(The Epoch Times)—A Southern California philanthropist who co-founded a “green” financial technology company was sentenced to 14 years in prison on June 1 for defrauding multiple lenders and investors of at least $248 million.
Joseph “Joe” Sanberg, 46, of Orange, California, pleaded guilty in October 2025 to two counts of wire fraud connected to his company, formerly known as Aspiration Partners Inc.
“Joseph Sanberg preyed on investors and lenders who believed in his vision of environmentally conscious fintech,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the U.S. Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
“Instead of delivering on Aspiration’s promises, he orchestrated a multi-year scheme involving fake clients, sham payments, and deceptive loan collateral that caused at least $248 million in losses to numerous victims,” Duva added.
Sanberg’s attorney, Marc Mukasey, pleaded with the judge during sentencing to spare his client prison time by considering his good work for the community.
“A prison sentence is too severe for how much good Joe Sanberg has done in the world and still can do,” his attorney argued, according to Courthouse News.
Mukasey didn’t return a request for comment from The Epoch Times about the sentencing.
Federal prosecutors say Sanberg devised a scheme that started in 2020 to use his share of Aspiration stock to defraud lenders and investors.
Sanberg and his partner Ibrahim AlHusseini, both members of Aspiration’s board of directors, were accused of getting $145 million in loans from two lenders between 2020 and 2021 by pledging shares of Sanberg’s stock.
Aspiration Partners was founded by the partners in 2013 as an eco-friendly digital bank and online investment platform based in Los Angeles. The bank raised nearly $600 million from celebrity investors, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Drake, Robert Downey Jr., and billionaire Steve Ballmer before winning a $2.3 billion valuation in a 2021 deal to go public, Forbes reported.
Aspiration’s valuations crashed and business softened before it refocused on the sale of carbon credits, according to Forbes.
To secure loans for the bank, prosecutors claimed Sanberg and AlHusseini falsified AlHusseini’s bank and brokerage statements to fraudulently inflate AlHusseini’s assets by tens of millions of dollars, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“This serial fraudster used his Cinderella-like background, impressive educational credentials, and virtue signaling skills to swindle investors and lenders out of hundreds of millions of dollars,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli of the Central District of California.
Starting in 2021, Sanberg concealed from investors that he was the source of millions of dollars of revenue paid to the bank through, or on behalf of, sham customers.
Court documents claim that Sanberg recruited companies and people to enter agreements with Aspiration to commit to pay tens of thousands of dollars per month for tree planting services. The money for the payments was supplied by Sanberg, prosecutors said.
Aspiration allegedly used the sham customer payments to inflate the bank’s revenue, which was used to solicit investors to invest in securities into 2025, according to court documents.
Sanberg also pleaded guilty to defrauding other lenders and investors using fraudulent materials to describe Aspiration’s financial condition, including a statement that Aspiration had $250 million in available cash when the bank only had less than $1 million.
He used the materials to get millions of dollars in additional loans and investments and his victims sustained at least $248 million in losses, according to federal prosecutors.
AlHusseini, 52, of Venice, California, pleaded guilty on March 3, 2025, to wire fraud for falsifying documents and assisting Sanberg. He also admitted to personally receiving about $12.3 million in payments from the scheme. His sentencing is scheduled for July 20 in Los Angeles.
Following Sanberg’s guilty plea, Aspiration Partners was acquired by Mission Financial Partners last year and transitioned to GreenFi, according to the website.
The new company’s CEO, Tim Newell, said customers’ investments were safe.
“You may have seen headlines about legal issues involving individuals associated with Aspiration partners—the original founders and investors of the Aspiration consumer finance platform,” Newell posted on the company’s site. “Rest assured, these have no connection to GreenFi or your accounts. GreenFi is a fully independent company, and your money remains safe and secure.”
The bank deposits are federally insured up to $1 million, according to GreenFi.
Sanberg described himself as an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and activist in an interview with The L.A. Trust.
Besides co-founding Aspiration Partners, Sanberg was also an early investor in the popular meal delivery service Blue Apron in 2012. He graduated from Harvard University and was a Wall Street analyst.
As a political activist for California’s Democratic Party causes, Sanberg helped establish the California Earned Income Tax Credit, a refundable cash-back tax credit for low- to moderate-income workers, in 2015.
In 2022, he also funded an unsuccessful voter initiative to hike California’s minimum wage to $18 an hour. Voters narrowly rejected the measure by 50.7 percent.
