When a Manhattan jury issued a guilty verdict for fraud last month, it marked the final undoing of a young woman whose life and career had once held so much promise. It was in the spring of 2009 that Howard Finkelstein, an attorney who advises startups, first met Charlie Javice at the Microfinance Club of New York, a startup event hosted by New York University. The budding entrepreneur flitted about the meeting like a seasoned professional, easily shaking hands and making small talk with executives. She was there to network on behalf of her new startup PoverUp, a platform to help students launch microfinance clubs. “She could start conversations with anyone and continue endlessly,” Finkelstein remembers.
At the time, she was 17 years old.
