Photo Credit: Emiliano Bar
Sean Welch, a music business manager accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from clients including Juice WRLD, is battling to stay out of federal prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud.
Though the Industry Management Group founder Welch only entered that guilty plea in December 2025, the case itself has been flying under the radar since early 2024, per Inner City Press. This includes but isn’t limited to multiple indictments (the newest having arrived in November 2025) and a number of back-and-forth filings.
In February 2024, the initial indictment accused Welch of defrauding “his clients of approximately $855,034 by purporting to manage their finances and instead embezzling the money for himself.”
The first of these clients brought on Welch as a business manager in July 2018, and ultimately, the defendant allegedly drained $229,900 from the individual’s bank accounts, according to the indictment.
Unsurprisingly, this was allegedly “in excess of the fee to which” the manager was entitled, and the transfers allegedly occurred without the client’s “knowledge or authorization.”
(The indictment doesn’t name the alleged victims, but it does note that the first client “died in or about December 2019,” which is when the aforementioned Juice WRLD passed away. Juice WRLD’s estate later sued Welch for breach of fiduciary duty and more; default judgment was entered in July 2021, and the estate voluntarily dismissed the suit without prejudice in March 2022.)
Welch then allegedly signed on as a business-side manager for an artist manager, allegedly proceeding to transfer $331,165 from that client’s bank accounts to his own accounts between 2020 and 2022. The defendant allegedly made off with $293,968 from a third client, another artist, in a similar alleged scheme.
As for where the criminal case stands, Welch and his counsel in a May 12th letter to the presiding judge expressed the belief that the court needn’t “imprison him to achieve any of the goals of sentencing.”
“We respectfully request a sentence of five years’ probation with six months of home detention,” they spelled out.
Meanwhile, the defendant and his team (Federal Defenders of New York) also took issue with the government’s assessment of victims and the allegedly stolen sum.
Long story short, alleged victims were evidently added following the original indictment; with the government pointing to Welch’s allegedly defrauding six victims for loss, restitution, and forfeiture amounts totaling $1.37 million, the defendant maintains that a more accurate calculation would place the victim total at three and the loss amount at $325,000 or so.
“As for his offense, Sean acknowledges numerous wrongs and regrets them deeply,” they continued. “At the same time, he did valuable work for many clients. … It is undisputed that Sean was entitled to be compensated for his work. His agreements afforded him a percentage of client income, including higher percentages where he helped secure deals, and fees for ongoing work even during periods when income was not being generated.
“Nevertheless, Sean admits that he took more than he was legitimately entitled to from certain clients. He does not seek to excuse that conduct. But he disputes the Government’s claim that he consistently stole from other clients,” Welch and his counsel wrote.
Subsequently, the government in a joint letter requested a hearing – to be scheduled for the week of July 6th if possible – “to resolve the factual disputes outlined” in Welch’s sentencing submission.
