An Orange County resident and co-founder of the financial technology company formerly known as Aspiration Partners Inc. has agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud charges after being accused of orchestrating a $248 million scheme targeting investors and lenders.
Joseph Neal Sanberg, 46, from Orange, was charged with two counts of wire fraud. Each count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. Sanberg is expected to formally enter his 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, between 2020 and 2025 Sanberg used his role at Aspiration Partners Inc., along with his stock holdings, as part of a scheme that misled both investors and lenders regarding the company’s finances.
From 2020 through 2021, Sanberg worked with board member Ibrahim AlHusseini to secure $145 million in loans from two lenders by pledging shares owned by Sanberg as collateral. The pair also altered AlHusseini’s bank and brokerage statements in order to inflate assets by tens of millions of dollars when applying for these loans.
Beginning in 2021, Sanberg misled Aspiration’s investors by hiding that he was responsible for certain revenue streams reported by the company. He recruited companies and individuals—using entities under his control—to sign letters committing them as customers for tree planting services but concealed that payments came from him rather than genuine clients. Employees were instructed not to contact these supposed customers.
Aspiration recorded revenue from these arrangements between March 2021 and November 2022 without disclosing that it originated from Sanberg himself, resulting in inaccurate financial statements showing inflated revenues.
Sanberg continued soliciting investments into Aspiration securities through 2025 while providing fraudulent information about the company’s finances—including fabricating a letter from Aspiration’s audit committee claiming $250 million in available cash when actual liquidity was below $1 million—to obtain further loans and investments.
Investigators report that losses stemming from these actions exceed $248 million.
The United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are conducting the investigation.
Assistant United States Attorneys Nisha Chandran (Major Frauds Section) and Jenna Williams (Transnational Organized Crime Section), along with Justice Department Trial Attorneys Theodore Kneller and Adam L.D. Stempel (Criminal Division’s Fraud Section), are prosecuting the case.
Potential victims can contact the Fraud Section’s Victim Witness Unit toll-free at (888) 549-3945 or via email at victimassistance.fraud@usdoj.gov for more information on their rights or visit www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-vns/victim-rights-derechos-de-las-v-ctimas.
