#43Americans
Joseph Podulka
Palo Alto, California · Father of two · No prior criminal record
No prior record. A part-time job. And, his family says, more than $260 million returned.
Joseph Podulka is a father of two from Palo Alto, California, with no prior criminal record of any kind. His son is in college and his daughter is a teenager. Since October 28, 2025, when he self-surrendered to FCI Lompoc in California, they have been growing up with their father in federal prison. His sister calls him “number 45 on #43Americans.”
In his family’s account, Joseph was never the architect of anything. He worked part-time as the “CFO” of a San Francisco startup, Cred, where his work was human resources and accounting. The company collapsed in 2020, as the COVID-19 crash hit cryptocurrency markets, and filed for bankruptcy on November 7, 2020.
In his family’s words
More than three years after the company failed, on May 2, 2024, Joseph was arrested at his home, his family says. He faced 16 counts of fraud and conspiracy.
His family says the losses at the time of the collapse were about $65 million, and that as of summer 2026, more than $260 million had been returned. The public bankruptcy record shows the Cred Inc. Liquidation Trust began its initial distribution to eligible creditors on or about November 10, 2025.
On August 29, 2025, Senior U.S. District Judge William Alsup sentenced him to 36 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. He reported to prison on October 28, 2025, as ordered.
A man with no prior record, in a part-time role, at a company where, his family says, far more has now been returned than was lost when it collapsed, is serving three years in federal prison while his two children wait for him at home. His family has filed a clemency petition (C334225) and is asking President Trump to review his case and send him home to them.
Records
- U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of California, case page, No. 3:24-cr-00243-WHA (indictment date, court events)
- U.S. Attorney’s Office, sentencing announcement (August 29, 2025) — the government’s own account, linked here without edit
- Palo Alto Daily Post, sentencing report (August 30, 2025)
- Cred Inc. Liquidation Trust, notice to creditors on the initial distribution (U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware)
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This page speaks for the families of the #43Americans, who are asking President Trump to review these cases. The account of his role, his arrest, the charges he faced, the losses and the amounts returned, his family, and his clemency petition comes from his family, and is presented as their account. The court, case number, judge, sentence, surrender date, and bankruptcy filing are taken from public records and contemporary news reports. A sentence is reported as what the record shows. It is not a finding by this site.