Courtney Love’s former attorney, Keith A. Fink, hurt her when he represented her between April and early November 2009 through negligence and misleading the public in talking to TMZ.
Courtney Love plays at SXSW Music Festival, March 19, in Austin, TX. (Jonathan Mehring/Blixah, AP Images)
Court documents show that of five known cases entered against Love during Fink’s seven to eight months as her lawyer, he allowed 80 percent of them to slide into default judgment against her.
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.
Britney Spears made her second court appearance in two years in her conservatorship case on Jan. 22. It was her third court appearance since late 2007. This illustration was provided by the permission of Mona Shafer Edwards at www.monaedwards.com. The image is by the courtesy of www.killthelights.org.
Britney Spears is not required or expected to be at a status hearing in the conservatorship scheduled for Tuesday, said Liz Martinez of the Los Angeles Superior Court’s public affairs office on Friday. I am telling you due to rumors I’ve been hearing.
Even if she were to be there, I wouldn’t trust the media to tell me what really happened.
On Jan. 22, headlines buried the significance of a Spears appearance: it was only the second time in two years of being under a conservatorship by her father that she met with Commissioner Reva Goetz.
Britney Spears and a conservator's employee Feb. 8, 2008. Courtesy of Kill the Lights.
The straw that broke the camel’s back there was the dot.com bust and a new found passion in dealing with some of the rarest of rare, software and IP network engineers: fascinating world. I could never go back to “corporate” after that and I could never work for any organization that didn’t do the best for their job candidates. That includes Google based on firsthand experience with them.
A job candidate is a special person and their experiences with a company in the interview process affect not only themselves but family, friends and community organizations. I found my job with them and members of an organization to be one of customer service and tantamount to that performance was information. The worse thing a recruiter can do is to leave a job candidate or a manager in silence. They should never have to come to you and ask what happened. Maybe that’s why I have been referred to in the past as one of the best recruiters on the planet. Customer service.
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.
Hi, this is still a blog right? Happy holidays then.
I wrote the following comment on Courtney Love Cobain’s Facebook wall. There had been some confusion there between her fans and those who follow Britney Spears. I thought about it later and realized that not all readers may know about the twist in the case of Courtney losing legal control over her daughter and later also receiving a temporary restraining order.
Suffice. The lawyers involved in Courtney’s case are the same lawyers who work for Jamie Spears and the conservatorship. The judge is also the same as documents from TMZ reveal.
On to the post:
I have a few more minutes here and then I am going outside, but I thought to explain to those unfamiliar with Britney Spears’conservatorship case who some of the players are. If you open the documents through the TMZ link posted two hours ago, you will see attorneys Geraldine Wyle, Jeryll S. Cohen, and the Hon. Reva Goetz.
Google any of those names plus Spears and conservatorship and you are sure to find them in connection. Wyle and Cohen both work for Jamie Spears and I believe they were involved from the beginning of the conservatorship in Feb. 2008.
TMZ knows that as does the AP and any other news organization that covers courtroom news or celebrity gossip but none of them are saying it. TMZ only shows the document that is six pages but they do not help readers make the connection back to Jamie Spears and the conservatorship. One clearly also sees the Hon. Reva Goetz. She’s the one who ruled on Feb. 4, 2008 that based on the court appointed attorney’s meeting with Britney at UCLA that she did not understand legal proceedings and lacked capacity to hire her own lawyer. A simple search of journalist Linda Deutsch and capacity should bring up all that drama that also involved Adam Streisand who is now working with the Jackson family. … See More
I do believe that the connection between Courtney Love Cobain and Jamie Spears is fascinating and that it was irresponsible for the media to omit it (hide? conceal?) and distract us instead with tales of clothing designers and lawsuits based on Twitter. And. That they continue to. I don’t know if Courtney will keep any of this info up but hopefully at least some of you will see what is happening and be less confused. Happy holidays.
23 minutes ago
Author’s note: I posted this and other information more specific to Courtney’s case and media treatment on her Facebook account, if interested. She is listed under Courtney Love Cobain and if you follow her as a fan you may learn more of her story and how strangely it is connected back to Britney Spears. For those who don’t know, Courtney claimed over the Thanksgiving holiday that Jamie molested his daughter.
Lou Taylor, a Spears’family spokesperson has not directly refuted the claim. Instead she was quoted by the New York Daily News as saying, “”We’re not commenting on Courtney Love, or any aliens who might come to Earth to impregnate people.”
Courtney responded, after seeing the story on her Facebook account, “I went to Sting and Trudys “Twin Spirits” wonderful Schullman letters event and sat with my dearest friend Stipe (Michael) tonight, not that the names matter, but I didn’t see ONE alien impregnating ANYONE!” (some punctuation added by Fair News Spears.)
Update: More of Love Cobain’s side of the story. Like Britney and the imposed conservatorship no prior notice was given to Courtney Love as Wyle took action to remove her daughter from her life. http://www.spinner.com/2009/12/22/courtney-love-planned-christmas-for-daughter-before-custody-hear/
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?
Britney in a scrum of paparazzi Oct 2009.
As reported earlier Spears’ attorney, Benjamin C. Alvarez, made a motion to strike Mendoza’s claim to punitive damages last August. Alavez says that Mendoza hasn’t made a case based on fact and uses conclusionary unsupported allegations.
Mendoza, who worked for TMZ at the time of the accident, claims Spears ran over his foot and, “…operated a motor vehicle recklessly, wantonly, unlawfully, maliciously and with conscious disregard for the rights, health and safety of others.”
Spears’attorney fired back in his attempt to dismiss the claim that Mendoza “…is a self-serving profit hungry paparazzo, who was swarming and lunging at defendant’s vehicle along with other paparazzo.”
Alvarez says that Mendoza’s complaint for punitive damages lacks fact and that subjecting Spears’ companies, such as Britney Touring, Inc. and Britney Brand, Inc., to his claims is an attempt to “up the ante.”
[Read more...]
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.
