Following the Money Pre CONservatorship : A Research Thread

[Steel Magnolia]

3 hours ago, RebellionSparkles said:

Oh yes - I have no idea what happened with the onyx lawsuit. If I were to make a wild guess the SBJ Insurance Trust has something to do with the gains/losses from that suit.

Perhaps this is a lawsuit that we need to learn more about?

It seems a little suspect that the results of the Onyx suit were never reported considering the attention it received at the time.

[Tar_isa]

15 hours ago, RebellionSparkles said:

"The mag also catches wind of the rumor we reported earlier this week that the IRS is looking into her finances but comes up with a wacky reason. "They want to find out if she's been ripped off and by whom," and insider tells the mag"

https://radaronline.com/exclusives/2008/10/britney-spears-spent-60-million-php/

 

Well this is interesting...

[RebellionSparkles]

On 4/1/2022 at 2:08 PM, Tar_isa said:

Well this is interesting...

yes and in WEG, they confirm there was a tax audit going on around 2007-2008.

And because the culture around each countries' tax authority differs widely...its worth explicitly saying that a Tax Audit in the US is a really big deal.  There is no effing around. This is when the financial shenanigans are shut down.

Throughout Britney's case the word "audit" is used in three different contexts which mean drastically different things.

(1) The annual CONservatorship probate court "audit" - this is an absolute joke. The court reviews the annual "accounting" submitted. This "audit" serves as a check-the-box activity to make sure the court does not get in trouble.

(2) a royalty audit = reviewing a company's revenues of CD sales, merchandise, etc. to make sure each party is getting their fair share based on a contract. This is a much more legitimate audit, and getting caught lying could subject you to additional lawsuits etc. Financial shenanigans are still feasible.

(3) a tax audit (US gov)= ABSOLUTELY NO EFFING AROUND. If you are caught lying you go to federal prison and have to pay massive fines. Financial shenanigans are not feasible.

[RebellionSparkles]

3 hours ago, Ghoulia said:

lol that is exactly how I made my way to the Orange County business court 😂

yes! its soooo many new documents to feed the super sleuths! and thank goodness for the DownloadThemAll plugin: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/downthemall/

Renaming all the documents was the difficult part.  

[RebellionSparkles]

On 3/31/2022 at 1:40 PM, RebellionSparkles said:

Pre-CONservatorship timeline of Britney's business managers (that handled the finances)

THIS TIMELINE IS FROM TEAM CON…I NEED TO ADD @Steel Magnolia dates from the BH timeline for comparison.

(1) Bert Padell

Padell, Nadell, Fine & Weinberger, LLP

59 Maiden Lane, 27th Floor, New York, NY 10038-4647

(about August 1997 to March 2003)

 

(2) Stacy Smith

Stacy Smith & Associates P.C.

1503 Colley Ave., Norfolk, VA 23517

(April 2003 to October 2004)

 

(3) Todd Gelfand

Gelfand, Rennert & Feldman, LLP

1880 Century Park East, Suite 1600, Los Angeles, CA 90067

(October 2004 to May 2006)

 

( 4) Richard Feldstein

Nigro Karlin Segal & Feldstein, LLP (previously named RHF Management)

10100 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 1300, Los Angeles, CA 90067

(May 2006 to August 2007)

 

(5) Howard Grossman

Goldman, Lichtenberg, Wasserman & Grossman, Inc.

10880 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1725, Los Angeles, CA 90024

(August 2007 to February 2008)

 

(6) Selwyn Gerber

Gerber & Co.

1880 Century Park East, Suite 200, Los Angeles, CA 90067

(March 2008 to sometime 2008 or 2009)

lol @Steel Magnolia the seemingly simple task of comparing timelines of the business managers sent me down a rabbit hole. The dates are a mess. I'm now using the non profit tax filings as dependable dates the biz managers were working for Britney...but even these are not as straight forward as they should be.

[Ghoulia]

16 hours ago, RebellionSparkles said:

Did Wallet ever work with Jamie or Britney before the CON? Did he work with anyone in the entertainment biz? How did Wallet get introduced to the Spears clan. Wallet provided the necessary financial backing to make the CON possible.

Good questions. Before BP108870, Wallet was involved in:

BP062119/ Case Title:    CONSERVATORSHIP OF MONA LUE LOVINS, CONSERVATEE / Case Type:PROBATE / Filing Date:05/18/2000

BP039161 / Case Title:    LUCIUS, DAVID - CONSERVATORSHIP / Case Type:    PROBATE / Filing Date:    10/23/2001

BP069557 / Case Title:    THE KERSEY TRUST - TRUST / Case Type:    PROBATE / Filing Date:    09/19/2001 / August 02, 2002 hearing Partial Dismissal(not entire case) (without prej. Complaint as to defendant Andrew M. Wallet, Esq., as temporary trustee of the Joan M. Fleischman Revocable intervivos trust dated July 8, 1997, ONLY ) Filed by Attorney for Pltf/Petnr

BC271944 / Case Title:   MORDEHAY CARMEL ET AL VS DON U FLEISCHMAN ET AL /    Case Type:    CIVIL / Filing Date:    04/16/2002

EP006071 / Case Title: CONSERVATORSHIP OF FRYER, MYRTLE/Case Type:PROBATE/Filing Date:09/30/2002

BP087902 /  Case Title:    WELLS FAMILY - TRUST  /  Case Type:    PROBATE /  Filing Date:    09/10/2004

GP012627 / Case Title:    PULLEN, TREVOR - SPECIAL NEEDS TRUST / Case Type:    PROBATE  / Filing Date:    11/30/2006 (this is a guardianship/conservatorship)

From what I can see, most of these were handled in the Stanley Mosk courthouse so he was pretty familiar with the system.  There are more cases he's attached to from the pre-2007 era, but these are the ones that stood out to me right away as being in the same specialty.  

Social media doesn't show much for A Wallet, but his wife has a wide-open facebook page.  She loves Jesus and her many grandchildren.  They have kids Britney's age and younger and each one has reproduced multiple times.  From what I can see, Wallet's adult kids are all pretty boring and live unglamorous lives.  A couple of the daughters post fairly regularly looking for deals on kids stuff and home furnishings, so I don't think they're getting a lot of handouts from dad. They own a cute condo in Utah built in 2016 and might be Mormons?  If not, they certainly live in Mormon territory.  It looks like his retirement from California law was probably intentional based on his age and the fact that they bought the condo in/around 2017. I'm guessing that Wallet and Colon were pretty friendly - they're a similar age and seem to have a few common interests (fishing, pretending to be a father figure)

[Ghoulia]

2 hours ago, RebellionSparkles said:

yes! its soooo many new documents to feed the super sleuths! and thank goodness for the DownloadThemAll plugin: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/downthemall/

Renaming all the documents was the difficult part.  

Oooooooohhh that's smart!

[Ghoulia]

@RebellionSparkles https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/Login search as guest has lots of the Onyx tour docs 

[SumoCyco2017]

1 hour ago, Ghoulia said:

@RebellionSparkles https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/Login search as guest has lots of the Onyx tour docs 

Can we get a run down of these docs as im a tired B.itch

[Anticonformity]

9 hours ago, Ghoulia said:

Social media doesn't show much for A Wallet, but his wife has a wide-open facebook page.  She loves Jesus and her many grandchildren.  They have kids Britney's age and younger and each one has reproduced multiple times.  From what I can see, Wallet's adult kids are all pretty boring and live unglamorous lives.  A couple of the daughters post fairly regularly looking for deals on kids stuff and home furnishings, so I don't think they're getting a lot of handouts from dad. They own a cute condo in Utah built in 2016 and might be Mormons?  If not, they certainly live in Mormon territory.  It looks like his retirement from California law was probably intentional based on his age and the fact that they bought the condo in/around 2017. I'm guessing that Wallet and Colon were pretty friendly - they're a similar age and seem to have a few common interests (fishing, pretending to be a father figure)

!!!

[RebellionSparkles]

7 hours ago, SumoCyco2017 said:

Can we get a run down of these docs as im a tired B.itch

The first 6 posts in this thread is a summary of the case highlights!

johnny Wright (WEG), Britney’s former biz manager, sues Britney’s team for not paying owed commission—this happens in Oct 2007, right before the CONship begins. By the time Brit’s team makes it to court the CON is in place.

WEG accuses Brit’s team of diverting funds to hide assets and avoid paying commission.

Tri-Star does the “audit” (using the term audit as loosely as possible). WEG responds with “you didn’t even answer any of the important questions being discussed”(paraphrased)

Tri Star is COMPELLED to hand over their books TWICE! They don’t comply. Then after Larry, Lou, lots of team CON are subpoenaed for deposition, Team CON gives up and settles out of court.

The WEG lawsuit probably has much more to do with Larry than Lou. But this case is also important because it is Lou’s debut into Team CON.

[RebellionSparkles]

9 hours ago, Ghoulia said:

It looks like his retirement from California law was probably intentional based on his age and the fact that they bought the condo in/around 2017.

He might have retired in 2017, but the Feb 2022 change to his law license status is tantamount to disbarment. He voluntarily surrendered his license.

[RebellionSparkles]

9 hours ago, Ghoulia said:

@RebellionSparkles https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/Login search as guest has lots of the Onyx tour docs 

From what I can tell, Team Spears won the lawsuit (filed as $9.8M but who knows what they settled for). So At the very least, I don’t think Britney had to pay for the tour losses due to the cancellation.

but I cheated and didn’t look through the docs. There’s this article from 2013 about Michael Jackson that interviewed Britney’s lawyer for this insurance case:

“Insurers wound up settling with Spears after she sued a group for almost $10 million in 2005, after she was forced to cancel the European leg of a tour due to a knee injury.

Spears and her promoter had bought "contingency insurance" from several companies including Liberty Syndicate Management Ltd, French company AXA's AXA Corporate Solutions, one of the more common policies that cover abandonment, cancellation or postponement of a concert.

The companies initially refused to pay Spears for losses arising from the canceled shows, claiming she failed to disclose surgery performed on her knee five years earlier.

Spears had passed the insurance company's required medical exam a year before the tour was to begin.

John Callagy, attorney for Spears in the case, told Reuters it became apparent the insurance companies were aware of her prior knee injuries from earlier insurance applications.

Mary Thompson, president of Las Vegas-based Capstone Brokerage, said she expects Spears probably bought "contingency insurance" for her Planet Hollywood residency but now it includes new stipulations following the pop star's widely publicized breakdown a few years go.

Tougher **** use monitoring and higher insurance pricing arose after 23-year-old actor River Phoenix died in 1993 of a **** overdose while under contract for two movies.”

https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSBRE9911D020131006

[RebellionSparkles]

50 minutes ago, Anticonformity said:

!!!

[Steel Magnolia]

2 hours ago, RebellionSparkles said:

From what I can tell, Team Spears won the lawsuit (filed as $9.8M but who knows what they settled for). So At the very least, I don’t think Britney had to pay for the tour losses due to the cancellation.

I wonder which branch of Britney Touring, Inc. received the payout?

We're up to five different branches now (I think?)

I'm still slowly picking away at that little angle of the story...I haven't even got to the Newswire stuff yet. 

[Ghoulia]

4 hours ago, RebellionSparkles said:

He might have retired in 2017, but the Feb 2022 change to his law license status is tantamount to disbarment. He voluntarily surrendered his license.

Oh definitely, that wasn't something he would have done unless he absolutely had to!

[Ghoulia]

2 hours ago, Steel Magnolia said:

I wonder which branch of Britney Touring, Inc. received the payout?

We're up to five different branches now (I think?)

I'm still slowly picking away at that little angle of the story...I haven't even got to the Newswire stuff yet. 

Maybe the New York branch? These are screenshots of one of the Onyx docs. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n4aU_DVOqD81NVdKU9GnSSz8XqNhYujJ/view?usp=sharing

 

[Steel Magnolia]

3 minutes ago, Ghoulia said:

Maybe the New York branch? These are screenshots of one of the Onyx docs. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n4aU_DVOqD81NVdKU9GnSSz8XqNhYujJ/view?usp=sharing

 

Amazing find.

That's the branch of Britney Touring, Inc. that was registered by...Larry Rudolph. 

[Ghoulia]

4 hours ago, RebellionSparkles said:

From what I can tell, Team Spears won the lawsuit (filed as $9.8M but who knows what they settled for). So At the very least, I don’t think Britney had to pay for the tour losses due to the cancellation.

but I cheated and didn’t look through the docs. There’s this article from 2013 about Michael Jackson that interviewed Britney’s lawyer for this insurance case:

“Insurers wound up settling with Spears after she sued a group for almost $10 million in 2005, after she was forced to cancel the European leg of a tour due to a knee injury.

Spears and her promoter had bought "contingency insurance" from several companies including Liberty Syndicate Management Ltd, French company AXA's AXA Corporate Solutions, one of the more common policies that cover abandonment, cancellation or postponement of a concert.

The companies initially refused to pay Spears for losses arising from the canceled shows, claiming she failed to disclose surgery performed on her knee five years earlier.

Spears had passed the insurance company's required medical exam a year before the tour was to begin.

John Callagy, attorney for Spears in the case, told Reuters it became apparent the insurance companies were aware of her prior knee injuries from earlier insurance applications.

Mary Thompson, president of Las Vegas-based Capstone Brokerage, said she expects Spears probably bought "contingency insurance" for her Planet Hollywood residency but now it includes new stipulations following the pop star's widely publicized breakdown a few years go.

Tougher **** use monitoring and higher insurance pricing arose after 23-year-old actor River Phoenix died in 1993 of a **** overdose while under contract for two movies.”

https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSBRE9911D020131006

Yeah, her lawyers were able to prove that the 8 different insurance companies definitely knew she had a pre-existing knee condition and even took out the "pre-existing condition" phrasing from the policy docs.  She had cancelled two shows during the tour due to knee problems and the insurance companies had their own doctor examine her and he noted that it wasn't the same as the injury that she had surgery for in 1999.  The insurance policy didn't state that the injury had to occur on stage during the tour, so her injury on set for a music video was covered.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Onyx_Hotel_Tour#Cancellation_and_lawsuit -->short and sweet

Cancellation and lawsuit[edit]

 

Spears and her dancers introducing her band in London.

On June 8, 2004, Spears was shooting the music video for "Outrageous" in Manhattan, when she fell and injured her left knee.^[35] She was taken immediately to a local hospital, where doctors performed an MRI scan and found floating cartilage. The following day, Spears underwent arthroscopic surgery. She was forced to remain six weeks with a thigh brace, followed by eight to twelve weeks of rehabilitation, which caused any future concerts to be canceled. Jive Records issued a statement saying Spears planned to revisit the cities in the future.^[35] On February 4, 2005, Spears filed suit in New York State Supreme Court against eight insurance companies that denied her a reimbursement of $9.8 million. The insurers refused because they claimed Spears did not fully inform them of the 1999 knee injury in the insurance form. Attorney Jonathan Stoler who defended Spears on the case said,

"These are the same insurers who had provided her with policies on [several] tours and they had cleared her and were aware of the previous injury. The alleged omission related to a question whereby Ms. Spears was asked if in the past five years she had had any surgery. Ms. Spears, in all prior circumstances, had indicated she had, but at the time she was going through this application she did answer 'no.' It had not been a full five years, but four years and eleven months since the surgery [in 1999] and even if she had answered in the affirmative, our contention is that it makes no difference".^[33]

Edited April 2, 2022 by Ghoulia

[Ghoulia]

9 minutes ago, Steel Magnolia said:

Amazing find.

That's the branch of Britney Touring, Inc. that was registered by...Larry Rudolph. 

Justification for the lawsuit being filed in New York: