A former board member of a California financial technology company that marketed itself as being environmentally driven was sentenced to prison for 14 years for defrauding lenders and investors of more than $248 million, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
Joseph Neal Sanberg, who co-founded Aspiration Partners Inc., and was a member of its board of directors, fraudulently obtained one loan for $55 million and a refinancing loan of $145 million from two different New York investment funds, between 2020 and 2021, by pledging 10.5 million shares of Aspiration stock, according to the March 2025 grand jury indictment, presented in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on March 25, 2025.
