For nearly 40 years, the novelist Bret Easton Ellis has been chronicling noirish debauchery in best-selling books such as “American Psycho” and “Less Than Zero.” This week, his partner, Todd Michael Schultz, was arrested at the fancy Los Angeles condominium building where the couple lives, and was charged with burglary, according to Abraham Bedoyan, a sergeant at the West Hollywood sheriff’s station.
On Tuesday, Sergeant Bedoyan said, management at 818 North Doheny Drive received a phone call from a female resident in distress. The resident said that a man had entered her apartment and was ransacking her things, according to a police report Sergeant Bedoyan read from.
The woman reportedly told management that the intruder was “unresponsive” to her requests that he leave her apartment.
Building representatives arrived and detained the man, whom Sergeant Bedoyan confirmed to be Mr. Schultz, 37. There is nothing to suggest Mr. Ellis, 59, was associated with the crime, according to Sergeant Bedoyan.
An eyewitness outside, who requested anonymity because she did not want to be associated with the story or the case, said that numerous police cars soon arrived. While residents milled about, discussing what had taken place, Mr. Ellis paced the sidewalk seemingly in distress while talking on his cellphone.
In a text message on Friday evening, Mr. Ellis said that Mr. Schultz had been having “serious mental health issues exacerbated by drugs.” He said that the episode was nonviolent and that Mr. Schultz, experiencing a psychotic break, walked into an open apartment, believing it to be Mr. Ellis’s.
