Benworth Capital Partners

Type: Non-bank SBA 7(a) lender of record.
Legal entities: Two operating LLCs. Benworth Capital Partners, LLC ("Benworth FL") — Florida LLC, formed 2008; the PPP lender of record and the PPPLF borrower. Benworth Capital Partners PR, LLC ("Benworth PR") — Puerto Rico LLC, formed June 28, 2021, with Claudia P. Navarro as president. Pre-pandemic affiliate Presto Payday (cash advance / micro-lending) belonged to the same Benworth family of companies.
Founded: 2008, Coral Gables, Florida, by Bernardo "Bernie" Navarro. Navarro is sole or controlling owner of Benworth FL; Claudia Navarro (Pezzia-Navarro) holds the bulk of Benworth PR.
HQ: Coral Gables, Florida; a San Juan, Puerto Rico office for Benworth PR.
President (2025): Henry Jimenez (Miami Herald via InsuranceNewsNet, Sept. 12, 2025). Bernie Navarro was nominated by President Trump on June 16, 2025 as U.S. Ambassador to Peru and confirmed by the Senate on December 18, 2025 (U.S. Embassy in Peru biography).
Role: Florida real-estate and small-business lender that originated more than 300,000 PPP loans in 2021 through Womply's PPP Fast Lane technology.

In the archive

Pandemic-role map

Reader shorthand: nonbank SBA lender of record using Womply as the intake and technology channel.
What Benworth did for borrowers: funded PPP loans under its own SBA lender authority, largely for borrowers who entered through Womply's Fast Lane portal rather than Benworth's pre-pandemic real-estate lending channels.
What Benworth bought from other companies: bought borrower flow, application technology, API services, and pre-screening from Womply; it also used PPPLF funding to finance the federally guaranteed loan book.
Where responsibility sat: Benworth held the SBA loan documents, collected the lender processing fee, and bore lender-of-record obligations; Womply handled most borrower-facing application mechanics. The arbitrator found that the decision whether to underwrite each loan "was always Benworth's," and so was the good-faith review behind it.

Before the pandemic (2008–early 2020)

Before the pandemic Benworth was a Florida private lender. Its family of companies included Presto Payday, "our cash advance and microlending business" (Navarro essay on Benworth's site, dated April 7, 2020). Navarro was a Miami Dade College trustee and later chaired its board (U.S. Embassy in Peru biography).

Benworth was an approved SBA 7(a) lender by the time the CARES Act passed.

During the pandemic (March 2020 – mid 2021)

PPP1: a website, a calculator and a fund

Benworth's first pandemic product was a website. A March 26, 2020 release on its site announced SBABizHelp.com and the Spanish-language SBAAyuda.com, "launched to educate consumers" while the bill was still in Congress. An April 2 release added a payroll calculator, with Navarro's explanation: "SBA Lenders are inundated with calls and emails from businesses asking how much they can borrow." In an essay dated April 7, 2020 on Benworth's site, Navarro wrote that Benworth had "retooled to be an information resource" for the stimulus. By May the calculator was part of the application. Applicants were told to "upload it as part of the application process," and the site named Benworth Capital Partners LLC as its lender.

The March release also said the affiliate Presto Payday "has suspended its cash advance loan product to prevent borrowers from building up debt they cannot repay." Presto Payday then took a PPP loan of its own: $37,400 from Seacoast National Bank, approved April 13, 2020 and forgiven for $37,834.26 in June 2021. Benworth Capital Partners had borrowed $110,600 from the same bank on April 5. The SBA data mark that loan paid in full, with no forgiveness amount.

The lending money was to come from investors, not deposits. An article by Ashley Portero that Benworth reposted on its site on April 28, 2020 described a fund called "We Will Rebuild 2.0" seeking up to $50 million at a $250,000 minimum, whose investors "will receive a share of the fee the SBA will award lenders for processing PPP loans." The investors' return was a slice of the government's fee. Navarro said Benworth had applications for loans as small as $7,500 and would fund up to $350,000. The SBA data record 579 Benworth loans approved in 2020, from April 28 to August 8, for $29.3 million; eight were approved for more than $350,000, the largest for $1,920,050.

Benworth also had a $150,000 EIDL with a June 5, 2020 award date (USAspending COVID-EIDL prime award records).

Federal Reserve PPPLF

Benworth FL signed its first PPPLF Letter of Agreement with the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on May 4, 2020, with two more on January 14, 2021 and January 30, 2023, each incorporating the Fed's Operating Circular No. 10. Over the life of the facility the FRBSF advanced roughly $4.3 billion to Benworth FL against pledged PPP loans, with the PPPLF balance peaking at $4.19 billion on August 11, 2021. PPPLF advances were non-recourse, secured by the pledged loans, with a recourse-conversion provision in the Letters of Agreement and Operating Circular No. 10 that the Reserve Bank could invoke "in the sole discretion of the Reserve Bank" on any of a list of triggers.

PPP2: Womply Fast Lane

In February 2021 Benworth FL contracted with Oto Analytics, LLC (d/b/a Womply) to use Womply's PPP Fast Lane Technology and Referral Platform. The relationship was announced publicly on March 10, 2021 in a BusinessWire release one week after the sole-proprietor gross-income rule change took effect: Womply added Benworth to the Fast Lane lender network, describing it as "a minority owned and mission driven lender focusing on low-and-middle income minority borrowers."

Womply's account of why it built Fast Lane is in a declaration by its chief executive, Toby Scammell. Many small businesses Womply had referred in 2020 could not get loans, he said, "because lenders lacked the technology tools necessary to accept, process, manage, and fund loans at large scale," while larger lenders "focused their lending on larger loans in order to maximize their fees." Congress raised lender fees on loans of $50,000 or less for 2021, but "increasing fees for lenders did not address the logistical difficulties of providing a large volume of loans." Womply asked Intuit, Capital One, PayPal, American Express, Square and H&R Block to partner with it. "These companies refused to do so," and Womply "raised tens of millions of dollars in emergency financing" to build its own platform. Applicants paid nothing; Womply's pay came from the lenders, out of the SBA processing fee on each loan they chose to fund. The arbitrator later found "ample evidence" of "the amount of time, effort, and expense that Womply put into the development of the Fast Lane services and related technology."

The economic structure was set in two amended agreements both dated April 14, 2021: the Amended PPP Loan Referral Agreement (1% referral fee) and the Amended Developer Order Form, with a tiered tech fee paid by Benworth back to Womply out of the SBA processing fee:

Tier 1 (1–30,000 loans): 50%
Tier 2 (30,001–45,000): 60%
Tier 3 (45,001–60,000): 70%
Tier 4 (60,001–300,000): 80% (where most Benworth loans landed)
Tier 5 (300,001+): 70%
Plus $250 per loan API fee; minimum $500M/week origination commitment; 10% underfunding fee.

Benworth's PPP servicing page, as archived on May 7, 2021, shows Benworth as the funding source and SBA lender, with the application portal, bank-information changes, second-draw status and forgiveness intake operated by Womply or, secondarily, by Lendio. The page states: "Benworth Capital does not have access to the system where you applied… You must make the change yourself on the Womply Portal."

2021: the lender behind someone else's portal

The 2021 book was 536 times the 2020 one by loan count. The SBA data record 310,443 Benworth loans approved in 2021, the fourth-highest count of any lender that year, behind Prestamos CDFI, Harvest Small Business Finance and Capital Plus Financial. April 2021 alone produced 246,039 loans approved for $3.21 billion. Of Benworth's 311,022 loans, 308,864 reported one job.

Benworth's own landing pages promised that a business could "apply for a PPP loan within minutes, and get funded within days." Its servicing pages described who ran what. "Benworth Capital is an authorized SBA lender for Womply," the May 2021 page said, and borrowers who needed to change bank details had to do it on the Womply portal. Funding went out by ACH "in batches," with no individual tracking number. After the program closed on May 31, 2021, a benworthppp.com page told applicants who had not received their funds: "your PPP loan has been cancelled with the SBA. You will not be responsible for applying for forgiveness or repaying the loan." Second-draw applicants learned they "may have automatically applied" for a second loan with the first, possibly from a different lender. Forgiveness went through the SBA's direct portal for loans under $150,000; borrowers who had applied through Womply were pointed back to Womply's website.

Scale and revenue

Volume figures, drawn from Benworth's own August 5, 2022 letter to the House Select Subcommittee, the FRBSF v. Benworth pleadings, the SBA loan-level data and the JAMS award:

More than 300,000 PPP loans originated through Benworth FL on Womply technology during the 2021 program window; by the SBA loan-level data, 311,022 loans with initial approvals of $4.23 billion ($4.22 billion at current amounts), 310,285 of them at or below $50,000.
More than $680 million in lender fees booked by Benworth FL (Womply's accounting).
Benworth's congressional letter: 2020 total revenue $4,024,186; 2021 total revenue $402,889,450.99, of which $361,773,377.50 was PPP fee income; 423,782 to 438,782 Womply applications processed; ~4,000 suspicious loans reported to SBA OIG; sole shareholder Bernardo Navarro.
The House Select Subcommittee tabulated Womply's three primary lending partners (Harvest, Benworth, and Fountainhead) at over $16 billion in PPP loans in 2021 collectively; Benworth was Womply's second-largest partner after Harvest.

The other lending business

Benworth's real-estate lending continued alongside PPP. On April 29, 2021, the month of Benworth's PPP peak, Clearday, Inc. signed a $4,550,000 one-year, interest-only note with Benworth Capital Partners at 9.95%, secured by a first mortgage on its memory-care facility in Naples, Florida. After paying off the old Naples mortgage ($2,739,195) and $354,357 in closing costs, Clearday netted $1,456,448. The note went unpaid. A group of lenders, which Clearday calls "the Naples Lender," sued in Collier County, Florida, in a case Clearday's filings call "the Benworth Action." On February 5, 2024 the court entered a foreclosure judgment of $6,177,863.28 and set a sale for April 4, 2024.

The May 2021 emails

The House Select Subcommittee report (Dec. 1, 2022) quotes a chain of April and May 2021 emails between Navarro and Womply's Toby Scammell and Cory Capoccia, citing them to documents Benworth itself produced with its August 5, 2022 letter to the Subcommittee. On May 7, 2021 Navarro wrote: "When the party is over and the lights turn on, we [Benworth] will be the only ones at the party (and it seems standing naked)." On May 10 he wrote that "the services promised by Womply, have not only not been provided, but have also placed our company in a very bad predicament due to the high likelihood of fraud involved in many of the referred loans from your company." He accused Womply of having "misrepresented (either willfully or negligently)" its ability to review applications and of leaving Benworth out of its fraud communications with the SBA and the SBA's Inspector General. He called Womply's new fraud-review process "unproven" and "last minute."

The report's own account is that "in late April and early May 2021, Womply discovered what Benworth described as 'rampant fraud'" in the applications it had referred. Womply had written to Benworth on April 8 proposing tighter screening, including more manual reviews and an email telling applicants "they should not attempt to commit fraud through [Womply]." Benworth's August 2022 letter to the Subcommittee said that "[m]any issues flagged by Benworth contributed to actual improvements in Womply's platform" and that "[i]n most exchanges, Womply accommodated Benworth."

By then Benworth's lending was nearly done. On May 4 the SBA said the program's general fund was exhausted and that only community financial institutions could submit new applications (Associated Press and Fox Business, May 5, 2021). Benworth was not one, and could submit no new loans after May 4 (Womply's amended complaint). By the SBA's loan-level data, 290,928 of Benworth's 310,443 loans of 2021, or 94 percent, had been approved by May 10. On May 7 Navarro had asked: "Should we be worried about the 200,000 loans already funded through the use of your Company's systems?"

The fee dispute was already running. The arbitrator's award: "Shortly after the parties began working together, disputes arose as to the proper amounts that Benworth was to pay Womply for its referral and Technology Services. Once the PPP program ended, those disputes continued, and this arbitration ensued." Benworth paid Womply's first two invoices at the 80 percent technology-fee rate and every later one at 70 percent. In early July it told Womply it was withholding fees on 40,563 loans and asked Womply to cut them in half; Womply refused and, when Benworth still would not pay, ended the agreements (Womply's amended complaint). Benworth "stopped paying Womply its fees altogether" (award). Its October 1, 2021 answer in the arbitration said Benworth "has held the disputed fees in trust until its dispute with Womply, including the matter of fraudulent loans, is resolved."

The arbitrator ruled on that sentence in Order No. 5 on January 17, 2023: "This representation, made both to the Arbitrator and Womply, was false at the time it was made. In fact, well before the representation contained in Paragraph 17 of Benworth's Answer, Benworth had transferred $171 million to Benworth Puerto Rico, a related company located in Puerto Rico." Asked at an October 2022 deposition whether the sentence was untrue, Navarro had answered: "At the time of this document it was. We've had to use those loans for different matters" (Womply's letter to the arbitrator, Dec. 21, 2022).

Benworth had also pleaded that Womply "promised Benworth that it would materially improve its technology platform to reduce the risk of loss but did not, in fact, intend to honor that promise." Order No. 5 told Benworth to produce "its list of Fraudulent Loans." On February 6, 2023, ordered to produce "certain SBA emails and its list of fraudulent loans" or say whether it would withhold them, Benworth dropped that promissory-fraud defense, without prejudice. The arbitrator also refused to admit the House report. His May 2, 2023 order found that "the Congressional Report relies heavily upon statements by Benworth and Fountainhead, both of which were in active arbitration with Womply. Benworth and Fountainhead thus had a financial interest in making statements to Select Subcommittee staffers attacking Womply in the hopes that they could use the results of those statements to advance their arbitration interests." Its content was "rank hearsay."

What the arbitrator found about Womply's role

The contracts put the lending decisions on Benworth. Benworth "retains ultimate responsibility for all loan decisions, including approvals, underwriting, closings, disbursements, due diligence, and loan servicing actions," the referral agreement said. Womply disclaimed "all responsibility for" the accuracy, lawfulness or completeness of the information in a referral, and "Womply does not endorse any referral"; Benworth "assumes sole responsibility regarding whether or not any referral is or should be sent to the SBA for review."

The arbitrator found that practice matched the paper. "Womply did not determine an applicant's eligibility for a loan, and it communicated this directly to applicants." Its platform verified identities, documents and bank accounts and put the results in front of Benworth's staff, and "[t]he decision whether to underwrite a loan was always Benworth's and Benworth was always responsible for conducting a good faith review of a borrower's application," which the award called "the crucial underwriting step." Womply reminded Benworth that "[l]enders are responsible for doing a good faith review of the info provided by Borrowers," and told it that it did "not recommend" letting the Teslar lender portal send its whole queue to the SBA automatically "without any good faith reviews being conducted by Benworth." Navarro approved automatic submission to the SBA of second-draw applications from borrowers whose first-draw loans Benworth had processed. Of the roughly 365,000 applications Womply referred, Benworth funded about 305,000.

Womply was not a lender service provider; it "was not performing underwriting services." Its technology "directly benefited Benworth and allowed it to process and make over 300,000 loans," and "[i]t is therefore wholly disingenuous and a complete distortion of the evidence for Benworth to now argue that no benefit was received from the Womply technology."

Benworth told Congress something else. Its August 2022 letter said that "Womply handled eligibility verification and fraud prevention in connection with hundreds of thousands of PPP applications referred to Benworth by Womply," and that "[d]ue to time constraints and unclear PPP rules, Benworth could not adopt a written program specific to Womply's PPP applications."

The $171 million move to Puerto Rico

The arbitrator found that the move left Benworth unable to pay what Womply was claiming. Order No. 5: "As a result of this transfer, Benworth would be unable to satisfy an award of $154 million and, according to the deposition testimony of its CEO in this Arbitration, is essentially judgment proof." The record, the order said, "raises a triable issue regarding whether the transfer of funds was made in an effort to avoid Benworth's potential financial obligations and to render it judgment proof." Navarro had testified that Benworth could not pay an award of even $40 million.

May 31, 2021: Benworth FL signed a Loan Servicing Agreement with "Benworth Capital Partners PR," described as a "company in formation under the laws of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico." Bernardo Navarro signed for Benworth FL and Claudia Navarro for a company that did not yet exist. Fees: $500 per file for PPP loan forgiveness, $50 per file for "Fraud Monitoring Fees and Guaranteed Purchase", and 65 bps for PPP loan servicing.
June 28, 2021: Benworth PR was organized in Puerto Rico, 99% owned by Claudia Navarro and 1% by Bernardo (Navarro's deposition; the Reserve Bank's complaint).
July 1, 2021: Three days later, Womply learned that Benworth had not paid about $42 million in fees (award).
July 23, 2021: Womply emailed Benworth FL a notice of material breach for unpaid fees; on August 25 it commenced JAMS arbitration in San Francisco.
September 23, 2021: The Amended Loan Servicing Agreement, signed by Bernardo for FL and Claudia for PR, kept the same fees: the 75% differential fee it lists is the Mortgage Loan Servicing Fee, which the May 31 agreement already set.

Over the summer of 2021 Benworth FL paid Benworth PR about $171 million up front, $550 for each of roughly 311,000 PPP loans. "To the best of my knowledge, yes," Navarro said at a December 2022 deposition, asked whether all $171 million went over in 2021; asked whether it all moved that summer, he said, "Yes." Womply quoted his two depositions in a letter to the arbitrator, now on the public docket.

Navarro set the price himself, by averaging four quotes. Three were lower: Lendio's $150, Professional Bank's $250 and Lenders Cooperative's $395; only BDO's was higher. At Lendio's quote the work would have cost about $47 million, $124 million less. He testified that he and his wife drafted the agreements themselves, with no advice from lawyers or accountants. On a $1,000 loan, Benworth earned $500 from the SBA and paid Benworth PR $550; asked why, Navarro said: "This is what this service commands for processing these type[s] of loans." His reason for moving work Benworth had done itself: "We were moving to Puerto Rico." His reason for putting 99 percent of the new company in his wife's name: "Family planning," which he explained as "for the betterment of our family and the future of my children." He testified that Benworth PR had made payments to him and his wife; Benworth's lawyer instructed him not to say how much. Asked whether he went back to Florida to work at Benworth FL, he said: "I work from Puerto Rico."

Navarro testified that a 2022 "Transfer Pricing Analysis" found that "86 percent of the work to process and service PPP loans was performed" by Benworth PR, and Benworth told the Reserve Bank that Benworth PR's share came to 86 percent of all PPP loan net income for 2021 through 2023 (Reserve Bank complaint). When Benworth PR was organized, the SBA had already approved 310,417 of Benworth's 310,443 loans of 2021.

Transfer pricing decides which of two related companies books the income, and so which government taxes it. Income a Florida company earns in Florida is taxable federally. Income earned in Puerto Rico by Puerto Rico residents generally is not: federal law "generally exempts residents of Puerto Rico from federal income tax on income sourced from Puerto Rico" (GAO, December 2025; 26 U.S.C. § 933). Both Navarros have admitted in court that they are domiciled in Puerto Rico (Claudia Navarro's answer; Bernardo Navarro's answer). On August 18, 2022 Puerto Rico granted Claudia Navarro, Benworth PR's 99 percent owner, an individual-investor decree under Act 60, which exempts her interest and dividends from Puerto Rico income tax through 2035 (DDEC decree list; Act 60, § 2022.01). On the company's own numbers, that put 86 percent of its PPP net income where federal income tax generally does not reach, provided the split held and the Navarros qualified as bona fide Puerto Rico residents. Federal law lets the IRS reallocate income between related companies whose prices do not reflect an arm's-length deal (26 U.S.C. § 482). Since January 2021 the IRS has run a compliance campaign aimed at decree holders who may be, in GAO's words, "improperly reporting U.S.-sourced income as Puerto Rico-sourced income to evade taxation." Among the decree holders GAO studied, average federal tax paid fell 46 percent after the move. What the Navarros reported, and whether the IRS has examined it, is not public. We found no tax charge against either of them.

The arrangement had a precedent. In TotalBank Florida Bank Corp. v. Navarro, a Miami-Dade case over a default judgment against Navarro personally that he said he could not pay, the bank's lawyer read Navarro's deposition into the record at a January 29, 2014 hearing. Navarro had testified that he owned 9 percent of Benworth and his wife 91 percent, and that he was paid once a year in an amount he said he did not know. Asked what his wife did, he said: "Well everything, she washes the floor, she types." Judge Rosa Rodriguez refused to shield Claudia Navarro's finances in the company: "In light of Mr. Navarro seeming to be in control of the company but with the wife actually owning the stock, you know, I understand the concern." Seven years later, the company that received the $171 million was 99 percent hers.

The Reserve Bank went further than the arbitrator. Working without Benworth's full records, it alleged that Benworth FL moved more than $50 million to Benworth PR between 2021 and 2023 and paid Bernardo Navarro at least $48,240,502.75 in dividends, part of it between 2021 and 2023, and $804,860.89 more in 2024, all "with the actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud" its creditors. Benworth denied it (Benworth FL answer, Dkt. 234; Navarro answer, Dkt. 236). Neither fraudulent-transfer case was tried: Womply settled in January 2025 and the Reserve Bank in September 2025, both on confidential terms, the Reserve Bank before Benworth produced the accounting database the court had ordered it to hand over.

Rubio's $850,000 loan and his letter to the SBA

The sequence, from Rubio's financial disclosures, the court record, the SBA's loan data and the Miami Herald:

January 2021: Benworth lends Senator Marco Rubio $850,000, a one-year bridge loan at 7.5 percent, with Navarro as witness to the signed agreement (Miami-Dade records cited by the Herald; Rubio's amended 2021 disclosure).
February 25, 2021: Benworth signs with Womply.
April 20, 2021: With the loan outstanding, Rubio names Navarro to the Southern District panel of his Judicial Advisory Commission, which advised him on recommending federal judges (Rubio press release).
April and May 2021: The SBA approves 298,942 Benworth loans, for $4.0 billion. Benworth's SBA processing fees come to about $680 million; by mid-July it has passed $465 million of them on to Womply (award).
June 28, 2021: Benworth PR is organized in Puerto Rico, 99 percent owned by Claudia Navarro.
Early July 2021: Benworth withholds fees on 40,563 loans and asks Womply to halve them; Womply refuses.
July 28, 2021: Rubio repays the $850,000 in full, about six months before it was due. His 2021 disclosure also lists a new 30-year mortgage from Professional Bank at 3.0 percent.
Summer 2021: Benworth FL pays Benworth PR about $171 million (above).
August 16, 2021: Benworth and two other Florida lenders ask the SBA for a regulation limiting what a lender may pay "any loan agent" to 50 percent of its processing fees, to apply to "each referred PPP loan made in 2021."
August 25, 2021: Womply files for arbitration, seeking at least $151,673,382 (award).
August 26, 2021: Rubio writes to the SBA, asking for "clarification in writing, or through new rulemaking."
September 14, 2021: The SBA answers the lenders by restating its existing rule.
October 1, 2021: Benworth tells the arbitrator it "has held the disputed fees in trust," a statement the arbitrator later found "was false at the time it was made."
May 16, 2022: Rubio files his 2021 financial disclosure, certified "true, complete and correct." It lists two mortgages and no Benworth loan.
August 30, 2022: Rubio amends the disclosure. The one change is the Benworth bridge loan, "Paid off in full during the reporting period."

The lenders asked for the cap to cover loans already made. Applied as they asked, a 50 percent cap would have held Womply to about $340 million of Benworth's roughly $680 million in SBA fees. Benworth had already paid Womply $465 million, some $125 million more than that, and the roughly $150 million Womply was claiming would have been Benworth's to keep. Benworth's contract set Womply's technology fee at up to 80 percent. The Herald's account is that Rubio "threw his weight behind" the lenders' attempt "to convince the U.S. Small Business Administration to cap what they owed" to Womply. His letter said he had "heard from several Florida lenders that the existing guidance is overly ambiguous in its treatment of fees for PPP loans of less than $50,000." It named no lender and did not mention the loan; his office later said he had written "on behalf of multiple Florida lenders, including Benworth," and that he "regularly contacts federal agencies." The SBA wrote no new rule, and the arbitrator later held that its fee cap did not reach Womply's technology fees.

The two go back decades. Navarro "served as a top fundraiser for Rubio's campaigns," the Herald reported, and the Navarros hosted Rubio's friends and supporters at their Coral Gables home in 2015, just before he announced his 2016 presidential campaign. In court, Navarro admitted that he "participated in Senator Marco Rubio's campaigns for president and senator" (D.E. 152). Womply's Puerto Rico complaint said Navarro "sought to use his government contacts to undermine the Arbitration"; Navarro told the Herald the outreach was "handled ethically and through the appropriate channels."

When President Trump nominated Navarro as ambassador to Peru in June 2025, the State Department was run by Rubio, whom the Herald calls "Navarro's close friend."

After the pandemic (mid 2021 – present)

How the loans ended

As of the SBA's September 30, 2024 data, 227,505 Benworth loans had been forgiven, for $2.96 billion. Another 70,238 loans, $1.07 billion, were charged off. That is 22.6% of Benworth's loans by count, against 5.6% of all PPP loans in the same file and 8.1% of all loans approved in 2021; Benworth's 2021 first-draw loans were charged off at 25.2%. Charged Off is an SBA loan status, not a finding about any borrower.

JAMS arbitration (Aug. 2021 – June 2024)

After a seven-day evidentiary hearing, the arbitrator granted Womply's three contract claims, held the fee provisions not void, illegal or unenforceable, and denied Benworth's counterclaims except one concerning loan-file and platform access. An interim award issued December 21, 2023, the Final Award May 30, 2024, and a Corrected Final Award on June 26, 2024 of approximately $117.9 million: $86,299,892 in contract damages, $25,363,697.68 in finance charges, $6,256,665.04 in fees and costs (award; Womply's counsel, Willkie Farr & Gallagher; FRBSF v. Benworth, D.E. 162). Womply petitioned to confirm the award in the Northern District of California; that case was dismissed with prejudice by stipulation on January 2, 2025.

The award cut Womply's technology fee from 80 to 70 percent, reading the fee table against Womply as its drafter, and rejected the rest of Benworth's case. Benworth had not treated the technology fees as capped by the SBA's 1% agent-fee limit, the award found, "at least not until the parties' relationship began to deteriorate and litigation was imminent." It had not raised its claim that Womply was a lender service provider before the arbitration or in its first pleadings, and "Benworth's counsel appears to have created this argument during the course of litigation in a creative effort to raise a legal issue where no legal issue actually existed." Benworth argued both that Womply carried out lender functions and that it gave the lender no benefit: "Benworth's two positions cannot be reconciled." To the complaint that the contracts were one-sided, the award answered that Benworth "chose to enter into these Agreements with Womply; no evidence was introduced that it was coerced in any way," and that "[i]t is now too late to complain about agreements that were reached during an arms-length negotiation." Benworth, "previously a small mortgage company with modest financial success," had become one "earning hundreds of millions of dollars"; it "could not have accomplished this without Womply's technological support, and it should therefore not be permitted to withhold monies due under its contractual obligations."

The N.D. Cal. cross-actions

Confirmation and vacatur of the arbitration award went to the Northern District of California: Oto Analytics, LLC v. Benworth Capital Partners, LLC, No. 4:24-cv-03975-AMO (petition to confirm), and Benworth Capital Partners, LLC v. Oto Analytics, LLC, No. 4:24-cv-04840-AMO (Benworth's challenge to the award). Both before Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín.

FRBSF v. Benworth

On February 27, 2024, FRBSF Vice President Wallace Young sent Benworth FL a Default Notice concluding that Events of Default had occurred under the PPPLF Program Agreements. Outstanding FRBSF exposure as of that notice: $66,980,967.08. The triggers cited by the Reserve Bank, summarized in its later Complaint in Intervention (D.E. 146): SBA denial of guaranty purchase on more than 3,600 pledged PPP loans (over $60 million in denied requests); Benworth's December 27, 2023 disclosure that it might lack the funds to pay the looming JAMS award; and the Reserve Bank's exercise of the "deems itself insecure" clause in Operating Circular No. 10.

On July 10, 2024, the Reserve Bank filed a standalone action in the District of Puerto Rico, FRBSF v. Benworth Capital Partners, LLC; Benworth Capital Partners PR, LLC; Bernardo Navarro; Claudia Navarro, Civil No. 3:24-cv-01313 (GMM). The same day it moved to intervene in the existing OTO Analytics v. Benworth, Civil No. 3:23-cv-01034 (GMM), Judge Gina R. Méndez-Miró. The Reserve Bank pleaded recourse conversion, fraudulent transfer under California, Florida, and Puerto Rico law, alter ego, veil piercing, and conversion of cash proceeds of pledged collateral. The court granted intervention on July 29, 2024 and consolidated the two cases on August 20, 2024.

On April 2, 2025, Judge Méndez-Miró denied Benworth's motion to dismiss in full, in a 31-page opinion (D.E. 225). The court held the "deems itself insecure" clause survivable on minimal factual development, the fraudulent-transfer claim ripe under Foisie even before the underlying debt was liquidated, and the conversion-of-proceeds theory adequately pled because the Reserve Bank held a perfected first-priority security interest in the pledged loans "and all proceeds and products" thereof.

The QuickBooks discovery dispute

By December 2024 the court had been told that "the majority of the financial documents are stored in QuickBooks" (D.E. 190). The Reserve Bank moved to compel. On March 24, 2025 the court gave Benworth two options: export the data or allow supervised access. Benworth chose supervised access "because they are not comfortable with the Reserve Bank having unfettered access to the Quickbooks database" (Benworth counsel email, Exhibit 238-1). On May 21, 2025 the court ordered an export by May 27. Benworth then said it had lost server access on May 18. After two extensions, on July 3, 2025 Benworth represented that the data "had been recovered" but was "being evaluated for potential malware" by its cybersecurity provider. The docket records no production before the case settled. Bernardo Navarro's unsworn statement explaining the outage was filed under restricted viewing (D.E. 247, 248) and is not in the public record.

Confidential settlement, September 10, 2025

On September 9, 2025, the Reserve Bank and the four Benworth defendants filed a Joint Stipulation of Dismissal with Prejudice under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii), reciting a Confidential Settlement Agreement, each side to bear its own costs and fees. The next day Judge Méndez-Miró granted the stipulation and entered Final Judgment (D.E. 280, 281). No money judgment, no findings of fact, no admission of liability by any defendant. The settlement terms are not on the public docket. Benworth president Henry Jimenez said in a statement that the agreement "explicitly states there was no finding of fault or admission of liability." He called Benworth "the only lender in the program that was the victim of a political lawsuit by the Federal Reserve Bank" (Miami Herald via InsuranceNewsNet). The Reserve Bank's complaint had sought $66,980,967.08 plus rescission of the transfers to Benworth PR and the Navarros.

The Womply side of the consolidated case had already closed on January 2, 2025, when Womply and the Benworth defendants filed a separate Joint Stipulation dismissing Womply's claims with prejudice on confidential terms (D.E. 194, 196).

Where Benworth appears in the federal record

House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, Dec. 1, 2022 fintech-PPP report ("We Are Not the Fraud Police"): Benworth is named throughout. The Subcommittee identifies it as Womply's second-largest PPP lending partner, quotes the May 2021 "standing naked" email and the "rampant fraud" exchange, reproduces the SBA OIG complaint that Womply was withholding loan files routed through Benworth, and cites Benworth's August 5, 2022 letter to the Subcommittee.
SBA Dec. 8, 2022 statement: Benworth is named among the lenders the SBA said it was investigating. SBA suspended Blueacorn and Womply; no SBA suspension of Benworth has been located. The Reserve Bank's complaint cites SBA denial of guaranty purchase on more than 3,600 pledged loans.
2024 Wenstrup final Select Subcommittee report: referenced, but Benworth is not a primary case study.
FRBSF v. Benworth (D.P.R.): Civil No. 3:24-cv-01313, consolidated into 3:23-cv-01034; motion-to-dismiss opinion April 2, 2025 (D.E. 225).

Where Benworth does not appear

DOJ criminal charges against Benworth or the Navarros: none located. We found no federal indictment, information, or plea on the public record.
False Claims Act intervention or settlement against Benworth: none located.
SBA suspension: none located.
Bankruptcy filings: none. Both Benworth entities remain operating.
FRB written agreement, consent order, or formal supervisory action: Benworth FL is not a depository institution and so is not under direct FRB/FDIC bank-supervision authority. The FRBSF intervention was a creditor lawsuit on the PPPLF contract, not a bank-supervisory action. No public OCC/FDIC/FRB written agreement against Benworth has been located.

Current posture (as of mid-2026)

Benworth continues to operate, with offices in Coral Gables and San Juan, under president Henry Jimenez. The FRBSF v. Benworth federal suit ended in a confidential settlement and was dismissed with prejudice in September 2025; the Womply arbitration concluded with the arbitrator's award to Womply. Bernie Navarro is the U.S. Ambassador to Peru: nominated by President Trump on June 16, 2025 and confirmed by the Senate on December 18, 2025 (U.S. Embassy in Peru biography).

Bernardo Navarro — founder, sole shareholder of Benworth FL, U.S. Ambassador to Peru
Cross River Bank — fintech partner bank
Marco Rubio — senator who borrowed $850,000 from Benworth and wrote to the SBA on its fee dispute
How much money did Womply really make? — Womply's PPP fee income, including Benworth's share
Capital Plus Financial — adjacent fintech-channel lender (Blueacorn side)

Court records

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco v. Benworth Capital Partners PR LLC — D.P.R. (Nos. 3:24-cv-01313-MAJ, 3:23-cv-01034-GMM)
Oto Analytics, LLC v. Benworth Capital Partners PR LLC — D.P.R. (No. 3:23-cv-01034)
Oto Analytics, LLC v. Benworth Capital Partners LLC — court filings (No. 3:23-cv-01034)

Sources

Primary documents

News coverage