Britney Spears' attorney is planning to grill her father over how much money he and her business managers reaped from the pop star's estate, and he's seeking extensive documentation about other actions during the conservatorship, according to documents obtained by BuzzFeed News Tuesday.
The Oct. 28 document, made public Tuesday, formally signed Britney Spears onto the petition to terminate the conservatorship that was previously filed by her father, Jamie Spears. In it, Britney Spears' attorney Mathew Rosengart notes that his team is still waiting for Jamie Spears to respond to requests for documents and other potential evidence and also to sit down for a deposition as they investigate his actions during the legal arrangement that gave him control over his daughter's life and finances.
Rosengart has said that if they uncover evidence that Jamie Spears misappropriated his daughter’s money or engaged in any other misconduct, Britney Spears will sue.
According to the documents, Rosengart has asked Jamie Spears to provide documents regarding nearly 40 issues, including the following:
- All communications between Jamie and any representative of Britney Spears' former business management company Tri Star Sports & Entertainment Group, including Lou Taylor and Robin Greenhill
- "All documents relating to payments or approval for payments made for legal representation of Lou Taylor or Robin Greenhill"
- All communications, including texts and instant messages, with "security services and/or guards" who have worked at Spears' home
- All communications, including texts and instant messages, with individuals who have been contracted to work at Spears' home
- All communications, including texts and instant messages, with Spears' current or past physicians, therapists, or other doctors
- All communications, including texts and instant messages, regarding Spears' medications
- All communications, including texts and instant messages, relating to Spears' "stays at non-hospital, residential medical facilities, including rehabilitation facilities"
- All lease or rental agreements paid for by Spears' estate
- All communications, including texts and instant messages, relating to the monthly allowance that Jamie Spears has allowed to Britney Spears from her estate
- All documents regarding Britney Spears' vacation to Hawaii this past summer
- All documents and communications regarding "the electronic surveillance, monitoring, cloning, or recording of the activity of" Britney Spears' personal phone, "including but not limited to the surveillance, monitoring, cloning, icloud mirroring, or recording of calls, e-mails, text messages, internet browser use or history, and social media use or direct messages on social media"
- All documents and communications regarding "any recording or listening device" in Spears' home or bedroom, the decision to place any such device, and "the records of any such recordings"
The request for documents was sent in late August. Shortly after, on Sept. 7, Jamie Spears filed the petition to terminate the conservatorship.
In the Oct. 28 filing, Rosengart also indicates that he plans to ask Jamie Spears about the money he and any entity he owns have received from his daughter's estate since the conservatorship's creation in early 2008, as well as payments made from her estate to management company Tri Star, its employees, and others "but for the benefit of [Jamie Spears]" and payments made "for the benefit of anyone who works or worked" for Tri Star.
Rosengart first sought to depose Jamie Spears on Oct. 20, according to the documents, but it appears that has not yet happened. It's unclear whether a new date has been set. Jamie Spears' attorney Alex Weingarten did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News' request for comment.
In a status report filed with the court Monday, Weingarten said his client "has nothing to hide regarding his administration of Britney's estate" and will "unconditionally cooperate in transferring all files" to Rosengart "without delay."
"A
substantial portion of that transfer has already been accomplished and the process will continue
with alacrity until complete," he wrote. "The time for innuendo, misrepresentations and impudent gossip is
over. It does not serve the judicial system and most importantly, it is toxic to Britney and her
family. Jamie is committed to full and complete transparency over all of it."
On Sept. 29, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny suspended Jamie Spears as conservator of his daughter's estate, freeing her from the control he held over her life for more than 13 years. The court is expected to terminate Spears’ conservatorship altogether at a hearing on Nov. 12.
"Ms. Spears has made her wishes known about ending the conservatorship she has endured for so long and she has pleaded with this Court to 'let her have her life back,' without an evaluation, recently attending two Court hearings and asking this Court directly to end the conservatorship," Rosengart writes in the newly released filing. "It is respectfully submitted—with the consent of all parties—that the time has come."