Judge Brenda Penny ordered Spears’ father to produce all documents related to the electronic surveillance. The move favors the singer and suggests the court believes it has grounds to further investigate shocking allegations that Jamie Spears hired a security firm to keep his daughter under surveillance throughout her custody, with allegations that she was watching her phone and fell into her bedroom. record her private conversations. Before the judge’s ruling, Jamie Spears’ attorney, Alex Weingarten, asked the judge to give his team access to documents from the singer’s team to help prepare for his client’s deposition. The hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court was sparked by a heated exchange between Weingarten and the star’s attorney, Mathew Rosengart. “It’s a deposition. No ambush,” Weingarten argued in the courtroom, before Judge Penny ruled against his request to obtain documents before his client’s deposition. Wednesday’s hearing marked a major victory for the singer, who has been fighting her father in an ongoing legal battle since her Conservative tenure ended last year. Spears was placed under a court order in 2008 by her father, who was her sole breadwinner for most of 13 years. After more than a decade of fighting the deal, Spears’ father was suspended by the court in September 2021, and the conservatorship was finally terminated in November 2021. Despite the singer’s newfound freedom, her legal team’s battle remained messy with no solution from either side. After about two hours, the judge called for a break as another proposition was on the table: whether the pop star would need to be removed from her father’s team. Last month, Jamie Spears filed to have his daughter removed in light of her social media posts. Rosengart shot down the request, calling it “vindictive” and “false.” Initially, at the hearing, the judge granted a temporary injunction to deny Jamie Spears’ motion to depose Britney Spears. But after an argument from Weingarten, who said he would appeal the ruling, Penny indicated she might push the matter to a later hearing, but then took a brief break from the courtroom. “You don’t sit a victim for a deposition that should be deposed by the victim,” Rosengart argued in the courtroom, telling the judge that sitting for a deposition would be “re-injuring” the singer. At one point, pleading with the judge to allow his team to depose the pop star, Weingarten said that “unfortunately” there are documents under seal and “court orders regarding” the electronic surveillance. “Based on what I know,” he said, “I suspect Ms. Spears will be a treasure trove of information.” Weingarten said that if the judge rules that Britney Spears does not have to sit for testimony, while ruling that Jamie Spears does, his client will not have a “fair day in court.” He said he is being held to a “different standard” than other parties in the case, based on “unproven allegations.” “I appreciate that it’s fashionable to trash Jamie Spears,” Weingarten told the judge “But he has rights … In this country, you’re innocent until proven guilty.” Rosengart stood up and strongly opposed Weingarten. “You don’t put a victim in front of a victim again. It’s the wrong thing to do,” Rosengart said. “That would be wrong, whether my client was Britney Spears or Jane Doe. “The mere deposition alone is harassment,” Rosengart told the judge. Rosengart has been fighting Jamie Spears and the singer’s former business manager, Tri Star Sports & Entertainment, since he was retained by Spears in the summer of 2021. He accused the company of “stonewalling” his efforts to obtain information about his client. , refusing to cooperate and avoiding depositions. Spears’ legal team said it had been calling for the elder Spears to be removed for nine months and claimed he had avoided those requests. On Wednesday, during the hearing, Judge Penny sided with the star, agreeing that Jamie Spears did not appear for his deposition. Earlier this month, in bombshell court documents, Rosengart alleged that his client’s father and Tri Star conspired to set up the retainer and reap the benefits by taking millions of the superstar’s hard-earned money, instead of seeking the her interest. they refuse. (Tri Star and its founder, Lou Taylor, served as the superstar’s business managers from 2008 to 2020, and the company was acquired by Spears’ father around the time he placed it in receivership.) Rosengart alleged that Tri Star was directly involved in setting up the conservatorship and received at least $18 million in all of it. Tri Star’s lawyers denied this, stating: “As all the evidence makes abundantly clear, the conservative organization was founded at the recommendation of legal counsel, not Tri Star, and has been approved by the Court for more than 12 years.” Spears’ father and Tri Star have been the subject of damning accusations, both by the media and by private investigators hired by Rosengart’s company. While the stalking allegations focused largely on Spears’ father and Black Box, the security team he allegedly hired, Tri Star found itself at the center of widespread allegations of financial mismanagement. A report in the New York Times claimed that the star was under surveillance by a security team hired by her father and that Tri Star was involved in monitoring the singer’s phone. At the time, an attorney for Tri Star told the Times, “These allegations are not true.” Earlier this month, Weingarten filed an affidavit from Jamie Spears, denying that he knew his adult daughter’s private bedroom had been broken into or that he authorized the surveillance of the pop star. “I have been made aware of the allegation by Britney’s lawyer that a listening device or ‘bug’ was placed in her bedroom for surveillance during the Conservatorship,” the statement said. “This claim is false.”
