Celebrity Mound

A judge has ordered Britney Spears’ former manager and an attorney to stay away from the pop singer for the next three years.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Aviva K. Bobb issued her ruling Tuesday after hearing testimony and arguments in recent weeks from the men and lawyers for Spears’ father, Jamie.

Bobb ordered Osama “Sam” Lutfi and attorney Jon Eardley to stay away from the 27-year-old pop singer and to not contact, threaten or try to act on her or her sons’ behalf for the next three years.

Bobb refused to extend the same protection to Spears’ parents.

The singer’s court-appointed lawyer, Samuel Ingham, endorsed issuing the orders during a hearing last week, saying they were in Spears’ “best interests.”

Lawyers for Lutfi and Eardley promised to appeal the ruling, saying the lengthy hearing didn’t prove the singer suffered substantial emotional distress as a result of the men’s actions.

Lutfi’s attorney, Bryan J. Freedman, said evidence instead pointed to Spears asking his client for help.

“Never before in the history of the world has a restraining order been issued against someone who merely responded to cries for help,” Freedman said.

Roger Diamond, who represented Eardley, said it was disappointing that the ruling didn’t spell out the judge’s reasoning for issuing the orders.

Jamie Spears and his lawyers petitioned for lengthy restraining orders against the men in January, arguing that the pair were conspiring along with paparazzo Adnan Ghalib to undermine the conservatorship. Bobb last month issued a three-year restraining order against Ghalib, who is the singer’s former boyfriend.

The hearing had been conducted over several days in the past two months, with testimony from Jamie Spears and his daughter’s security detail and a hairdresser. The hairdresser testified that Britney Spears told her she was scared of Lutfi and didn’t want to have anything to do with him.

Ghalib never appeared in court or contested the restraining order, but is due back in a criminal court next month on felony charges that he tried to run down a man attempting to deliver papers notifying him of the restraining order case.

The server, Ram Moskowitz, sued Ghalib in civil court for assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Jamie Spears’ lawyer, Joel Boxer, said the restraining order request was “unusual,” but was necessary to protect the singer from “people who I think are fairly characterized as predators.”

Boxer said in Lutfi’s case, the contact amounted to breaking a promise to not contact Spears, which was reached in an agreement between him and Jamie Spears last summer.

In Eardley’s case, Boxer said the attorney had violated a court order in place since late January not to act on Britney Spears’ behalf. Eardley challenged the legitimacy of the conservatorship in court papers in March.

Lawyers for Lutfi and Eardley vigorously fought against the restraining orders. Lutfi has also filed a defamation lawsuit against Spears, and the singer’s parents.

Freedman said the conservatorship was misusing a statute meant for the elderly or severely disabled adults to protect a singer who is currently on an international concert tour.

The singer remains on a tour promoting her most recent album, “Circus.” She did not appear during hearings on the petitions, despite repeated requests by Lutfi and Eardley’s lawyers to have the singer testify.

Her life remains closely managed by her father, who can restrict her contact with outsiders and controls her access to a cell phone.

Britney Spears’ dating life – like her tour – has turned into one giant “Circus.”

Last month, we reported that the pop star was bumping and grinding with a tour backup dancer named Geo while her daddy was taking care of business in L.A. Reports then surfaced that Brit is making sweet music with yet another backup dancer, 21-year-old Chase Benz.

Now a whole ‘nother case of crazy is coming out: An employee of land developer John Sundahl is claiming Brit and Sundahl are going to tie the knot!
According to The National Enquirer, Sundahl, a 40-year-old real estate whiz kid, met the pop princess in rehab in 2007 during Britney’s bald days – and has held a torch for her ever since.

The multimillionaire’s personal pilot, who referred to himself as “Lance Chase,” told us: “Britney and John used to date, but they reconnected after her show in New Jersey, and now they’re engaged. He got down on one knee in a Subway sandwich shop in Santa Monica a week ago and proposed with a $4.5 million marquise-cut diamond that he bought at a Frankfurt jewelry store.”

Chase continued crazily, “They plan on getting married at his aunt’s farm in Germany in six weeks. It’s very hush-hush, even to the employees. He’s even putting a $350K fence around the property.”

We caught up with Sundahl – who’s so wealthy that he’s currently staying at his parents’ house in Woodland Hills, Calif. – and got his side of the “story.”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” he said, before changing his tune and spilling some details about his “relationship” with the singer. “Britney doesn’t want to do anything until the tour is over. She wants press for her tour and not for an engagement,” he dished subtly.

A representative for Spears said: “Britney is not engaged, she did not get proposed to at Subway last week – she is currently on tour – she is not getting married on a farm in Germany, she did not receive a $4.5 million marquise-cut diamond ring. Oh, and she has not been abducted by aliens either.”

There you have it: ringside seats to Britney’s own personal circus.

(source)

The sister of Britney Spears ‘ former manager testified Wednesday that the pop singer said in recent months that she was afraid of her father and wanted help hiring her own lawyer.

Attorneys for Spears’ father and conservatorship are seeking a long-standing restraining order against Osama “Sam” Lutfi, a manager and close confidant of the singer during her personal meltdown, that forbids him from contacting her.

They reiterated Wednesday that in December and January, Lutfi violated an agreement between him and Jamie Spears not to contact the “Circus” singer. That accord was reached last summer, after Jamie Spears agreed not to seek an extension to a temporary restraining order issued when he took control of his daughter’s affairs.

Christina Lutfi said Britney Spears told her that she was afraid of her father and needed her brother’s help to hire her own attorney. The 25-year-old was introduced as a surprise witness Wednesday, moments after a judge rejected a motion to dismiss the restraining order.

She was also the last witness in a hearing that has spanned three months. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Aviva K. Bobb continued temporary orders until she hears closing arguments April 21.

Christina Lutfi said her brother gave her a prepaid cell phone, which she secretly gave to Spears at a hotel sauna, so that the two could contact each other. She said she repeatedly called the number, trying to make sure the singer was safe.

She claimed she used her brother’s cell phone in recent months. But under questioning by Jamie Spears’ attorneys, Christina Lutfi could not recall the phone number of one of her brother’s cell phones, nor the phone she said she’d handed to Spears.

She also acknowledged that she shared the cell phone with her brother at their parents’ home, where a landline is installed.

Jamie Spears testified in February that he eventually found and confiscated the phone, which indicated communications to Lutfi and his daughter’s ex-boyfriend, Adnan Ghalib . The phone’s discovery, and a series of late-night and early phone calls from Lutfi, led to the current restraining order application.

Jamie Spears has controlled his daughter’s personal and financial affairs since last February, when he intervened after the singer had to be hospitalized twice. The singer’s mother, Lynne Spears , accused Lutfi at the time of grinding pills into her daughter’s food to control her.

Lutfi denied that claim in a defamation lawsuit filed against the Spears family in February.

Lutfi’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, argued Wednesday that Jamie Spears’ attorneys hadn’t shown enough evidence that the pop singer had suffered “substantial emotional distress” as a result of the calls and text messages.

Bobb rejected that argument when Freedman moved to dismiss the case. She said testimony from Britney Spears ‘ hairdresser and a security guard indicated the singer was troubled by Lutfi’s overtures.

An arguments were echoed by attorney for lawyer Jon Eardley, who the conservatorship also hopes to block from contacting Spears. Eardley has repeatedly been rejected in attempts to install himself as Britney Spears ‘ attorney, and was rebuffed last month at a hearing where he sought to invalidate the conservatorship.

Evidence showed communications between Lutfi and Eardley, and Jamie Spears’ attorneys have called their relationship a “conspiracy” to undermine the conservatorship.