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Artist News Legal
Alanis Morissette accuses former business manager of stealing $4.7 million
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 18 May 2016
The 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. Jonathan Schwartz faces legal action from both his employer GSO Business Management and Morissette herself.
GSO went legal first on Monday, suing Schwartz over claims that he stole at least $4.7 million from Morissette without her or the company’s knowledge.
Both lawsuits state that Morissette fired Schwartz earlier this year, and an audit by her new management uncovered the missing funds. It is alleged that Schwartz then claimed that his client had asked him to invest in illegal marijuana growing businesses, which is why there was no paper trail for the cash withdrawals. But with that claim seemingly discredited, Schwartz is now accused of using the money to support his own lavish lifestyle.
With the legal action against GSO in the offing, the company requested a court order to allow it to remove Schwartz as a partner in the firm, and also to return an advance of $588,000 that he was paid. While this moves through the courts, he has already been removed from the list of partners on the company’s website. Though whether this will be enough to reduce GSO’s liability in Morissette’s lawsuit remains to be seen.
Morissette’s legal action against both GSO and Schwartz arrived yesterday, suing for breach of fiduciary duty, fraud and negligence. The lawsuit states that over a four year period the “defendants concealed these distributions from Morissette, convincing her that she was in tremendous financial shape when, in fact, they were draining her assets and leading her on a road that could have led to financial ruin”, reports The Hollywood Reporter.
She also says that $8 million was transferred out of her investment accounts, despite her stipulation that this money should remain untouched to allow her to live off the interest from this money, in addition to her current income.
When she questioned the state of her finances, the legal papers claim, Scwartz told her that everything was “fine” and that “she and her future grandkids were ‘set for life'”, even going so far as to advise her to turn down performance offers because “she didn’t need to work so hard, because she was so financially secure”.
She claims that during the period he was managing her finances, Schwartz was actually using her money to fund his own extravagant lifestyle, such as a $50,000 holiday in Bora Bora and paying off an outstanding gambling debt of $75,000. He also owes “a substantial sum for unpaid taxes”, it is claimed.
The musician is seeking damages in excess of $15 million.
