Reported by Ron Lieber

(Excerpt shared below. To read full report, go to: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/business/charlie-javice-jpmorgan-legal-bills.html)

What would you do if the federal government wanted you in jail and Jamie Dimon was paying your legal bills?

Here’s what Charlie Javice did: She spent money on luxury hotel upgrades, extravagant meals and cellulite butter, a personal care product that some people use to treat their skin, as a lawyer for the bank said in a hearing on Friday.

Then, she sent the receipts to the bank.

All told, Ms. Javice has spent more than $60 million — and counting — on her defense, according to recent legal filings. The bank has called the sum an “unprecedented and shocking amount that has exceeded any semblance of reasonableness.” It appears to be tens of millions of dollars more than Elizabeth Holmes’s legal fees, for instance.

In September, Ms. Javice, 33, was sentenced to more than seven years in prison for fraud. In 2021, JPMorgan Chase acquired her start-up, Frank, for $175 million. Ms. Javice had claimed her company helped millions of people fill out their federal financial aid forms.

After the acquisition, however, the bank discovered that she had lied about most of Frank’s customers. JPMorgan sued, and then prosecutors put Ms. Javice on trial. A jury convicted her this year.

Along the way, Ms. Javice won a ruling that required the bank to pay her legal fees.