Robert Hartheimer: Evolve chief executive, arrest and sentence

analysisRobert H. Hartheimer joined the FDIC in 1991, helped create its Division of Resolutions and later directed it. He was a managing director of Promontory Financial Group from 2002 to 2008, co-founder and chief regulatory officer of the credit-card originator CreditStacks (Jasper) from 2015 to 2020, and later a senior adviser at the advisory and investment firm Klaros. Repay Holdings' 2021 proxy statement lists him as a Repay director since June 2018, a director and audit-committee chairman of Thunder Bridge Capital Partners III since February 2021, an independent director of the consumer lender and card servicer CardWorks since 2017, an organiser and director nominee of Monzo US from December 2019 and, since 2008, founder and managing member of the consultancy Hartheimer LLC, with earlier seats at Thunder Bridge Acquisition II, Lending Club Asset Management and Higher One Holdings. The bank's announcement of his appointment said he had been a corporate director of ten companies. ^{1 2}

analysisOn August 13, 2025 the bank's board unanimously chose him as chief executive with immediate effect; chairman Steve Valentine called it 'a turning point for Evolve'. In early October the bank announced Alex Johnston as head of Open Banking, quoting Hartheimer. A regional business publication reported on October 27, 2025 that the bank had lost $8.76 million in the first half of 2025 and that Hartheimer, who had taken over that summer, said losses would continue into the next year while the bank installed guardrails against a repeat of the problems behind the federal enforcement actions. ^{1 2 3 4}

analysisOn October 23, 2025 FBI agents arrested Hartheimer at the bank's Memphis headquarters under a court-authorised warrant. A local television station, citing the FBI, reported that he faced charges of sexual exploitation of a minor and distribution of obscene material; the criminal complaint, filed under seal on October 24, 2025, is not in the retained record. The board said it was treating the matter with the utmost seriousness and had terminated him with immediate effect; the bank said the matter was personal and unrelated to the bank or its operations, that it was in close contact with the U.S. Attorney's office and had offered its full cooperation. Mosteller and Weltzin resumed running the bank. ^{1 2 3 4 5}

analysisIn United States v. Hartheimer (W.D. Tenn. No. 2:25-cr-20314) a two-count criminal information was filed on December 15, 2025. On January 5, 2026 he waived indictment and pleaded guilty to both counts before Chief Judge Sheryl H. Lipman under a written plea agreement, and was remanded into custody. On June 4, 2026 the court sentenced him to 51 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release with specialised sex-offender conditions, a $200 special assessment and two $10,000 assessments under federal victim-assistance laws. On July 2, 2026 the United States filed a notice of appeal. The retained docket does not describe the statutes of conviction or the grounds of the government's appeal. ^{3 1 2 4}