How Alanis Morissette's Trusted Business Manager Stole Millions, Blamed A Gambling Addiction, And Was Sentenced To Six Years In Prison

For years, Jonathan Todd Schwartz was exactly the kind of person a wealthy entertainer is supposed to be able to trust.

He was a certified public accountant. He worked at GSO Business Management, a Los Angeles firm that handled money for entertainers, athletes, and other high-net-worth clients. His job was to manage the private financial lives of people who were often too busy touring, recording, filming, or performing to personally review every withdrawal, wire transfer, tax document, and bank statement.

One of those clients was Alanis Morissette.

Morissette, who became one of the biggest music stars of the 1990s thanks to "Jagged Little Pill," eventually discovered that millions of dollars had vanished from her accounts. The person responsible was not a stranger, hacker, or outside con artist. It was Schwartz, the man who had been paid to help protect her fortune.

The Scheme

Between May 2010 and January 2014, Schwartz stole approximately $4.8 million from Alanis Morissette. He did it by making unauthorized withdrawals from her accounts and then disguising the missing money in accounting records as personal or miscellaneous expenses. In other words, the money was not being lost in some exotic investment or hidden behind a complicated Wall Street product. It was being pulled out and falsely categorized.

The Morissette theft was only part of the larger scheme. Federal prosecutors said Schwartz stole a total of approximately $7.2 million from Morissette and other clients. One client allegedly had more than $1 million stolen and hidden under the false label of home renovation expenses. Another client had $737,500 stolen, with Schwartz admitting he forged that client's signature on cash receipts.

Schwartz also failed to report the stolen money to the IRS. Prosecutors said he owed more than $1.7 million in federal income taxes tied to the embezzlement.

Sonia Recchia/Getty Images

How He Was Caught

The scheme began to unravel after Alanis Morissette changed business managers. Once her finances were reviewed by new representatives, the missing money became impossible to ignore. That is one of the most chilling parts of the story: the theft was not discovered because Schwartz voluntarily confessed. It was discovered because someone else finally looked closely enough at the books.

Morissette later sued Schwartz and GSO Business Management. The civil lawsuit accused Schwartz of draining millions from her accounts without authorization while the firm failed to properly supervise him. As the case moved from civil allegations to federal criminal proceedings, Schwartz admitted that he had taken client money for himself and falsified records to conceal the embezzlement.

The Gambling Addiction Explanation

Before his sentencing, Schwartz attempted to explain his conduct in a public mea culpa, saying that his crimes were fueled by a gambling addiction. He described a destructive cycle in which winning did not satisfy him and losing made him desperate to chase the money back. He said each loss deepened the hole and made the next theft feel, in his mind, like a way to escape the previous one.

That explanation did not win over prosecutors. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ranee Katzenstein argued that Schwartz's remorse came only after he had been caught and had no better option. From the government's perspective, this was not a single lapse in judgment. It was a repeated, deliberate, years-long pattern of theft from people who had trusted him with intimate access to their finances.

The Sentencing

In May 2017, Schwartz stood before U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee in a Los Angeles federal courtroom. He cried, apologized, and said he alone was responsible for the devastation he caused.

Alanis Morissette also spoke. Her statement was far less forgiving. She said Schwartz's actions had been systematic, drawn-out, and sinister. She also said that if he had not been caught, he could have bankrupted her within a few years.

Schwartz had faced the possibility of more than 20 years in federal prison, but the sentencing guidelines called for a lower term. Judge Gee sentenced him to six years in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release. She also ordered him to pay more than $8.6 million in restitution.