Meet Charlie Javice

 12/26/2025

 

 Ever since JPMorgan Chase JPM -0.59%decrease; red down pointing triangle

disclosed that Charlie Javice’s legal team had sent the bank $74 million in legal bills for her criminal trial, the question has been how they racked up such eye-popping expenses. The answer apparently includes $530 in gummy bears.

Lawyers for JPMorgan Chase released a detailed list of Javice’s supposed legal expenses on Monday, which included everything from dozens of hotel upgrades to a tower of seafood at a restaurant. 

Javice was convicted of defrauding the bank when she sold her educational startup, Frank, for $175 million to JPMorgan in 2021. But in a twist, the bank has been picking up the legal bills for Javice and Olivier Amar, another executive, because of a clause in that deal that said JPMorgan would shoulder all associated costs in the event of a dispute.

For months, the bank has been trying to get out of the arrangement before Javice’s appeal results in even more charges, which the bank has called “patently excessive and egregious.”

Some of Javice’s legal expenses, like cellulite butter, were already made public during a court hearing last month, but Monday’s filing details a wide-ranging list of charges the bank takes issue with. Many of the expenses were billed by her lawyers, not Javice herself, the new disclosures show. 

A spokesman for Javice previously said that she “didn’t charge or see any expenses” and has followed the written policies during her time as a JPMorgan employee, after the bank acquired her startup, and under the legal rules.

After Javice was charged with fraud in 2023, she brought on a number of well-known celebrity attorneys like Alex Spiro, who has represented Elon Musk and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, as well as José Baez and Ronald Sullivan, who defended Casey Anthony and Harvey Weinstein.

Spiro’s firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, billed almost $44 million of the total, JPMorgan said.

A representative of the firm said the bank was “trying to walk away” from its obligations to pay Javice’s bills and “attempting to manufacture distractions by highlighting a handful of attorney expenses (not incurred by Ms. Javice) over two years, the vast majority of which it already reviewed and paid or are not disputed.”

Here are some of the items Javice and her lawyers have billed the bank, the court filing said:

Food

• $530 on gummy bears
• $581 dinner for two that included a $161 seafood tower
• $710 bill at Eataly 
• $347 for three charcuterie boards for an afternoon snack
• $214 for “Italian inspired ice cream”
• $60 for an Uber eats delivery of four cookies and a cookie box
• “Copious amounts of alcohol” including old-fashioneds, vodka martinis, Ethiopian thyme Margarita, Lychee martini

Travel and hotels

• Over $3,000 for three first-class flights between Boston and New York
• $25,800 of hotel-room upgrades
• $284 car ride for half a mile

Entertainment

• Food at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration
• Transportation to American Museum of Natural History
• $13.57 for a Spotify charge by one attorney

Miscellaneous

• A pet hair roller
• Stain remover
• A Cookie Monster toddler toy
• Lavender and jasmine scented sachets
• Cellulite butter
• A plastic cup
• $75 on a suitcase

Legal expenses

• 147 different legal professionals, some of whom billed as high as $2,700 an hour
• An average of 24 professionals a day at trial
• Some billed for trial “attendance” on days when there was no trial, including a Saturday

Ever since JPMorgan Chase JPM -0.59%decrease; red down pointing triangle

disclosed that Charlie Javice’s legal team had sent the bank $74 million in legal bills for her criminal trial, the question has been how they racked up such eye-popping expenses. The answer apparently includes $530 in gummy bears.

Lawyers for JPMorgan Chase released a detailed list of Javice’s supposed legal expenses on Monday, which included everything from dozens of hotel upgrades to a tower of seafood at a restaurant. 

Javice was convicted of defrauding the bank when she sold her educational startup, Frank, for $175 million to JPMorgan in 2021. But in a twist, the bank has been picking up the legal bills for Javice and Olivier Amar, another executive, because of a clause in that deal that said JPMorgan would shoulder all associated costs in the event of a dispute.

For months, the bank has been trying to get out of the arrangement before Javice’s appeal results in even more charges, which the bank has called “patently excessive and egregious.”

Some of Javice’s legal expenses, like cellulite butter, were already made public during a court hearing last month, but Monday’s filing details a wide-ranging list of charges the bank takes issue with. Many of the expenses were billed by her lawyers, not Javice herself, the new disclosures show. 

A spokesman for Javice previously said that she “didn’t charge or see any expenses” and has followed the written policies during her time as a JPMorgan employee, after the bank acquired her startup, and under the legal rules.

After Javice was charged with fraud in 2023, she brought on a number of well-known celebrity attorneys like Alex Spiro, who has represented Elon Musk and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, as well as José Baez and Ronald Sullivan, who defended Casey Anthony and Harvey Weinstein.

Spiro’s firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, billed almost $44 million of the total, JPMorgan said.

A representative of the firm said the bank was “trying to walk away” from its obligations to pay Javice’s bills and “attempting to manufacture distractions by highlighting a handful of attorney expenses (not incurred by Ms. Javice) over two years, the vast majority of which it already reviewed and paid or are not disputed.”

Here are some of the items Javice and her lawyers have billed the bank, the court filing said:

Food

• $530 on gummy bears
• $581 dinner for two that included a $161 seafood tower
• $710 bill at Eataly 
• $347 for three charcuterie boards for an afternoon snack
• $214 for “Italian inspired ice cream”
• $60 for an Uber eats delivery of four cookies and a cookie box
• “Copious amounts of alcohol” including old-fashioneds, vodka martinis, Ethiopian thyme Margarita, Lychee martini

Travel and hotels

• Over $3,000 for three first-class flights between Boston and New York
• $25,800 of hotel-room upgrades
• $284 car ride for half a mile

Entertainment

• Food at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration
• Transportation to American Museum of Natural History
• $13.57 for a Spotify charge by one attorney

Miscellaneous

• A pet hair roller
• Stain remover
• A Cookie Monster toddler toy
• Lavender and jasmine scented sachets
• Cellulite butter
• A plastic cup
• $75 on a suitcase

Legal expenses

• 147 different legal professionals, some of whom billed as high as $2,700 an hour
• An average of 24 professionals a day at trial
• Some billed for trial “attendance” on days when there was no trial, including a Saturday

Ever since JPMorgan Chase JPM -0.59%decrease; red down pointing triangle

disclosed that Charlie Javice’s legal team had sent the bank $74 million in legal bills for her criminal trial, the question has been how they racked up such eye-popping expenses. The answer apparently includes $530 in gummy bears.

Lawyers for JPMorgan Chase released a detailed list of Javice’s supposed legal expenses on Monday, which included everything from dozens of hotel upgrades to a tower of seafood at a restaurant. 

Javice was convicted of defrauding the bank when she sold her educational startup, Frank, for $175 million to JPMorgan in 2021. But in a twist, the bank has been picking up the legal bills for Javice and Olivier Amar, another executive, because of a clause in that deal that said JPMorgan would shoulder all associated costs in the event of a dispute.

For months, the bank has been trying to get out of the arrangement before Javice’s appeal results in even more charges, which the bank has called “patently excessive and egregious.”

Some of Javice’s legal expenses, like cellulite butter, were already made public during a court hearing last month, but Monday’s filing details a wide-ranging list of charges the bank takes issue with. Many of the expenses were billed by her lawyers, not Javice herself, the new disclosures show. 

A spokesman for Javice previously said that she “didn’t charge or see any expenses” and has followed the written policies during her time as a JPMorgan employee, after the bank acquired her startup, and under the legal rules.

After Javice was charged with fraud in 2023, she brought on a number of well-known celebrity attorneys like Alex Spiro, who has represented Elon Musk and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, as well as José Baez and Ronald Sullivan, who defended Casey Anthony and Harvey Weinstein.

Spiro’s firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, billed almost $44 million of the total, JPMorgan said.

A representative of the firm said the bank was “trying to walk away” from its obligations to pay Javice’s bills and “attempting to manufacture distractions by highlighting a handful of attorney expenses (not incurred by Ms. Javice) over two years, the vast majority of which it already reviewed and paid or are not disputed.”

Here are some of the items Javice and her lawyers have billed the bank, the court filing said:

Food

• $530 on gummy bears
• $581 dinner for two that included a $161 seafood tower
• $710 bill at Eataly 
• $347 for three charcuterie boards for an afternoon snack
• $214 for “Italian inspired ice cream”
• $60 for an Uber eats delivery of four cookies and a cookie box
• “Copious amounts of alcohol” including old-fashioneds, vodka martinis, Ethiopian thyme Margarita, Lychee martini

Travel and hotels

• Over $3,000 for three first-class flights between Boston and New York
• $25,800 of hotel-room upgrades
• $284 car ride for half a mile

Entertainment

• Food at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration
• Transportation to American Museum of Natural History
• $13.57 for a Spotify charge by one attorney

Miscellaneous

• A pet hair roller
• Stain remover
• A Cookie Monster toddler toy
• Lavender and jasmine scented sachets
• Cellulite butter
• A plastic cup
• $75 on a suitcase

Legal expenses

• 147 different legal professionals, some of whom billed as high as $2,700 an hour
• An average of 24 professionals a day at trial
• Some billed for trial “attendance” on days when there was no trial, including a Saturday