“You shouldn’t believe something just because a lawyer wrote it down,” says Kevin Federline’s family lawyer as a tip to the paparazzi.
That said, Sam Lutfi offers his most recent allegations against Britney Spears and her family in pursuit of records he believes will support his case against Jamie, Lynne and Britney Spears.
[Read more...]
Lead singer of the US rock band Nirvana Kurt Cobain is shown in a 1993 file photo. (AP Photo/Mark J.Terrill)
A settlement was reached yesterday in a two-year lawsuit against Courtney Love for breach of contract in a case that involved unpaid commissions from the sale of a portion of the writer’s share of the Nirvana catalog in mid-2007.
London and Company, an accounting and business management services firm that provides services to clients in the entertainment and other industries, sued Love and The End of Music on July 22, 2008. The firm claimed they were entitled to a five percent commission on $19,500,000 generated from the sale of the catalog and that Love never paid them their share of $975,000.
Lawyers for the parties did not disclose the terms of the settlement in Los Angeles Superior Court.
“The case is settled and it’s all for the good,” says Robert G. Wilson a partner of Gordon Kemper who represents London and Company.
Courtney Love, of Hole, plays at SXSW Music Festival Friday, March 19th in Austin, Texas. (Jonathan Mehring/Blixah for AP Images)
“From Courtney’s perspective he is not her friend. He represented her for a period of time. She was unhappy and terminated him. She was not adequately represented. She wants nothing to do with him,” says one of Love’s current attorneys Michael J. Niborski, Pryor Cashman.
“At some point we had to contact him and tell him to stop representing her,” he says.
Courtney Love arrives for the 2009 Elle Style Awards at Big Sky studios in north London on Feb. 9, 2009. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan) By permission of the Puma Press.
Update: Courtney Love Cobain retweeted this story today. She offered no corrections or additional comments. Be sure to check out Misc. Court Docs. There’s a document at the top for you Love fans.
Update II: Feb. 19. Love says Judge Mitchell Beckloff recused himself but she waived it.
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A new judge has been assigned to the guardianship matter of Frances Bean Cobain and a related temporary restraining order against her mother, Courtney Love.
The case was transferred to Judge Mitchell Beckloff on Jan. 22 in Los Angeles County.
Commissioner Reva Goetz was disqualified by a California Code of Civil Procedure Section 170.6 challenge, said Liz Martinez, a public affairs office representative.
Section 170.6 provides that no judge, commissioner or referee shall try any civil or criminal matter when it is established that there is prejudice against any party, attorney or the interest of any party or attorney appearing in the action or proceeding, says the state’s Web site.
The challenge may have been based in connection to Britney and Jamie Spears.
Courtesy of JFXonline.com Oct. 2009
A lawsuit against Adnan Ghalib, a former paparazzo and ex-boyfriend of Britney Spears, may be dismissed in spring due to a conditional settlement that was recently reached.
“We conditionally settled the case. The case is not being dismissed until the settlement is fully performed,” says David S. Olson, attorney for plaintiff Ram Moskowitz.
Moskowitz filed a complaint in April claiming that Ghalib slammed his Mercedes into him on Feb. 11 as he was trying to serve a temporary restraining order against him pertaining to Spears’conservatorship, say court documents.
Courtesy of Kill the Lights
TMZ delivered a message to the public over the weekend that isn’t rooted in anything happening at the courthouse in Los Angeles and it’s not the first time.
The celebrity news site has made it seem that attorneys are meeting so that Spears could be released from the conservatorhip she is under but none of TMZ’s stories have been based on courtroom fact. Last week TMZ said that attorneys in the case were in the courtroom “right now” talking about ending the conservatorship but that wasn’t quite true. According to the court’s online records last week’s hearing was related to scheduled accounting matters.
No motions have been made and no documents have been filed to indicate that the conservatorship is coming to an end soon.
“If there is a motion to terminate there would a document on file. There isn’t any,” says Vania Stuelp today.
Stuelp also says that if there were proceedings going on to terminate the conservatorship that she would expect to be notified.
Courtesy of JFXonline.com Oct. 2009
Update, Jan. 28: I will complete this story soon but there is a key source I would still like to talk to that would tell more of the process servers’side of the story.
Evidence has surfaced that may explain why prosecutors allowed Adnan Ghalib to avoid a potential seven year jail sentence and to serve 45 days instead on felony charges lodged in Feb. 2009 for allegedly striking a process server with his car.
The underreported facts suggest a scene in which Ghalib may have felt threatened.
Ram Moskowitz, the alleged victim and process server in the incident, filed a declaration with the Los Angeles Superior Court on Feb. 23, 2009, the same day that the public and the judge heard testimony from Britney Spears’father, Jamie Spears, in support of the restraining order he sought against Ghalib that led to the events of Feb. 11.
Moskowitz testifies that he was not alone in the alleyway that day outside of Ghalib’s ex-wife’s apartment and that he was with another agent, Jesse Martell who remained in a vehicle. Moskowitz also says that Ghalib had already been served with the same temporary restraining order that he was allegedly trying to give him.
Moskowitz says that he previously filed proof of service on Ghalib, prior to filing the declaration on Feb. 23 and that his co-worker, Jason Alexander, served Ghalib on Feb. 2.
The declaration first surfaced on Feb. 27, 2009 on celebrity news site TMZ, however TMZ omitted information that may have made the public more sympathetic to Ghalib’s situation on the charges of assault with a deadly weapon, battery with serious bodily injury, and hit and run causing death or injury as alleged by the prosecution. TMZ instead created an obvious negative character from the declaration.
“The process server who was allegedly hit by a Mercedes driven by Adnan Ghalib made it clear in a court declaration — Adnan could have killed him.
“Ram Moskowitz (first name, first clue) claims when he tried serving Adnan with Britney Spears’TRO, Adnan gunned his car and hit him. The force propelled Ram onto the hood. He claims “I stayed on the hood … for about 30 to 40 yards, at which point I was thrown off…””
If the case gone to trial before a jury (Ghalib pled no contest in October to leaving the scene of an accident) the jurors might also have learned that Moskowitz and Martell both had permits to carry firearms and could legally expose those firearms while on duty. Moskowitz applied for a firearm permit on Jan. 23, 2009. He was granted the permit on Jan. 26, 2009, just days before Ghalib was served on Feb. 2, according to online records available through the Department of Consumer Affair’s Bureau of Security and Investigative Services. Martell has had a permit since 1995 and a private investigator’s license that was issued in 1992. He also has his own private company called Martell Investigations.
When asked about the permits and if he and Moskowitz were carrying their firearms on Feb. 11 Martell says, “How do you know that information? If you already know that why are you asking?”
But later he says in response to the same question, “We weren’t carrying firearms. You don’t need a firearm to serve a subpoena.”
More coming soon…after finals week?
Courtesy of JFXonline.com
Peter Korn, Ghalib’s defense attorney did not wish to discuss the matter in a public courtroom in May saying that the media would exaggerate the issues. Korn also objected to an unnamed male attorney being present but it was unclear from the court transcript whether he meant present in chambers with the judge to rule on media presence or the hearing itself.
Korn’s objections were recorded by a court reporter during pretrial proceedings to see if there was enough evidence to proceed to a trial on felony assault charges stemming from an altercation between Ghalib and a process server, Ram Moskowitz. While seeming to merit enough attention to warrant celebrity news cameramen onsite, The Associated Press ignored the event and subsequent hearings to date if a search of LexisNexis and Proquest news databases is to be believed.
Lou Ferrara, who manages sports, entertainment and multimedia for the AP, offered no explanation in recent email communication that addressed amongst other issues, the lack of coverage on this case and on an ongoing civil suit between Sam Lutfi, Spears’ ex-manager and companion, against Britney’s mother, Lynne Spears.
Meanwhile, both Radaronline and TMZ had live feed of the May hearing but all footage of the hearing vanished without explanation from Radaronline the same day that it appeared. Senior editor Mary Margaret who has sometimes appeared as a guest on CNN, said she didn’t know anything about it and was under deadline; then she did not return follow-up phone calls.
TMZ has declined to make comment about Korn’s claim as to Ghalib’s safety and also videotapes that appeared on TMZ’s website showing their cameraman harassing Ghalib as he walked with his attorney outside the courthouse. The taunts were in somewhat mild form such as, “Adnan, you look good in that suit, did Britney buy it for you?” to more tawdry comments about Lindsay Lohan, her mental state and whether Ghalib has any tips for bedding her.
Since May there has been no live stream or recorded videotape of Ghalib in the courtroom offered anywhere in public view.
Ghalib has plead not guilty and is due back in court on Sep. 29 confirms a media relations spokesperson of the Los Angeles Superior Court system.
Today begins a series on what led up to Ghalib being in court in the first place: that is to say, the things celebrity media or otherwise have declined to reveal.
Photo courtesy of Kill the Lights.org
As first reported by TMZ last May, Ricardo Mendoza is suing Spears for damages from the incident.
Britney Touring Inc. and Britney Brands are controlled entities of Spears that also named in the suit. Mendoza asserts they should have known that Britney was not in the mental, emotional, and/or physical condition to operate a motor vehicle in a safe and reasonable manner. According to the complaint the companies carelessly and negligently owned, operated and entrusted, leased, repaired, maintained and/or controlled a white Mercedes-Benz so as to cause said vehicle to run over Mendoza’s foot with the subject vehicle’s tire severely injuring him.
Mendoza says she “… operated a motor vehicle recklessly, wantonly, unlawfully, maliciously and with conscious disregard for the rights, health and safety of others.”
He also says that Spears had a conscious disregard for the rights and safety of others so as to cause her vehicle to drive, push, ram and/or barrel through a crowd of people that included him.
A judge ruled yesterday that a lawsuit against Britney by a former member of her security team will go forward to a jury trial set for May 2010 according to the Los Angeles Superior Court case summary.
The suit was filed by Kerry M. Vine against Spears and his former employer Advanced Security Concepts (ASC), a security team that works for her father and the conservatorship based on 2009 expenses filed by Jamie Spears earlier this year. Vine wants compensation for negligence, infliction of emotional distress and loss of wages says the complaint he filed in May 2009.
ASC was dismissed from the case at the end of July and Gallagher Bassett Services, a company that insures employers against workmen’s compensation claims, was added per the case summary.
In the original complaint, Vine claims that ASC ordered him to perform duties that resulted in physical injuries and damage to his personal property and self. He claims Britney negligently operated her home and business thereby causing his injuries since ASC was employed by the defendants (Britney and ASC) at the time. He also claims that the defendants’ extreme and outrageous conduct intentionally and recklessly caused him severe emotional distress.
