The singer’s former manager is accused of stealing $4.7 million from her account.
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Published on Wednesday 18 May 2016The business manager of a number of musicians, including Beyonce and Mariah Carey, is being sued over claims that he stole millions of dollars from another of his clients, Alanis Morissette. When GSO confronted Schwartz, he replied that the singer told him to withdraw the money so that she could invest it in a marijuana-growing business.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Morissette is suing Schwartz and GSO Business for breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, and negligence.
Her 1995 album Jagged Little Pill won the Grammy for Album of the Year, making the then 21-year-old Morissette the youngest victor of the prestigious award until Taylor Swift.
According to the lawsuit, Morissette cut all ties with Schwartz earlier this year and hired a new manager, who began investigating what happened to her money.
Morissette’s lawsuit also accuses Schwartz of improperly using her money, paying expenses by taking funds from accounts that were not supposed to be touched.
Mr Schwartz served as Morissette’s business manager from 2009 to 2016 but he was sacked for failing respond in a timely fashion to Morissette’s requests for details of her personal finances, according to the lawsuit, published online by the Los Angeles Times. “Any challenge to our complaint would be inconsistent with GSO’s complaint filed yesterday against Jonathan Schwartz”. “His reasoning was always that she didn’t need to work so hard, because she was so financially secure”. That complaint alleges the management company’s own investigation determined Mr. Schwartz had been “burning through money to sustain a lavish lifestyle” and recently racked up $75,000 in gambling debt during a trip to the Bahamas.
She’s suing for more than $15 million.
GSO is suing Schwartz as well, and their website now does not name him as a partner. They are also seeking punitive damages and want him to return an advance of $588,000. He also owes “a substantial sum for unpaid taxes”, it is claimed.
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The Wall Street Journal reported that GSO has also responded to some of Morissette’s claims. “Schwartz replied that Morissette ‘spends a lot of cash so I get large amounts from the bank, and keep the money in my safe so that when she needs cash, we don’t need to go to the bank each time, ‘” the complaint states.
