Britney Spears attends a film premiere on July 22, 2019 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)
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After weeks of legal blows, Britney Spears got her wish: Her father, James Spears, has officially been suspended as her conservator.
In a Wednesday hearing, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny agreed to suspend James Spears’ control of his daughter’s roughly $60 million estate. Britney Spears has accused her father of overseeing an allegedly abusive conservatorship where, she said, her handlers refused to let her remove her IUD, managed her diet, and pressured her to work when she didn’t want to, among other explosive allegations.
Shortly after Mathew Rosengart became Spears’ new attorney, Rosengart moved to remove James Spears from the conservatorship. James Spears agreed in early August to step down as conservator—then filed documents calling for an end to the conservatorship entirely.
Much of the Wednesday hearing split along these battle lines: While Rosengart pushed for the immediate removal of James Spears, an attorney for James Spears asked to instead focus the discussion about terminating the conservatorship. There is, Spears said in a recent filing, “no adequate basis” for his suspension or removal.
James Spears has denied wrongdoing and said in a court filing he was the “unremitting target of unjustified attacks.”
Britney Spears has not filed her own court documents to end the conservatorship, although Rosengart said in a recent filing that she “emphatically consents” to doing so. Instead, in a filing this week, her legal team doubled down on the effort to kick James out and suggested that his recent legal maneuvers were a smokescreen to cause further delay and part of “efforts to confuse the issues.”
“He knows his toxic presence is harming his daughter on a daily basis,” Rosengart wrote in the filing. “Mr. Spears was, of course, never fit to serve, for all of the many compelling reasons already contained in the record, ranging from his lack of financial acumen, to his bankruptcy, to his reported alcoholism, to the trauma he caused his daughter since her childhood, to the domestic violence restraining order recently issued against him.”
James’ desire for a delay, Rosengart said, was really because he wanted a settlement with his famous daughter. Plus, if the conservatorship is terminated, James Spears wouldn’t have to hand over documents that could shed light on the extent of his control over Britney.
Rosengart’s filing also brought up a recent, explosive New York Times exposé, which reported that James Spears had employed a security firm to run an extensive surveillance operation on Britney Spears—one that included tailing her boyfriends, monitoring her electronic communications, and recording the pop icon in her bedroom.
“All of his actions were well within the parameters of the authority conferred upon him by the court,” a lawyer for James Spears told the Times in a statement. “His actions were done with the knowledge and consent of Britney, her court-appointed attorney, and/or the court.”
Now, John Zabel, a certified public accountant, will take over as conservator for the time being. Penny may soon set a further hearing to address the possible demise of the conservatorship.
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