Britney Spears Fires Back at Dad’s Fee Request: He Can’t ‘Siphon Even More Money’
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Attorneys for Britney Spears have filed a scathing response to her father’s recent demand that her estate continue paying his legal fees, calling it “morally abominable” and accusing him of financial wrongdoing, “bullying conduct,” and even “chronic alcohol abuse.”
Jamie Spears was suspended in September and the entire conservatorship was terminated in November, but in December, he requested that a Los Angeles judge order the estate to keep paying his expensive legal bills. He said such payment was necessary to ensure the case “wound up quickly and efficiently.”
In a response filed in court Jan. 14, the pop star’s attorney Mathew Rosengart blasted that request as both “legally meritless” and “morally abominable.”
“Mr. Spears, an ignominiously suspended conservator — of a conservatorship that has been terminated — now seeks to siphon even more money from his daughter,” wrote Rosengart, a former federal prosecutor at the law firm Greenberg Traurig. “Mr. Spears has stated that he loves his daughter. But this is not what a father who loves his daughter does.”
Rosengart has long accused Jamie of serious wrongdoing during Jamie’s time as conservator, but this latest filing included an exceptionally detailed list of alleged misdeeds. The filing accuses the elder Spears of enriching himself at his daughter’s expense, “financial and business mismanagement,” “abusive and bullying conduct,” invasions of privacy and violations of “fundamental civil liberties,” and “chronic alcohol abuse impairing his ability to serve faithfully,” among other allegations.
In particularly notable accusations, Rosengart claimed that Jamie’s investigators used GPS “Ping Data” to surveil the location of “individuals of interest,” including the pop star’s romantic interests. He also accused Jamie of paying “excessive” legal fees to outside law firms, allegedly totaling more than $30 million.
Other accusations focused on alleged personal gain for the elder Spears. In one, Rosengart claimed that Jamie abused his position as conservator to pressure Britney’s touring staff to help him pitch a reality TV show called Cookin’ Cruzin’ and Chaos With Jamie Spears to the Cooking Channel.
An attorney for Jamie Spears did not immediately return a request for comment on the new filing. Jamie’s request for attorney’s fees and Britney’s opposition will be considered by Judge Brenda Penny at hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday (Jan. 19).
Friday’s filing came in response to a December motion filed by Jamie’s attorneys, which argued that the termination of the conservatorship did not end his ongoing “fiduciary obligations” and that he was legally entitled to have his legal bills reimbursed by the estate.
“Prompt payment … is necessary to ensure the conservatorship can be wound up quickly and efficiently to allow Britney to take control of her life as she and Jamie desire,” wrote Alex M. Weingarten, Jamie’s attorney.
A dollar total was not included in December request, but individual attorneys at the kind of white-shoe law law firms hired by Jamie routinely charge more than $1,000 per hour for their services. Weingarten is at Willkie Farr & Gallagher; Jamie’s previous attorneys were from Holland & Knight.
In his new filing, Rosengart not only accused Jamie of a litany of wrongdoings, but also argued that his request for fees was a losing legal argument.
“We respectfully submit that the system was not designed to work this way,” he wrote. “Permitting Mr. Spears to pay his lawyers from Britney Spears’ Estate without judicial oversight (largely for the purpose of mounting a ‘defense’ to potential claims against him) would grant them a license to run up fees waging a war of attrition, obstruct efforts to discover the truth about everything Mr. Spears has done, and incur fees not to assist the ‘transition’ (for which he and his new counsel are not even necessary, as the files are in the possession of Mr. Spears’s prior counsel) but to defend himself and cover up the truth.”
The pop star was placed in the conservatorship, under control of her father, in 2008 following a string of erratic behavior and public incidents. But the arrangement began to be scrutinized in 2019, leading to high-profile investigative documentaries and a #FreeBritney movement among fans. The process culminated in November in a ruling by Judge Brenda Penny that legally ended the arrangement.
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