Joseph Neal Sanberg, co-founder and former board member of the financial technology and sustainability services company Aspiration Partners Inc., has been sentenced to 14 years in federal prison for a massive fraud scheme that resulted in over $248 million in losses to investors and lenders.
Sanberg, 46, of Orange, California, received a 168-month sentence from United States District Judge Stephen V. Wilson, following his guilty plea in October 2025 to two counts of wire fraud. A restitution hearing is scheduled for July 20.
The scheme, which ran from 2020 into 2025, involved Sanberg using his Aspiration stock to defraud lenders and investors. Between 2020 and 2021, Sanberg and fellow board member Ibrahim AlHusseini fraudulently obtained $145 million in loans by pledging Sanberg’s Aspiration shares and falsifying AlHusseini’s bank and brokerage statements to inflate his assets. Sanberg also concealed that he was the source of millions of dollars in purported revenue from sham customers for Aspiration’s tree planting services, leading to falsely inflated financial statements.
First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli said, "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." Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva added that Sanberg "orchestrated a multi-year scheme involving fake clients, sham payments, and deceptive loan collateral."
Patrick Grandy, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI Los Angeles Field Office, emphasized that the FBI will continue to investigate and prosecute those who abuse trust. Inspector in Charge Eric Shen of the USPIS Criminal Investigations Group stated, "The reward for lying, stealing, and falsifying records, is jail time."