Orange County Man and Aspiration Partners Co-Founder Agrees to Plead Guilty to $248 Million Scheme to Defraud Investors and Lenders

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. “I commend our law enforcement partners for their efforts in this case, and I urge the investing public to use caution and beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

“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 Criminal Division is committed to pursuing, charging, and convicting fraudsters like Sanberg, who cause significant harm to their victims and undermine our financial institutions.”

“The defendant didn’t just bend the truth, he built a business on a lie to boost the company’s value and line his own pockets,” said Inspector in Charge Eric Shen of the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), Criminal Investigations Group. “The Postal Inspection Service will go after this kind of calculated deception. No matter who you are, you will be brought to justice.”

“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.”

According to court documents, beginning in 2020 and continuing into 2025, 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. Beginning in 2021, Sanberg also defrauded Aspiration’s investors by concealing that he was the source of certain revenue recognized by the company.

Court documents also state that 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 fraudulent materials describing Aspiration’s financial condition, including a fabricated letter from Aspiration’s audit committee that falsely stated that Aspiration had $250 million in available cash and equivalents at a time that Aspiration had less than $1 million in available cash. Sanberg used these fraudulent financial materials to obtain millions of dollars in additional loans and investments in Aspiration securities. Sanberg’s victims sustained more than $248 million in losses.

USPIS and the FBI are investigating this matter.

Assistant United States Attorneys Nisha Chandran of the Major Frauds Section and Jenna Williams of the Transnational Organized Crime Section and Justice Department Trial Attorneys Theodore Kneller and Adam L.D. Stempel of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section are prosecuting this case.

If you believe you are a victim in this case, please contact the Fraud Section’s Victim Witness Unit toll-free at (888) 549-3945 or by email at victimassistance.fraud@usdoj.gov. To learn more about victims’ rights, please visit www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-vns/victim-rights-derechos-de-las-v-ctimas.