Britney Spears‘ estranged father, Jamie Spears, has denied bugging her bedroom while serving as her conservator.
Jamie, 69, submitted a sworn declaration to the Los Angeles Superior Court this week calling the allegations “false”, according to Page Six.
Jamie’s response comes nine months after a bombshell New York Times documentary accused him of recording Britney in her Thousand Oaks, California home.
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“I am informed of the allegation…that a listening device or ‘bug’ was placed [in] [Britney’s] bedroom as surveillance during the conservatorship. This allegation is false,” Jamie says in court documents obtained by Page Six.
“I never conducted or authorised any surveillance of Britney’s bedroom at any time, including during the conservatorship,” he says. “I am not aware of any such surveillance having occurred.”
Jamie also says “under penalty of perjury” that “if called and sworn as a witness,” he “could and would testify” that his declaration is “true and correct.”
In The New York Times Presents: Controlling Britney Spears documentary which premiered in September 2021, a former security guard alleged that Jamie had secretly captured more than 180 hours of audio recordings of Britney in her bedroom.
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According to the documentary, this footage included conversations the ‘Toxic’ singer had with her children. Jamie also allegedly monitored the star’s text messages, calls and internet history on her phone.
The whistleblower was named as Alex Vlasov.
Vlasov runs security firm Black Box Security, and was hired by Jamie to “protect” Britney during her conservatorship.
His firm provided alleged recordings, emails and texts to the Times, which appeared to give evidence of Jamie’s monitoring. They labelled the security “an intense surveillance apparatus” in their front-page report published in September.
Jamie’s then-lawyer, Vivian Lee Thoreen, said in the documentary that the father’s actions “were done with the knowledge and consent of Britney, her court-appointed attorney and/or the court.”
Thoreen notably did not deny Vlasov’s claims, however.
In his statement this week, Jamie also did not deny the accusations that he had mirrored Britney’s phone.
Meantime, in January, Britney’s now-lawyer, Mathew Rosengart enlisted former FBI special agent Sherine Ebadi to investigate the newspaper’s reporting.
Ebadi, who was on former special counsel Robert Mueller’s team that investigated Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, has called Vlasov a “highly credible witness” after personally interviewing him, reports Page Six.
Ebadi concluded that Jamie had “engaged in and directed others to engage in unconscionable violations of [Britney’s] privacy and civil liberties.”
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She also stated in a declaration in court: “[Jamie] used his role as Conservator to enrich himself and those loyal or useful to him, often at the expense and against the best interests of his own daughter, whose assets, welfare, and best interests he was supposed to protect.”
For the majority of this year, both Britney and Jamie’s lawyers have accused each other of dodging depositions related to the conservatorship, with accusations airing as recently as this week.
Jamie’s current lawyer, Alex Weingarten has recently accused Britney of making “incendiary allegations” about her dad on social media, which warrant a testimony from the singer, to justify her comments.
The calls from Weingarten brought a fiery response from Britney’s attorney, Rosengart.
“In addition to trying to bully his own daughter, he is now pathetically reduced to trying to intimidate her, while abusing the legal process and running and hiding from his own deposition,” he told Page Six.
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