crumbled

Aspiration Partners made a splash when it entered the green investing space in 2013.

The Marina del Rey firm billed itself as a socially conscious online banking company, offering investments and focusing its finances on the climate crisis. It also generated and sold carbon credits meant to help offset greenhouse gas emissions.

Soon, it collected celebrity investors such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Orlando Bloom, Robert Downey Jr., and Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft chief executive, philanthropist and owner of the Los Angeles Clippers.

But 12 years later, things have turned sour.

Earlier this year, the co-founder and another top company official agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud charges and scheming to bilk investors using falsified documents. Aspiration went bankrupt.

And now, the company is at the center of a NBA investigation into whether a $28-million deal the firm cut with Clippers star Kawhi Leonard was designed to help the team circumvent the league’s salary cap.

The Clippers have strongly denied that, and said neither the team nor Ballmer played any role in Leonard’s deal and that there was no intention to violate any NBA rules. Leonard has also denied any wrongdoing.

In a statement, the Clippers said Ballmer and his family are “focused on sustainability” and built the Clippers’ home arena at the leading edge of environmental design. Aspiration was part of that effort, the statement said, and Ballmer was “duped on the investment and on some parts of this agreement, as were many other investors and employees.”

A review of hundreds of pages of court records offers a window into how the once high-flying green company fell amid illegal dealings and multiple federal criminal investigations.

A company’s rise and fall

Founded by Joseph Sanberg and Andrei Cherny, Aspiration Partners reportedly raised $110 million from venture capital funds in just its first few years of existence.

It came at a moment of rising concern about climate change, and Aspiration seemed to capitalize. Sizable deals rolled in, including a $315-million pact with Oaktree Capital Management and Ballmer.

The firm even partnered with rapper Drake in 2021, using its reforestation program to offset the artist’s estimated climate impact. The company at the time claimed its business partners and customers had funded the planting of 15 million trees over the course of a year.

In September 2021, the Clippers announced a deal with the company as the first “Founding Partner” for its state-of-the-art arena in Inglewood. The idea was fans would be able to offset their carbon impact when buying a ticket to watch the team. Aspiration even bid unsuccessfully for the naming rights to the venue, now known as Intuit Dome.

The partnership, the news release announcing it declared, “set a new standard for social responsibility in sports.”

But behind the cadre of celebrity sponsors and investors, court documents reveal trouble was brewing inside Aspiration.

In 2020, the company explored a potential $55-million loan from an investor fund in exchange for 10.3 million shares of stock, according to federal court filings. But the investor fund wanted a “put option” — a sort of safety net guaranteeing it would be able to sell its stock if Aspiration defaulted on the loan, according to federal complaints.

Sanberg, according to federal prosecutors, turned to Ibrahim Ameen AlHusseini, a venture capitalist and then-board member of Aspiration Partners.

According to a federal criminal complaint, Sanberg was aware AlHusseini didn’t have the funds to cover the “put option.” So he allegedly coordinated with AlHusseini to falsify financial records and inflate AlHusseini’s worth by tens of millions of dollars.

Federal prosecutors allege AlHusseini sent Sanberg a spreadsheet showing his investment portfolio from several years back and told Sanberg the spreadsheet was not accurate but a “hypothetical.”

Sanberg, according to the federal complaint filed against him, revised the spreadsheet to read as if it were from Dec. 31, 2019, and sent it to an investment advisor.

AlHusseini also used a graphic designer from Lebanon to falsify financial documents at least 24 times between April 2020 and February 2023, according to the federal complaint filed against Sanberg. The records sent to the financial advisor made it appear that AlHusseini’s investments and assets were worth more than $200 million, the records show.

But in reality, federal prosecutors allege his Bank of America account balance in September 2021 was $11,556.89. His Fidelity investment accounts, according to court records from federal prosecutors, totaled $2,963.63 at the time.

According to a federal complaint, Sanberg then refinanced the loaned $55 million, securing $145 million from another investment firm, again using a “put option” from AlHusseini. This time, AlHusseini promised to buy the shares for $65 million from that firm if Sanberg defaulted, according to the federal complaint.

AlHusseini did not have the funds to back that deal, federal prosecutors alleged in court papers. But he still banked $6.3 million for his role in securing it, the complaint alleged.

There were other signs the company was in trouble.

Federal prosecutors allege Sanberg moved money from his personal checking account between Aspiration and another one of his companies in March 2022, making it appear on paper as if new investments were coming in.

On Nov. 2, 2022, Sanberg defaulted on the loan, and AlHusseini agreed the following month to boost the put option value to $75 million.

Some contractors began to complain that they were not being paid, according to court filings. Lawsuits followed.

In July 2022, Cherny also notified the company he would step down as chief executive. The day after he and the company signed a separation agreement in October, Sanberg threatened to sue him, according to a letter from Sanberg’s attorneys sent to Cherny.

Cherny would later file suit against Aspiration Partners, alleging the company didn’t pay him the entirety of his severance package agreed to in October 2022, according to a complaint filed in federal court. The suit was settled out of court earlier this year.

Federal prosecutors filed charges against AlHusseini in October 2024. He later agreed to plead guilty to one count of wire fraud, as well as to work with federal authorities in their investigation.

He is expected to appear in court for a sentencing hearing on Feb. 26, according to court filings.

Aspiration Partners filed for bankruptcy in March.

Sanberg originally entered a plea of not guilty to the charges, but in August he agreed to plead guilty to two felony counts of wire fraud, according to federal prosecutors.

Court filings show he is expected in court on Oct. 20 for a change of plea hearing.

An NBA star’s deal

Aspiration cut its deal with Leonard in 2022. Although players are allowed to have separate endorsement and other business deals, the NBA probe is trying to determine whether the Clippers participated in arranging the side deal beyond simply introducing Aspiration executives to Leonard.

The investigation follows information detailed in the “Pablo Torre Finds Out” podcast, which reported that Leonard’s deal amounted to a no-work contract meant to circumvent the NBA’s salary cap rules.

The salary cap limits how much teams can spend on player payroll. It’s meant to ensure talent parity by preventing the league’s wealthiest teams from outspending smaller markets to acquire the best players.

Circumventing the cap by paying a player outside of his contract is strictly prohibited and can be severely punished.

Cherny, in a statement posted on X, disputed that the agreement with Leonard required no work from the basketball star.

“The contract contained three pages of extensive obligations that Leonard had to perform,” Cherny wrote in the Sept. 12 post. “And the contract clearly said that if Leonard did not meet those obligations, Aspiration could terminate the contract.”

In the statement, Cherny said he does not remember any conversations about the NBA’s salary cap when the contract between Leonard and Aspiration was signed.

“There were numerous internal conversations about the various things Aspiration was planning to do with Leonard once the 2022-23 season began, including emails from the marketing team about their plans,” he said.

Cherny declined to be interviewed for this article.

It was Aspiration’s collapse that shed light on the Leonard deal. According to bankruptcy filings, Leonard’s private company, KL2 Aspire, is listed as one of the company’s biggest creditors — being owed $7 million.

The Clippers are, by far, the biggest creditor listed for the company, with more than $30 million in outstanding debt.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Clippers said the team terminated its relationship with Aspiration during the 2022-23 season, when the company defaulted on the agreement.

Ballmer has said he was duped by Aspiration, and insisted the Clippers followed all NBA rules. He also said he welcomed the investigation.

The Clippers signed Leonard to a four-year, $176-million contract in August 2021. In an interview with ESPN last month, Ballmer said that the sponsorship deal with Aspiration was completed in September 2021 and that the Clippers introduced Leonard to Aspiration two months later.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Clippers said both the team and Ballmer were unaware of Aspiration’s suspicious dealings.

“Neither the Clippers nor Mr. Ballmer was aware of any improper activity by Aspiration or its co-founder until after the government instituted its investigation,” the statement read. “The team and Mr. Ballmer stand ready to assist law enforcement in any way they can.”

With more young people diagnosed with cancer than ever before, scientists are in a race against time to find out why. Mum Fran Oxlade reveals the devastation of her diagnosis aged just 33

When Fran Kirkbright got the all clear from bowel cancer, having been diagnosed at the age of 33, it meant she could finally set the date and marry her fiancé Dean. It had been a devastating blow to be told she had cancer after multiple visits to the doctor for unusual symptoms – with no one suspecting it at first in someone so young.

Mum-of-one Fran, now 35, from Horley, Surrey, remembers the moment vividly. She says: “I just didn’t feel well. Some of my bowel habits had changed. There was blood, there was cramping, and tiredness like I have never known before. I was finally sent for a colonoscopy and when the results appeared it was like the air had been sucked out of the room. I knew something was wrong.

“I was told then and there that it was cancer. I was with my mum and she said ‘Don’t get upset, it might not be bad,’ and the doctor said, ‘No unfortunately your daughter does have cancer.'”

Fran adds: “I remember walking outside of the hospital and looking around and seeing people laughing and just going about their day and finding it really weird that I felt like my world had just ended and everyone was being normal. I wanted to scream at them. I just couldn’t get my head round it at all. My world has never been the same since.”

Fran, an office manager, began months of aggressive chemotherapy and radiotherapy and had surgery to remove nearly all her bowel, leaving her with a life-changing stoma bag and side effects including sickness, hair thinning and painful nerve damage in her hands.

READ MORE: Prince William’s ‘special gesture’ for ‘amazing’ Kate on Mother’s Day after brutal year

She says: “There were some long, dark days. I gave Dean an out. We’d only been together 18 months and I said I don’t know how this is going to be. I’ll have a bag attached to me, my body will change. His response was to get down on one knee and propose. We were at Chessington Zoo for his birthday. We fed the giraffes, we had dinner, we went back to the hotel. Then he was standing there with a ring. We were going to get married in October this year, until everything changed again.”

With more young adults diagnosed with cancer in recent years than ever before, scientists are in a race against time to find out why. The world was shocked last year when the Princess of Wales revealed she was undergoing treatment for cancer at the age of 42.

Other high profile cases, such as Sir Chris Hoy and ‘Bowel Babe’ Deborah James have brought attention to a worrying global trend – cancer is no longer just an illness of the elderly. A moving ITV1 documentary Cancer Under 50: Searching For Answers, airing tonight, investigates the reasons behind the alarming increase in cancer in people under 50.

Fran, who features in the documentary, is desperate to raise awareness – especially after her journey took a shattering turn. She says: “I got the all clear last July and everything felt hopeful. We could start getting our lives back on track, set the date for the wedding. But then three months later a scan found a very extensive and aggressive spread. The oncologist told me that my life expectancy was about two years, with aggressive chemo just to treat my symptoms and side effects.”

Fran, who is undergoing a third kidney operation today, says: “That news was worse than hearing the initial diagnosis. To have to break that news to my friends and family, including my 14-year-old son Callum – my world crumbled. In July we’d had an ‘I kicked cancer’s butt’ party. We were planning the wedding. In that moment, I still feel it, the hope’s gone. The world doesn’t feel as sunny or as shiny as it did.”

READ MORE: King Charles cancer: Buckingham Palace statement in FULL as monarch hospitalised

According to new analysis by Cancer Research UK, almost 35,000 under 50s are now diagnosed with cancer in the UK each year, with 5,800 young adults each year dying from the disease. Since the early 1990s, cancer rates in 25-49 year olds in the UK have increased by 24%, with bowel cancer one of the fastest rising cancers in under 50s.

Fran was told that if she wanted to do anything, she should do it soon – so she and Dean brought their wedding forward and tied the knot in Sussex on January 25th this year. Fran – now Fran Oxlade – says: “It was the perfect day. My sister Lisa was my maid of honour, Callum walked me down the aisle. For one day we parked it all. In our vows we did not say ‘In sickness and health’ or ‘Til death do us part’. There was no mention of cancer or sickness or anything negative. It was just a lot of love from all our friends and family.”

She adds: “I was very conscious that the next time we’d all be in a room together would be at my funeral. I’m registered at a hospice now, I have shared my end of life care plan with my family. They want me to live forever but sadly that can’t be. My funeral will be my last hurrah, the last thing I can do for everyone, I’m planning it to be a celebration.”

In the ITV documentary, experts say that while better detection and reporting could account for the numbers, it doesn’t account for the scale of the increase. Experts say there is a rise in certain types of cancer, like colo-rectal, thyroid, breast and melanoma, while looking at causes like diet, obesity, smoking and alcohol, as well as environmental factors like air quality and little known issues such as microplastics.

Professor Sarah Berry from the PROSPECT study into Bowel cancer, says: “Alcohol intake, physical inactivity, smoking, dietary factors and living with obesity together account for about 60% of the risk of developing bowel cancer. But there’s also so many questions and so much we don’t know, like environmental exposures, pollutants like microplastics. We’re going on a hunting expedition to find out more.”

READ MORE: Bowel cancer rates skyrocketing among younger generation – and it’s one of the hardest to spot

Health information manager at Cancer Research UK, Megan Winter, says: “Globally and in the UK we’re seeing an increase in early onset cancers, affecting people aged 25-49. Cancer is still far more common in older adults, but this doesn’t change how difficult it is for anyone who is diagnosed with the disease. There isn’t one clear answer to what’s causing the rise, but exposure to risk factors, genetics and improvements to early detection might all play a part. More research is crucial to understand the causes of early onset cancer, so we can know how to prevent it.”

Fran, who admits she never used to like talking about toilet habits, has raised thousands for Bowel Cancer UK doing the Race for Life and says that raising awareness of the symptoms will save lives. Fran says: “Cancer does not discriminate, even the royals have had cancer. Cancer does not care who you are. As a nation we are very toilet shy, but maybe if we weren’t, if I wasn’t, things would have been different for me. If I can stop one mother from being away from their child or seeing them grow up, or one wife not being able to live until retirement age with their husband, that will be a small win and I’m at peace with that.” Fran, who is hoping to plan a honeymoon with Dean, adds: “Now I find the glimmers in the day, the little joys. We should all do that.”

*Cancer Under 50: Searching For Answers – Tonight is on Thursday 3rd April, ITV1, 8.30pm

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The sudden collapse of Assad’s rule over Syria could mark the end of a nearly 14-year civil war in the country.

2011 – The first protests against Assad quickly spread across the country, and are met by security forces with a wave of arrests and shootings.
Some protesters take up guns and military units defect as the uprising becomes an armed revolt that will gain support from Western and Arab countries and Turkey.

2012 – A bombing in Damascus is the first by al Qaeda’s new Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, which gains in power and starts crushing groups with a nationalist ideology.

World powers meet in Geneva and agree on the need for a political transition, but their divisions on how to achieve it will foil years of U.N.-sponsored peace efforts.

Assad turns his air force on opposition strongholds, as rebels gain ground and the war escalates with massacres on both sides.

2013 – Lebanon’s Hezbollah helps Assad to victory at Qusayr, halting rebel momentum and showing the Iran-backed group’s growing role in the conflict.

Washington has declared chemical weapons use a red line, but a gas attack on rebel-held eastern Ghouta near Damascus kills scores of civilians without triggering a U.S. military response.

2014 – Islamic State group suddenly seizes Raqqa in the northeast and swathes more territory in Syria and Iraq.

Rebels in the Old City of Homs surrender, agreeing to move to an outer suburb – their first big defeat in a major urban area and a precursor to future “evacuation” deals.

Washington builds an anti-Islamic State coalition and starts air strikes, helping Kurdish forces turn the jihadist tide but creating friction with its ally Turkey.

2015 – With better cooperation and more arms from abroad, rebel groups gain more ground and seize northwestern Idlib, but Islamist militants are taking a bigger role.

Russia joins the war on Assad’s side with air strikes that turn the conflict against the rebels for years to come.

2016 – Alarmed by Kurdish advances on the border, Turkey launches an incursion with allied rebels, making a new zone of Turkish control.

The Syrian army and its allies defeat rebels in Aleppo, seen at the time as Assad’s biggest victory of the war.

The Nusra Front splits from al Qaeda and starts trying to present itself in a moderate light, adopting a series of new names and eventually settling on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

2017 – Israel acknowledges air strikes against Hezbollah in Syria, aiming to degrade the growing strength of Iran and its allies.

U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led forces defeat Islamic State in Raqqa. That offensive, and a rival one by the Syrian army, drive the jihadist group from nearly all its land.

2018 – The Syrian army recaptures eastern Ghouta, before quickly retaking the other insurgent enclaves in central Syria, and then the rebels’ southern bastion of Deraa.

2019 – Islamic State loses its last scrap of territory in Syria. The U.S. decides to keep some troops in the country to prevent attacks on its Kurdish allies.

2020 – Russia backs a government offensive that ends with a ceasefire with Turkey that freezes most front lines. Assad holds most territory and all main cities, appearing deeply entrenched. Rebels hold the northwest.

A Turkey-backed force holds a border strip. Kurdish-led forces control the northeast.

2023 – The Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 triggers fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, ultimately reducing the group’s presence in Syria and fatally undermining Assad.

2024 – Rebels launch a new assault on Aleppo. With Assad’s allies focused elsewhere his army quickly collapses. Eight days after the fall of Aleppo the rebels have taken most major cities and enter Damascus, driving Assad from power.