Schwartz, born in New York but raised in West Philadelphia, served in the state House in the 1950s and later spent more than 20 years as a Philadelphia council member, the last eight as council president.
His career unraveled after he was videotaped in a January 1980 meeting at the Barclay Hotel, a few blocks from City Hall, accepting $30,000 from an FBI agent posing as a phony sheik's representative. The agent told Schwartz the sheik planned to build a luxury hotel and wanted to establish reliable relationships with influential public officials.
Schwartz argued that he was entrapped, but he was convicted later that year of conspiracy and extortion. Two months later, a judge ruled that he and another councilman had been the victims of entrapment and overturned the verdicts, but the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision, and two appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court were rejected.
In 1985, Schwartz began serving a one-year federal prison sentence. He also was fined $10,000.
Schwartz is survived by three children, 10 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
