Charlie Javice scammed JPMorgan out of $175M — now the bank must keep paying for her first-class tickets and gummy bears

The decision comes more than a year after a Manhattan jury found Javice, 33, guilty on all counts. JPMorgan spent months arguing that her defense tab, which ran well into nine figures, had spiraled into the absurd.

According to Business Insider, which first reported Thursday's ruling, Javice’s lavish expenses have included $530 for gummy bears and a $581 dinner for two with a $161 seafood tower.

Court filings reviewed by Fortune in December found even more ridiculous items she was billing to JPMorgan, including a $347 "afternoon snack" of three charcuterie boards, roughly $3,000 in first-class flights between Boston and New York, and $13.57 for one attorney's monthly Spotify charge.

The judge was unmoved by the theater. So was JPMorgan… but in the other direction.

"We respectfully disagree with the Delaware decision about the bounds of reasonableness and are considering next steps," a JPMorgan spokesperson told Business Insider.

A spokesperson for Javice, on the other hand, said the ruling was "a reminder that public narratives don't override contractual obligations."

Why a convicted fraudster's bills land on the victim's desk

To be clear: Javice was convicted of scamming JPMorgan, and now JPMorgan is now legally required to pay her lawyers. What’s going on here is something in corporate law called “advancement.”

When JPMorgan bought Javice’s startup, Frank, in 2021, the deal made her a corporate officer. The agreement carried the kind of indemnification and advancement clause that appears in a huge share of merger contracts.

Delaware — where most big U.S. companies incorporate — outlines the concept in Section 145 of its General Corporation Law. A company can pay an officer's legal expenses "in advance of the final disposition" of a case, so long as that person promises to repay the money if a court later finds they weren't entitled to it.

The logic behind all of this is that companies want the right people to take executive jobs without worrying about a lawsuit that could possibly bankrupt them. But the protection is famously blunt.

There’s a good primer about advancement from the law firm Faegre Drinker, but basically, winning the fraud trial doesn't let JPMorgan off the hook.

“Section 145 of the Delaware General Corporation Law (DGCL) allows corporations to protect present and former directors and officers from expenses incurred in connection with litigation arising from actions taken in service to the company or at the company’s direction,” Faegre Drinker writes.

“Indemnification and advancement rights apply to threatened, pending, or completed lawsuits or proceedings, where, by virtue of an individual’s role as a director or officer, the director or officer faces legal exposure or costs,” it adds.

That's why JPMorgan had been picking up the tab for Javice and co-defendant Olivier Amar since 2023, under an earlier court order. Amar was Frank's chief growth officer, and he was sentenced to 68 months for his role.

In January, JPMorgan changed its tactics to argue that Javice’s charges had become excessive, rather than try to argue whether it owed anything to her at all. The bank’s lawyers told the court the roughly $115 million run up by Javice and Amar amounted to "clear abuse."

As one attorney put it, per Bloomberg Law: "The case has red flags all over it and the fees are off the charts."

But the judge didn't buy it, instead ordering JPMorgan to cover the disputed tranche — a figure Bloomberg pegged at about $74 million — after finding the bank hadn't met the high bar to prove the spending was abusive.

JPMorgan can still try to claw the money back later, once appeals are all done and dusted, if a court decides Javice was never entitled to indemnification. But for now, it’s gotta pony up.

A $175 million lie

In case you’re unfamiliar with the actual fraud case, according to the Justice Department, Javice originally sold JPMorgan on the idea that Frank — software meant to simplify the federal student-aid application — had 4.25 million customers. The real figure was only about 300,000.

When JPMorgan asked to verify the numbers, prosecutors said Javice and Amar had an engineer build a fake "synthetic" data set, then hired an outside data scientist to fabricate one that appeared to have more than 4.25 million rows.

After the deal closed, Javice and co. bought a list of 4.5 million real students on the open market for $105,000 to paper over the gap.

A jury convicted Javice and Amar of conspiracy, wire fraud, bank fraud, and securities fraud in March 2025. In September, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein sentenced Javice to 85 months in prison — just over seven years — plus a $22.36 million forfeiture and $287.5 million in restitution owed jointly with Amar.