The push to remove Jamie Spears but not end the conservatorship was a strategic move on the part of the pop star\u2019s lawyers.<\/b>
\nA judge has officially ruled to suspend Jamie Spears as the conservator of Britney Spears\u2019s finances, marking a major victory in Britney Spears\u2019s ongoing battle to regain control of her life. Since 2008, the 39-year-old pop icon has lived under a conservatorship that leaves her unable to legally make decisions about her own life, including when to work, how to spend her money, and even whether she can have children. Instead, her father Jamie has been calling the shots, leading him to reportedly adopt as a mantra the phrase, \u201cI am Britney Spears.\u201d On September 29, Los Angeles Judge Brenda Penny replaced Jamie Spears as conservator of Britney\u2019s estate and replaced him with California attorney John Zabel, as requested by Britney through her lawyer. Leaving Jamie in place as conservator, Penny said, was \u201cnot tenable.\u201d Jamie Spears agreed to step down from the conservatorship earlier this summer. In September, he filed a petition asking to end it entirely, citing Britney\u2019s increasingly public opposition to the arrangement, which reached a climax in her explosive public testimony before the court this past June. At the September 29 hearing, Jamie\u2019s lawyer argued that rather than suspend Jamie as conservator, the court should simply terminate the conservatorship immediately. Britney\u2019s lawyer Mathew Rosengart, however, pushed to suspend his client\u2019s father and has said he will wait to petition for the end of the conservatorship until later this fall. There\u2019s a basic strategic reason for that decision: If the arrangement ends now, with Jamie stepping down voluntarily, he would not be required to turn over records, including financial documents, from his 13 years as conservator. Rosengart has repeatedly called for investigations into Jamie\u2019s conduct, calling his mismanagement of Britney\u2019s estate \u201cevident and ongoing\u201d and arguing that Jamie is only seeking to end the conservatorship due to the extreme public scrutiny as well as to avoid further investigation. \u201cWhat he\u2019s afraid of is the revelation of his corruption,\u201d Rosengart said in court Wednesday. During Britney\u2019s own testimony in June, she told the court she believed her father\u2019s treatment of her constituted conservatorship abuse. \u201cMy dad, and anyone involved in this conservatorship, and my management who played a huge role in punishing me when I said no,\u201d she said, addressing Penny directly. \u201cMa\u2019am, they should be in jail.\u201d As the outcry over Britney\u2019s conservatorship grows louder, more and more people involved in the conservatorship are coming forward to share their doubts about the situation publicly. Most damningly, in Controlling Britney Spears, a New York Times documentary recently released on Hulu, a former staffer for a security company Jamie Spears hired alleges that the firm secretly placed an audio listening device in Britney\u2019s bedroom and monitored her text messages. In the Netflix documentary Britney vs. Spears, released Tuesday, an anonymous source reveals long-rumored court documents showing that Britney was originally placed under conservatorship with a diagnosis of dementia \u2014 a bold claim to make about any 27-year-old, particularly one who is also the face of a multimillion-dollar media empire. It\u2019s unclear whether the courts were aware of the extent to which Britney\u2019s conservators allegedly surveilled her life. During the September 29 hearing, Rosengart called for an investigation into those claims. Rosengart also asked the court to reconvene in 30 to 45 days to discuss \u201can orderly transition\u201d out of the conservatorship. The next hearing in Britney\u2019s case is scheduled for November 12.<\/p>\n