Joseph Neal Sanberg, Wire Fraud, California 2023

LOS ANGELES - An Orange County man who co-founded and served as board member of the financial technology and sustainability services company formerly known as Aspiration Partners Inc., was charged today by criminal information and agreed to plead guilty to defrauding multiple investors and lenders.

Joseph Neal Sanberg, 46, of Orange, is charged with two counts of wire fraud, felonies that each carry a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. He has agreed to plead guilty to both counts.

Sanberg is expected to formally enter a guilty plea in the coming weeks.

“This so-called 'anti-poverty' activist has admitted to being nothing more than a self-serving fraudster, by seeking to enrich himself by defrauding lenders and investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Acting United States Attorney Bill Essayli.

“For years, Joseph Sanberg used his position at Aspiration to deceive investors and lenders for his own benefit, causing his victims over $248 million in losses,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. Galeotti of the Justice Department's Criminal Division.

The court documents reveal that Sanberg devised a scheme to use his role as a co-founder and board member of Aspiration as well as his shares of company stock to defraud various lenders and investors.

Between 2020 and 2021, Sanberg and Ibrahim AlHusseini, both members of Aspiration's board of directors, fraudulently obtained $145 million in loans from two lenders by pledging shares of Sanberg's Aspiration stock. Sanberg and AlHusseini also falsified AlHusseini's bank and brokerage statements to fraudulently inflate AlHusseini's assets by tens of millions of dollars to secure the loans.

Sanberg personally recruited companies and individuals to sign letters of intent with Aspiration in which they committed to pay tens of thousands of dollars per month for tree planting services. Sanberg used legal entities under his control to conceal that these payments came from Sanberg rather than from the customers. Sanberg instructed Aspiration employees not to contact the customers that he had recruited to conceal his scheme.

Aspiration booked revenue from these customers between March 2021 and November 2022, but Sanberg did not disclose that he was the source of the payments. As a result, Aspiration's financial statements were inaccurate and reflected much higher revenue than the company in fact received.

Sanberg continued to solicit investors to invest in Aspiration securities into 2025.

According to the documents, Sanberg also defrauded other lenders and investors with similar schemes.

Defendant: Joseph Neal Sanberg

Criminal Charges: Two counts of wire fraud

City and State: Orange, California

Crime Date: 2020-2025

Sentence: 20 years maximum prison sentence per count

Dollar Amount: $248 million in losses

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/orange-county-man-and-aspiration-partners-co-founder-agrees-plead-guilty-248-million