By Jonathan Stempel
July 2 (Reuters) - A Delaware judge on Thursday said JPMorgan Chase must continue paying the legal bills of Charlie Javice, the former finance executive convicted of defrauding the bank into buying her startup, after JPMorgan racked up what it called "astronomical" costs.
Magistrate Judge Christian Wright of the Delaware Chancery Court said JPMorgan didn't meet its "challenging burden" to show that Javice's fees and expenses were "so unmistakably unreasonable or clearly abusive"
that they had to result from bad faith.
JPMorgan spokesperson Pablo Rodriguez said in a statement: "We respectfully disagree with the Delaware decision about the bounds of reasonableness and are considering next steps.”
Lawyers for Javice did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Javice, 33, was convicted in March 2025 and later sentenced to 85 months in prison for defrauding JPMorgan into buying her education startup Frank for $175 million in 2021. She is appealing her conviction and sentence.
The largest U.S. bank had since June 2023 been picking up legal bills of Javice and former Frank chief growth officer Olivier Amar because of a judge's order.
It also tried to stop paying legal expenses of Amar, who was convicted and sentenced to 68 months in prison.
Wright also rejected that request. The judge said his ruling covers $10.1 million of costs for Javice between January and September 2025, and $11.3 million for Amar over a similar period.
GUMMY BEARS AND CELLULITE BUTTER
In a court filing, JPMorgan said Javice and Amar had through last November billed $115 million, two-thirds the size of the fraud.
Javice alone billed more than $73 million, including for hotel upgrades, a $581 dinner for two featuring a $161 "seafood tower," $529 of gummy bears, a Cookie Monster toddler toy, and personal effects such as cellulite butter, a skincare treatment, JPMorgan said.
JPMorgan said Javice's legal bills were more than double those of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who was convicted in 2022 of orchestrating a larger and more complicated fraud at her biotechnology company.
It also said Javice didn't need five law firms for her criminal defense, saying they treated her case as a "blank check" and charged "astronomical fees."
But the judge found no "hypothetical outer limit" on what a defense should cost, citing a Thomson Reuters study addressing how lawyers' fees are rising rapidly and outstripping inflation.
He also said Javice's lawyers could decide how to allocate resources, and it was inappropriate to review their bills line-by-line.
"Perfection isn't required," Wright said.
DIMON CALLED BUYING FRANK A 'HUGE MISTAKE'
Prosecutors said Javice defrauded JPMorgan into buying Frank after claiming it had far more customers than it actually had.
She and Amar were convicted of bank fraud, securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud.
JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon has called buying Frank a "huge mistake."
Javice has sought a pardon from U.S. President Donald Trump, the Wall Street Journal said last month.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York, Editing by William Maclean, Chizu Nomiyama and Nick Zieminski)
