“Every day matters,” wrote the singer’s attorney Mathew Rosengart in his request for the court to hear the case on Aug. 23 instead of Sept. 29.
Britney Spears is pushing to move up the hearing date on the conservatorship that has dictated nearly every aspect of her life for the last 13 years.
Mathew Rosengart, the attorney Spears picked to represent her, filed a motion in Los Angeles probate court on Thursday asking Judge Brenda Penny to advance the next court hearing to Aug. 23 or, at the very least, before Sept. 5.
The hearing on whether Spears’ father, James “Jamie” Spears, should remain her conservator is currently scheduled for Sept. 29.
“Every day that passes is another day of avoidable harm and prejudice to Ms. Spears and the Estate,” the filing read, adding that the pop star’s “emotional health and well-being must be, and are, the paramount concern.”
“In short, although a two-month wait for a hearing on the Petition may not seem significant in the context of 13 years, Ms. Spears should not be forced to continue [to] feel traumatized, lose sleep, and suffer further,” Rosengart wrote. “Every day matters.”
Spears, 39, has been trying since last fall to remove her father from the conservatorship in a highly publicized battle. She testified in open court on June 23, denouncing her father’s control over her finances and freedom and the conservatorship’s dehumanizing restraints on her ability to make her own choices.
In the filing on Thursday, Rosengart said he believes Jamie Spears has “dissipated” his daughter’s hard-earned money, accusing him of overpaying the singer’s former business manager, Tri Star Sports and Entertainment. Jamie Spears paid the firm $500,000 in December 2019, according to the filing ― about $300,000 more than what was allegedly due, despite his daughter’s performance hiatus earlier that year.
Rosengart is the first legal counsel that Britney Spears has had permission to select on her own in her conservatorship case. He filed petitions on July 26 asking the court to remove and replace Spears’ father as one of her conservators because he was “stripping his daughter of her dignity, autonomy, and certain fundamental liberties” while she earned the large sums of money.
The lawyer petitioned the court to replace Jamie Spears with Jason Rubin, a professional fiduciary and forensic accountant with experience as a conservator. On Thursday, the attorney reiterated that request and asked that it happen whether Jamie Spears is removed or suspended as his daughter’s conservator.
Rosengart also cited the fact that Britney Spears’ mother, Lynne Spears, had called Jamie Spears “incapable of putting my daughter’s interests ahead of his own on both a professional and a personal level and that his being and remaining a conservator of my daughter’s estate is not in the best interests of my daughter, the conservatee.”
Britney Spears’ medical team also recommended that the pop star’s father be removed from the conservatorship for her mental health, according to a petition on behalf of co-conservator Jodi Montgomery, who has overseen the personal and medical aspects of the singer’s conservatorship since 2019.
Jamie Spears’ attorneys have denied any wrongdoing.
Penny, the judge overseeing the case, was originally going to consider Rosengart’s petitions at a Dec. 13 hearing. That date was advanced to Sept. 29.
“Mr. Spears’ immediate suspension and removal should be inexorable,” Rosengart’s filing said. “Indeed, as we have previously stated, if Mr. Spears truly had the best interests of his daughter in mind, consistent with his obligation as a fiduciary to elevate her interests above his own, he would resign, today.”
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