A judge has ordered Britney Spears’ father Jamie Spears to sit down for a deposition over his alleged behaviour as her conservator.
The singer’s lawyer Mathew Rosengart filed a motion to compel Jamie to sit for a deposition, in which he must answer questions under oath about his conduct as Britney’s conservator, in May. Rosengart alleged Jamie had been dodging his deposition attempts for months.
During a hearing at the Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, Judge Brenda Penny ordered Jamie to be deposed within the next 30 days in Los Angeles.
She also ordered Jamie to produce all the documents requested by Rosengart, particularly those in relation to electronic surveillance. Jamie has been accused monitoring his daughter’s phone and bugging her bedroom during the conservatorship, which ran from February 2008 until November 2021.
Last month, Jamie’s legal team filed a motion to force Britney to sit down for a deposition regarding the comments she has made on social media about her family and the conservatorship.
On Wednesday, Judge Penny did not make a decision on that matter and asked both attorneys to present their arguments to the court about why the popstar should or should not be deposed.
Jamie’s lawyer Alex Weingarten insisted that Britney is a party in the case so there is value in deposing her. He added that Jamie will not have his “fair day in court” if he has to sit for a deposition and his daughter doesn’t.
“I appreciate that it’s en vogue to trash Jamie Spears,” Weingarten told the judge, reports Variety. “But he has rights… In this country, you’re innocent until proven guilty.”
Rosengart called the deposition request “harassment” and stated, “You do not put a victim back in front of the victimiser. It’s the wrong thing to do”. He also argued that Britney can’t offer up any information that Jamie’s team doesn’t already know.
“Mr. Spears is the individual who has documentation and first-hand knowledge… Mr. Spears and the documentation serve as the evidence… Ms. Spears has no knowledge or documents,” he insisted, claiming she is the victim in the situation and sitting for a deposition would be “re-traumatising” to the Toxic hitmaker.
The next hearing in the matter is set for 27 July.
