The laws that took control of Britney Spears’ and Wendy Williams’ lives

What do Britney Spears, talk-show host Wendy Williams and artist Peter Max have in common?

All three have been swept up in a secretive court system that controls every aspect of their lives.

Currently in California, Cher and Jay Leno are appealing to this type of court arrangement for help with their afflicted loved ones — her drug-addicted son and his dementia-diagnosed wife.

Here’s hoping they truly understand what they could be in for.

The judicial procedure is called guardianship in most states, and conservatorship in California, where Spears was held in its grip for nearly 14 years.

It’s touted as a “protective” solution for vulnerable people the court decides are unable to care for themselves.

Yet it often becomes a predatory program that costs American families billions of dollars every year.  

If you saw the 2020 thriller “I Care a Lot” starring Rosamund Pike, you know what I mean.

Fans devoured news about how Spear’s father was allowed to monitor all her movements, phone calls and friendships in real time.

How could the court consider Britney an “incapacitated ward of the court” at the same time she earned millions of dollars in Vegas and on television?

Supporters of Williams, meanwhile, were aghast that while under guardianship she was left untreated for more than a year, for a clear case of acute alcoholism.

Where was her court appointed guardian?

The public is left with little understanding about how this restrictive system works.

That’s because all proceedings are held in secret under the cloak of medical records privacy.

Few realize how soul crushing the system can be and that currently some 2 million Americans are living under this court control.

Here’s the ugly reality.

Citizens put into guardianship are immediately stripped of their civil rights and all their assets are seized by the court.

In most states, a ward cannot hire their own lawyer to fight for them.

They can no longer choose where they will live or who can visit them.

They cannot spend their own money, drive, vote, marry or decide to go on vacation.

All their life decisions are no longer their own.

Their bank accounts, property and investments are immediately transferred into the name of whoever the judge appoints as the guardian.

And here’s Shocker #1: judges often overlook a loving family member who wants to be named as guardian and, instead, they choose a stranger, a professional guardian who can charge up to $600 an hour and hire several others to service the ward.

The incapacitated person (IP) must pay everyone involved, so estates can quickly diminish.

If anxious relatives complain about a guardian’s actions they risk being branded as a troublemaker and banned from visiting their loved one — sometimes permanently.

“It’s as if the ward is dead in the eyes of the law,” says Manhattanite Errol Rappaport.

His mother, Frances, was a well-known designer of beautiful silk blouses favored by celebrities.

A decade ago, she was placed into guardianship by her oldest son, removed from her beloved Central Park penthouse, and forced by her guardian to live in a small apartment in Queens surrounded by hired caretakers.

The guardian restricted Errol’s visits with his mother until the day she died.

As this devoted son points out, a ward has fewer rights than a convict on death row.

Shocker #2: as these situations progress the ward’s readily available bank accounts run dry.

That’s when the guardian returns to the judge and asks permission to sell the ward’s home and its contents or to raid a trust fund or an irrevocable trust so the money can be used for the IP’s care.

Judges okay these requests at an astounding rate.

And, Shocker #3: when guardians request to ignore a ward’s Power of Attorney designee and their Last Will and Testament bequeathments to specific heirs, judges routinely approve that too.

Adult children expecting to inherit their parent’s home or heirlooms, and grandchildren anticipating money for college, are left empty handed since the money has gone to pay lawyers, court appointees and others.

Rick Black, of the non-profit group Center for Estate Administration Reform (CEAR) calls this mass transfer of generational assets, “the largest redistribution of wealth this nation has ever seen.”

Black says states have passed little meaningful legislation to curb guardianship abuses even though state courts confiscate from wards a collective $50 billion — every year.

With oversight so lax and that much money at play, is it any wonder dishonest actors are involved and complaints of missing money are frequent?

Suzanne Terranova Whelan of Norwich, Connecticut asks, “How do we stop those who are using our loved ones as human ATMs?”

In the summer of 2016, her aunt Susan Terranova, 64, began to experience mild dementia.

An estranged brother whisked Susan and her considerable asset holdings to Alabama and, ultimately, into guardianship.

Eight years later Susan is now suffering from acute dementia or Alzheimer’s, and has been forced to live in a nursing home.

Suzanne concludes, “This is estate trafficking. It is human trafficking.”

So, how does this civil rights crushing system get a hold of potential wards in the first place?

Sometimes a trusted but worried family member starts the ball rolling to help legally protect a disabled or elderly relative, and if they are appointed as guardian things usually turn out well.

But literally anyone can hire a lawyer to write up a “Petition for Guardianship” and that’s all it takes.

The petitioner could be an angry ex-lover or business partner, a financial advisor, lawyer, hospital, landlord or a total stranger.

The petition spells out why the targeted person cannot look out for their own wellbeing.

But often the petitions contain outright lies like: “Her daughter stole $1 million from her mother who has dementia” or “He has cerebral palsy and can’t handle his $1.9 million medical malpractice settlement.”

No matter that the daughter did not steal money and her mother has not been diagnosed with dementia.

The judge doesn’t bother to learn that the young man with CP wants control of his money so he can go on to college. Judges normally just rubber stamp these petitions.

In courts that hear guardianship or conservatorship cases due process is not guaranteed.

There are no trials and the targeted person and their family may not even know there is a legal proceeding underway.

Escape from guardianship is rare. Prosecution of bad actors in the system is equally rare — but not unheard of.

In New Mexico, William and Susan Harris, the husband/wife team in Albuquerque who were charged with stealing nearly $12 million from wards.

Susan, called “the engine” of the scheme was sentenced to 47 years in prison.

Her husband got 15 years.

In Las Vegas, Nev., a frequently appointed guardian named April Parks was indicted on 270 felony counts for stealing at least $560,000 from her wards.

She also belligerently refused to send many of her ward’s cremains to their loved ones.

She was sentenced to sixteen to 40 years in prison.

In Clearwater, Fla., guardian Traci Hudson was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison after pleading guilty to stealing $575,000 from her dependent wards.

She must also serve 20 years’ probation.

I spent more than eight years investigating and writing about the evil side of this court instigated system.

It became clear there was a nationwide pattern to the isolation, overmedication, fraud and financial exploitation of the truly vulnerable, as well as those needlessly confined under this system.

Oh, insiders will tell you it is all about “protecting” at risk citizens from conniving family members and others who want their early inheritance.

But the most abusive guardianships are really about how much money can be siphoned off by the unscrupulous working within this shadowy industry.

Paulette Kohler, 94, has lived in her rent-controlled West Side apartment for more than 50 years.

According to close friends, Paulette became a guardianship victim via a plot to remove her so the landlord could take over her apartment, reported to be “worth millions”, and flip it.

After Paulette was briefly hospitalized, and according to a lawsuit filed in New York Supreme Court, she suddenly found herself in a strange facility with a controlling guardian.

The lawsuit alleges that Kohler’s landlord; members of the apartment board; petitioning attorney Elizabeth Adinolfi and the guardian, Charles Barbuti, created and then perpetuated a false story about Kohler’s best friend and POA designee, Inga Eggerud.

The guardianship was established on the grounds that Eggerud was “under FBI investigation for theft and elder abuse.”

That was not true, according to Paulette’s attorney, Christopher Serbagi.

There was never an FBI investigation.

During the 19 months of her guardianship most of Paulette’s $850,000 savings were spent.

Serbagi won a rare victory when he got his client’s guardianship terminated.

The lawsuit asks for damages of $60 million for Kohler and $40 million for Eggerud.

Since both state and federal lawmakers have known about guardianship abuses for decades, and have done nothing meaningful to change the status quo, it seems lawsuits like Serbagi’s will be the only way for victims to get justice.

Diane Diamond is the author of last year’s “We’re Here to Help: When Guardianship Goes Wrong”