Jonathan Schwartz, the manager who embezzled millions of dollars from singer Alanis Morissette along with a number of other celebrities, will spend the next six years in prison.
Schwartz pled guilty to charges including wire fraud and filing a false tax return last January in a California court and was sentenced today to six years even though he had requested one year and one day followed by a year of house arrest and 2,000 hours of community service.
He also admitted to taking almost $5 million from Morissette over a four-year period and another $2 million from five other clients.
Morissette was in court on Wednesday night and asked the court for a sentence that “sends a crystal clear message.”
Even with the request for leniency requested by Schwartz’s attorneys, citing that their client had a gambling problem, the court proved not be sympathetic, saying “Given the magnitude of defendant’s crimes and the losses he has inflicted, the year-and-a-day sentence defendant proposes would be a ‘slap on the wrist’ that belittles the harms suffered by his victims and fails to provide them with justice.”
