Leonard Cohen thanked his former business partner for exposing her own wrongdoing in court as she was jailed for 18 months on Tuesday (17Apr12).

The Hallelujah hitmaker read aloud a statement as his ex-manager and onetime lover Kelley Lynch was sentenced to prison time after being found guilty of harassing Cohen last week (12Apr12).

Cohen said, "I want to thank the defendant Ms. Kelley Lynch for insisting on a jury trial, thus exposing to the light of day her massive depletion of my retirement savings and yearly earnings, and allowing the court to observe her profoundly unwholesome, obscene and relentless strategies to escape the consequences of her wrongdoing.

"The eight-year ordeal of harassment of my family, my friends, my associates, and myself was designed specifically to avoid or postpone the inevitable day of reckoning with the IRS, the day when she will be bound to account for the taxes she has neglected to pay on the stolen monies that she received and failed to report."

Lynch was also ordered to take anger management classes and will have progress reports every three months. She must also undergo a mental evaluation at the end of 18 months.

During the trial in California, Cohen took the stand to tell a jury how Lynch terrorised him with phone calls and threats after he fired her in 2004.