Britney Spearsâ Personal Conservator Fights Back After Jamie Spears Alleges Singer Is âMentally Sickâ and Needs Psychiatric Hold
Jamie Spears says that
Britney Spearsâ personal conservator,
Jodi Montgomery, told him that his daughter is âmentally sickâ and wanted to place her under a 5150 psychiatric hold.
Now, in a statement obtained by
Variety, Montgomery is pushing back on Mr. Spears claims â and, once again, asking him to step down from his daughterâs conservatorship.
âMs. Montgomery implores Mr. Spears to stop the attacks,â Montgomeryâs statement says, in part. âIt does no good; it only does harm. We all need to focus on one thing, and one thing only â the health, well-being and best interests of Britney Spears.â
Spearsâ father is the conservator of her estate, managing all financial decisions, while Montgomery is the singerâs conservator of her person, managing all personal and medical decisions.
In new court documents, filed on Friday morning with the Los Angeles Superior Court, Spearsâ father alleged that Montgomery called him last month to say that she is concerned about his daughterâs behavior and mental health and believes she might need to be placed under a 5150 psychiatric hold.
âOn July 9, 2021, I received a phone call from Ms. Montgomery,â Mr. Spears says in the docs. âDuring our call, Ms. Montgomery sounded very distraught and expressed how concerned she was about my daughterâs recent behavior and overall mental health. Ms. Montgomery explained that my daughter was not timely or properly taking her medications, was not listening to the recommendations of her medical team and refused to even see some of her doctors.â
Spearsâ father says that Montgomery asked for his help in addressing these issues, as she was âvery worriedâ about the âdirection my daughter was heading in.â
In response, an attorney for Montgomery, Laurieann Wright, tells
Variety: âMs. Montgomery does have concerns about Ms. Spearsâ ârecent behavior and overall mental health,â as set forth in Jamie Spearsâ Declaration dated August 6, 2021. Due to medical privacy, Ms. Montgomery cannot go into those concerns with any further detail except to say that having her father Jamie Spears continuing to serve as her Conservator instead of a neutral professional fiduciary is having a serious impact on Ms. Spearsâ mental health.â
âNotably, Jamie Spears has yet to resign as Ms. Spearsâ Conservator of the Person, which is why Ms. Montgomery continues to serve as Temporary Conservator of the Person,â the statement continues. âIt is in Ms. Spearsâ best interests that her father step down as her Conservator, so he can go back to just being Ms. Spearsâ father, and working on a healthy, supportive father-daughter relationship.â
Montgomery denies Mr. Spearsâ claim that she suggested the singer be placed under a psychiatric hold.
âMr. Spearsâ declaration misrepresents what Ms. Montgomery said to him in relation to a potential 5150 psychiatric hold for Ms. Spears,â the statement says. âAt no time did Ms. Montgomery express to Mr. Spears that Ms. Spears would currently qualify for such a hold. The concern that Ms. Montgomery did raise to Mr. Spears during their telephone call is that forcing Ms. Spears to take the stand to testify or to have her evaluated would move the needle in the wrong direction for her mental health.â
Spearsâ father also alleges that Montgomery acknowledged that âmany of my daughterâs statements at the last hearing were not true and attributed her statements to the fact that my daughter is âmentally sick.ââ
The hearing Spearsâ father is referring to is when the superstar told the judge in mid-July that she wants to âpress chargesâ for âconservatorship abuse.â She has made allegations of being controlled by her father to the point of not being able to choose what she wants to drink, not being able to drive in a car with her boyfriend and not being allowed to have another child or get married, as she claims her conservators will not allow her to remove her IUD birth control device. (In the past, attorneys for Mr. Spears have denied all wrongdoing.)
Spearsâ father says that his âsole motivation has been his unconditional love for his daughter and a fierce desire to protect her from those trying to take advantage of her.â
Despite Spearsâ fatherâs stating he is working in the best interest of his daughter, Montgomery appears to be in line with the pop star, who told Judge Brenda Penny earlier this summer that she wants to keep Montgomery on her case and wants her father removed and put in jail. Ms. Spears said that she wants Montgomery to help her acclimate back into the real world, and Montgomery has said that she is working towards the eventual goal of getting Spears out of her conservatorship.
Attorneys for Spearsâ father continue to maintain his innocence and
point the finger at Montgomery. The elder Spears had previously used this tactic, and Fridayâs filing indicates a continuation of that same strategy. Following his daughterâs first explosive testimony in court on June 23 where she initially broke her silence with blistering accusations against her father, he had said that he has nothing to do with any personal or medical decisions, which he says are in Montgomeryâs purview.
Today, Spearsâ father says that Montgomery, along with his daughterâs former court-appointed attorney Samuel D. Ingham, who has since resigned, is the one who admitted the pop star to a facility in early 2019 and has âcontinued to have control of my daughterâs medical treatment and personal life ever since.â
Montgomery strongly denies this accusation, with her attorney telling
Variety that she did not admit her to any facility, and she would not even have the power to make such a decision.
âAs Case Manager, Ms. Montgomery worked under the sole direction and control of Jamie Spears,â Montgomeryâs lawyer says in a statement. âShe had no power or authority to place Britney Spears in any facility as a Case Manager â only Jamie Spears had that power in March 2019.â
The statement continues: âIt is unequivocally not true that it was Ms. Montgomery and Sam Ingham âwho admitted Ms. Spears to a facility in early 2019.â In fact, that would have been impossible. Neither a Case Manager nor a Court Appointed Counsel could have had that power, either working alone or together. Only the Conservator of the Person would have had that power (with the Conservateeâs consent) â and, again, that was Jamie Spears in March 2019.â
Montgomeryâs lawyer says that while she may have signed âroutine paperworkâ for the facility, she only did so âat the direction of Jamie Spears.â She says that the decision to place the singer in a facility in March 2019 was made by the singerâs treating psychiatrist at the time, Dr. Timothy Benson.
Montgomery has also appeared to align herself with the interests of Spearsâ new lawyer, Mathew Rosengart.
In a recent filing, Montgomery agreed with Rosengart in wanting to remove Mr. Spears from the conservatorship, and also claimed that
Spearsâ own doctors agree that he should be removed from the position. (Rosengart is currently working towards
the removal and suspension of Spearsâ father, having filed paperwork in a matter of weeks after he began working with the singer.)
In the new documents, filed by Spearsâ father on Friday, he also takes aim at his daughterâs attorney and objects to moving the hearing regarding the petition to remove him from the conservatorship. Yesterday,
Rosengart filed to speed up the hearing, stating it would be in the best interest of the conservatee. (As of now, the hearing is set for Sept. 29.)
âA conservatorship should be a last resort, designed to benefit the conservatee rather than a mechanism designed to serve as a tool for the enrichment of third parties,â
Rosengartâs latest filing stated, once again, alleging that Spearsâ father has
dissipated her multi-million fortune. Yesterdayâs documents said: âMr. Spears has also enriched himself at the expense of his daughter, reaping millions of dollars from her services as a performer, in addition to paying himself $16,000 per month from Ms. Spearsâ estate, $2,000 more than he has allotted to Ms. Spears, plus $2,000 per month for office expenses.â
Yesterday, Rosengartâs filing included an allegation that the elder Spears had opposed his daughter going on vacation to Maui, Hawaii. In todayâs filing, Mr. Spears fights back, saying that Rosengart has made âunsubstantiated, vague accusationsâ and a âfalse statementâ about the Hawaii trip.
Rosengart says that Spearsâ father has exerted âabsolutely microscopic controlâ over her life since her childhood and continues to do so today, as conservator of her estate. As an example, Rosengart claims that Spearsâ father objected to his 39-year-old daughter take a vacation in Maui this past summer, but âultimately relented.â
âMr. Spears objected to his daughterâs wish in late July to take a short vacation, disapproving of the expenditure that would have come from his daughterâs own, hard-earned money,â Rosengartâs filing stated yesterday. âThe mere objection to his adult daughter taking a brief, well-earned vacation at this point in her life, while other funds are lavishly expended, underscores why suspension, and ultimately removal, should not wait.â
Variety has reached out to Rosengart for comment regarding Mr. Spearsâ new filing.
Jamie Spears alleges Britney Spears' conservator said she is "mentally sick." In a statement to Variety, Jodi Montgomery fights back.
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Why is he so obsessed with holding the conservatorship