U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot's former campaign manager is scheduled to plead guilty Friday in federal court in Cincinnati to stealing more than $1.4 million from the campaign.
Last month, Jamie Schwartz signed a plea agreement, admitting that he embezzled the money between 2011 and 2019.
As part of the agreement, Schwartz will pay $1,440,475. That amount is a conservative estimate of how much he obtained through the embezzlement, court documents say.
Schwartz, 41, is scheduled to appear by video at 11 a.m. before U.S. District Judge Timothy Black.
According to court documents, Schwartz wrote checks from the congressional campaign's bank account to himself and his consulting companies that were for more money than he and his companies earned working for the campaign.
In June 2017, for example, Schwartz wrote a $7,500 check to himself from the campaign account. The next month, he submitted a false report to the FEC that the documents say didn't account for the money "and that fraudulently misrepresented the amount of donations" the campaign received as well as the amount of money in its bank account.
Schwartz submitted fake reports to the Federal Elections Commission in an attempt to conceal the stolen money, the documents say. He also fabricated bank statements and other documents submitted to the FEC, prosecutors said.
Schwartz turned himself in to federal authorities in September 2019, according to court documents.
That same month, Chabot’s attorney announced he had discovered the Westwood Republican was the victim of “financial malfeasance.”
Schwartz stepped down as Chabot’s campaign manager and quickly shuttered his political consulting firm, Fountain Square Group.
As part of the scheme, according to prosecutors, Schwartz misrepresented his father as the treasurer for the campaign. His father, a jeweler in Bridgetown, told The Enquirer in 2019 he did not know he was Chabot's treasurer and later released a statement that he has never worked for Chabot's campaign.
Schwartz had worked for Chabot as far back as 2008, FEC records show.
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