Britney Spears’ personal conservator Jodi Montgomery is alleging in new court papers that Spears’ father, Jamie, used $2 million of the pop superstar’s funds in his own defense.
Montgomery has acted as the conservator over Spears’ person since she temporarily took over for Jamie in September 2019, after he asked the court to allow him to step down due to “personal health reasons.” In new documents filed to Los Angeles court on Friday by Montgomery’s attorney Lauriann Wright, she alleges that Jamie has not been acting in the best interest of his daughter.
“It is ironic that Mr. Spears now wants the conservatorship to ‘reflect her wishes,’ since it is no secret that Ms. Spears has wished her father out of her life for years,” she says in the recent filing, adding that he has used “more than $2 million of his daughter’s money” to keep his post as co-conservator of her estate.
Montgomery asked Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny on July 7 to approve that the 24/7 protection she requested be paid for by the conservatorship, which could cost up to $50,000 a month. Jamie’s attorney Vivian Lee Thoreen filed an opposition the next day, arguing that Montgomery “is not the only person involved in this Conservatorship who has received threatening communications and/or death threats” and suggested other feasible options for security.
Montgomery also said in the documents that she and Jamie “should be working as a team to ensure that Ms. Spears’ best interests are being met, that she is on a path to recovery and termination of her conservatorship, and that she is living her best life possible. Instead, Mr. Spears has decided it is time to start the finger-pointing and media attacks.”
Britney’s court-appointed lawyer Samuel D. Ingham III; Bessemer Trust, the wealth management firm that was appointed to be co-conservator of the singer’s financial affairs alongside Jamie; and her longtime manager Larry Rudolph have all recently announced their intentions to step away from the situation in the weeks following her bombshell court hearing. On June 23, the 39-year-old superstar told Judge Penny in an open court that she wished for the end of her “abusive” conservatorship that she entered into in 2008. During her 20-minute testimony, Britney said she believed she should sue Montgomery and her team for making her go visit her therapist and psychiatrist multiple times a week.
But in the new court filing, Montgomery included screenshots with texts from the singer, who’s referred to as “Jane Doe,” where she says, “I need u to stay as my co conservator of person. I’m asking u for ur assistance in getting a new attorney.” Last Wednesday, Montgomery filed a petition for a guardian ad litem to help Britney pick her own attorney to replace Ingham after he requested to resign. She argued this would allow said guardian to retain the attorney Britney wants on her behalf, since the pop star cannot enter into such a contract on her own, and would bypass the need for an evaluation of her capacity to retain her own attorney.
“After 13 years of court-appointed counsel, she wants to select her own counsel,” the filing reads. “At the hearing on June 23, 2021, Ms. Spears addressed the Court and repeatedly expressed her desire to select her own counsel, without an additional medical evaluation.”
