OAN Staff Abril Elfi
9:44 AM – Saturday, August 23, 2025
Joseph Neal Sanberg, a prominent Orange County businessman and co-founder of Aspiration Partners Inc., has agreed to plead guilty to a massive fraud scheme that defrauded investors and lenders of $248 million.
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Central District of California, Sanberg faces two wire fraud charges, each carrying a maximum 20-year sentence in federal prison.
“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.
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Sanberg leveraged his position at Aspiration, starting in 2020, to defraud lenders and investors by using his company stock and inflated assets to secure loans. His guilty plea is expected to be formally entered in the coming weeks.
The scheme spanned several years, with Sanberg and board member Ibrahim AlHusseini obtaining $145 million in loans using falsified assets and bank statements. Sanberg also deceived Aspiration’s investors by concealing the true source of certain company revenues, which were his own. Court documents reveal that Sanberg created fake commitments for tree planting services and misled Aspiration employees to keep his deceit hidden.
“Sanberg didn’t just bend the truth, he built a business on a lie to boost the company’s value and line his own pockets,” United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Inspector in Charge Eric Shen stated.
The investigation, led by the USPIS and the FBI, exposed Sanberg’s comprehensive deceit, including the creation of fraudulent materials to misrepresent Aspiration’s financial standing and secure millions of dollars in additional funds under pretenses. Victims of Sanberg’s scheme have reportedly suffered losses totaling over $248 million.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Nisha Chandran and Jenna Williams, along with Justice Department Trial Attorneys Theodore Kneller and Adam L.D. Stempel.
“This is a case about greed and abuse of trust,” said Assistant Director Jose A. Perez of the FBI Criminal Investigative Division. “Today’s guilty plea is a direct result of the commitment by the FBI and our law enforcement partners to hold those accountable who set out to defraud victims and undermine our financial system. The FBI will continue to work with our partners to ensure this kind of malicious behavior is investigated and stopped.”
Victims of the fraud scheme can contact the Fraud Section’s Victim Witness Unit for support. More information on the case and victims’ rights can be found on the official DOJ website.
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