When Britney Spears addressed the court in June, she said she had been drugged, forced to work and prevented from removing her birth control device in recent years while under the conservatorship. She called for those overseeing it to be investigated and jailed, pointing to her father, James P. Spears, as “the one who approved all of it.”
“Controlling Britney Spears,” a documentary on the subject by The New York Times, also revealed that a surveillance apparatus monitored the singer’s communications and secretly captured audio recordings from her bedroom, according to a former employee of the security firm that was hired to protect her.
Ms. Spears’s lawyer, Mathew S. Rosengart, has since added to those accusations the prospect of financial mismanagement by Mr. Spears and the estate’s former business manager, Tri Star Sports & Entertainment Group, issuing subpoenas for sworn depositions and extensive records, including payments and communication between the parties, as well as the security firm behind the monitoring of Ms. Spears.
Mr. Rosengart has argued that Mr. Spears’s sudden desire to end the conservatorship after years of defending its necessity was tied to hopes that he could avoid legal discovery and being deposed under oath.
In the latest filings, Mr. Spears’s lawyers wrote that their client “has nothing to hide regarding his administration of Britney’s estate and will therefore hide nothing.”
They added that Mr. Spears “supports, indeed encourages, a full and transparent examination of the Conservatorship and has every confidence that said review will put to rest the outlandish, scurrilous and irresponsible speculation that has accompanied the media circus surrounding these proceedings.” The filings called Mr. Spears’s desire to immediately end the conservatorship “unconditional,” arguing that the transferring of records and his cooperation with Ms. Spears and her lawyers “will occur regardless.”
Lawyers for Tri Star, in their own filing, denied that the company’s employees had any control over Ms. Spears’s medical treatment or security protocols, including hidden electronic surveillance. They argued that the company’s financial dealings with the estate were approved by the court before the firm’s resignation from the conservatorship last year.
Even though Judge Brenda Penny decided to end the conservatorship on Friday, it is likely that these issues will remain to be addressed at subsequent hearings.
Source: Music - nytimes.com
