son and a daughter.

During his interview with Hunter & Bard, Amar mentioned having lived in Israel for seven years before the interview (conducted around 2014), where he built his marketing career including his work at GetTaxi and MyPermissions.

External Links

• Department of Justice - Frank Fraud Case
• Charlie Javice - Wikipedia
• Olivier Amar - Crunchbase

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Who is Olivier Amar?

Olivier Amar is an Israeli-Canadian technology executive who was convicted of fraud in connection with the $175 million sale of Frank to JPMorgan Chase, where he served as Chief Growth Officer.

Q: What was Olivier Amar convicted of?

Amar was convicted of bank fraud, wire fraud, securities fraud, and conspiracy for helping to inflate Frank's customer numbers from under 300,000 to 4.25 million during the JPMorgan acquisition.

Q: What was Olivier Amar's sentence?

Amar was sentenced to 68 months (5 years and 8 months) in federal prison and ordered to pay $223 million in restitution.

Q: What was the Frank JPMorgan fraud?

Frank claimed to have 4.25 million customers when it actually had fewer than 300,000. Executives fabricated synthetic data and purchased data sets to deceive JPMorgan into paying $175 million for the company.

Q: Will Olivier Amar be deported?

Yes, court papers indicate that Amar, an Israeli citizen, expects to be deported following completion of his prison sentence.