Alanis Morissette’s former business manager has admitted stealing $6.5 million from the singer and other celebrity clients, nine months after colleagues began looking into why he had such a lavish lifestyle.
In a deal with prosecutors in California, Jonathan Schwartz, 48, pleaded guilty to two charges of fraud and falsifying a tax return, acknowledging that from 2010 to 2014 he pilfered $4.8 million from the singer, whose hits include You Oughta Know.
“Schwartz was caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar,” Anthony Orlando, acting head of the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigation division, said.
Schwartz was employed by GSO Business Management, which provides financial services to a clientele that it says includes “some of the most successful musicians, actors, writers, directors . . . and high-net-worth individuals in the world”.
In March last year Morissette, 42, dropped him as her business manager and an internal investigation by GSO began. Schwartz was found to be “burning through money to sustain a lavish lifestyle, including a $50,000 vacation to Bora Bora and an outstanding gambling debt of $75,000 at a casino in the Bahamas”, according to a lawsuit filed against him by GSO.
Advertisement
He will appear at the US District Court in Los Angeles on February 1 and faces up to 23 years in jail, though prosecutors have recommended up to six years as part of the plea bargain.