By the time Joshua Newman was a junior at Yale, he was being portrayed in national publications as a "budding venture capitalist" and "Silicon Valley pro."

Now 35, Newman is at risk of going to jail.

Newman, whose meandering post-college career includes stints running venture firms, a movie studio and CrossFit gyms, was arrested in Manhattan on Thursday on two counts of wire fraud after allegedly bilking investors out of $2 million, according to a release from the FBI.

If found guilty, Newman faces a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison.

Newman is said to have lured investors by misrepresenting his own ability to pay back funds, producing falsified documents about ownership percentages and lying that one of his CrossFit businesses had raised millions in funding. He then used the funds to pad his own finances or pay back earlier investors.

"When investors and lenders raised concerns about Newman’s sincerity or threatened legal action to recoup their funds, he typically gave them false assurances or agreed to return the funds," the FBI wrote in its charges against Newman.

"In reality, he often had no funds to return and made various excuses, including blaming his lack of payment on wire transfers delays. He also stalled for time by giving his victims checks drawn on accounts with insufficient funds and even sent a picture of a purported wire transfer order for $165,000 that never existed."

"Josh is a very bright, energetic, and creative entrepreneur," Priya Chaudry, a lawyer representing Newman, said in a statement e-mailed to Mashable.

"All of his business ventures have been legitimate and well-intentioned. While his ventures were not always as successful as he hoped they would be, he never did anything to justify the over-reaching charges issued against him today. Josh intends to vigorously defend himself against any notion that he ever did anything criminal.

Reps for CrossFit and Outlier Capital, where Newman served as a managing partner, did not immediately respond to our request for comment.

Newman grew up in the Silicon Valley area and was featured in articles from publications like Time and The Wall Street Journal back in 2000 — at the tail end of the Dot Com bust — for launching a venture capital firm while still in college.

"I just want to make enough money so I can wear a new pair of socks every day," Newman told The Journal at the time. Apparently his ambition grew well beyond that.