A gambling addiction led Los Angeles CPA Jonathan Schwartz, the business manager for Alanis Morissette and other well-known performers and athletes, to steal more than seven million dollars from his clients’ accounts.
Schwartz had access to his clients’ bank accounts to pay their bills and get cash for them, but instead, frequently got cash for himself. He concealed the embezzlement by not sending bank statements to his clients. Instead, he sent his clients a prepared statement from GSO Business Management, the firm Schwartz worked for, which contained a false ledger of expenses submitted to the bookkeepers by Schwartz.
Schwartz admitted that between 2010 and 2014 he stole almost five million dollars from Morissette by falsifying records and claiming the expenses were for “sundry/personal” items. He stole more than a million dollars from another client and embezzled $737,500 from yet another client.
Schwartz admitted that he failed to file a tax return in 2012 and failed to report nearly one million dollars in income that year. He owes the IRS almost 1.7 million dollars in federal income taxes.
Schwartz was sentenced to six years in prison followed by three years of supervised release. He was ordered to pay $8,657,268 in restitution.
