- Charlie Javice began calling defense witnesses Thursday in the JPMorgan fraud trial in New York.
- Her first was Apollo’s Marc Rowan, an early investor and board member for her website, Frank.
- Rowan praised Javice and Frank, then testified he had little involvement in the JPMorgan merger.
Frank founder Charlie Javice kicked off her defense case with some firepower at her JPMorgan Chase fraud trial Thursday — calling private equity billionaire Marc Rowan to the witness stand.
The Apollo Global Management cofounder and CEO told a federal jury in Manhattan that he was an early investor and board member of Frank, explaining that he had been impressed with the student financial aid platform’s prospects and with Javice’s leadership.
“Favorable,” he said when asked for his first impression of the young entrepreneur, who was in her mid-20s when they met in 2017. “She seemed to have an interesting take on how to tackle the market.”
The two had been introduced through one of his colleagues, who, like Rowan and Javice, had attended the Wharton School, he said.
The Apollo CEO wore a black suit and white dress shirt — no tie — and sipped from a plastic water bottle as he spoke. He and Javice exchanged two-handed waves and broad smiles as he left the courtroom for Thursday’s lunch break.
He told jurors he remained at arm’s length from JPMorgan’s $175 million acquisition of Frank, the 2021 merger at the center of the fraud trial.
Prosecutors say Javice and codefendant Olivier Amar used phony data to trick the bank into thinking the website had compiled the names, addresses, and other personal information for 4.25 million high school and college students — a valuable new market for the bank’s checking accounts and credit cards.
Despite his distance from the merger, Rowan’s testimony had a twofold use for the defense.
Jurors heard an influential CEO praise Javice as a young entrepreneur with the savvy to win a one-on-one meeting with Jamie Dimon. As CEO of JPMorgan, Dimon ran the country’s largest bank.
“She reported a very enthusiastic meeting with the CEO,” Rowan said, remembering the 2021 conversation with a smile.
Rowan’s testimony — under questioning by defense lawyer Christopher Tayback of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan — also had a tactical usefulness.
Javice’s lawyers have argued that when she told JPMorgan that Frank had 4.25 million “users,” she was actually only counting website visitors, a number supported by Google analytics metrics.
“A user could casually come and go and absorb Frank content without significant interaction,” Rowan told the jury, saying there was little difference between words such as “user,” “customer,” and “visitor.”
Then came Rowan’s cross-examination.
“You said on direct that you understood ‘user,’ ‘customer,’ ‘visitor,’ and ‘website user’ to be synonymous?” Assistant US Attorney Nicholas Chiuchiolo asked.
“Yes,” Rowan answered. “I’m pretty used to those terms being used interchangeably.”
“Do you know how a ‘Frank user’ was described to Capital One?” the prosecutor then asked, referring to another potential Frank purchaser.
“No,” Rowan answered.
“Do you know how a ‘Frank user’ was described to JPMorgan Chase?” the prosecutor asked, to which Rowan again answered, “No.”
As the cross-examination continued, Rowan said he did not know how many user names, phone numbers, and email addresses Frank actually possessed when the merger went through.
He also said he was unaware that Frank told JPMorgan that the website had what Chiuchiolo termed “4.264 unique customer accounts.”
“You said that as a board member of a small company, you were a sounding board for Ms. Javice,” the prosecutor said. “Did you ever advise Ms. Javice to send JPMorgan a fake customer list made up of false data?” he asked, repeating an allegation from the indictment.
“No,” Rowan answered.
“Did you ever advise Ms. Javice to purchase a customer list on the open market and tell JPM that they were Frank customers?” the prosecutor then asked, as a final question.
“No, I did not,” Rowan answered.
The trial is off on Friday. Defense testimony for Javice, and then for Amar, is expected to continue next week, with closing arguments tentatively scheduled for as early as Tuesday.
March 20, 2025: This story has been updated to add details of additional testimony from Thursday afternoon.
