ET spoke with legal expert Rachel Stockman about the possible next steps in Spears' conservatorship.
Britney Spears' accusations in her latest conservatorship hearing shocked many. The 39-year-old singer spoke for 30 minutes via phone and got specific about her abuse claims. Among the accusations include that her father, Jamie Spears, should be in jail, while also claiming that she felt traumatized, made to take drugs and forced into working, telling the court, "I just want my life back."
Following Britney's claims, Jamie's attorney said in a statement to the judge, "He is sorry to see his daughter suffering and in so much pain. Mr. Spears loves his daughter and misses her very much." So what comes next?
ET spoke with legal expert Rachel Stockman about the next steps in Britney's conservatorship and touched on the allegations she made.
"To make the allegations that she made about comparing what she was going through to sex trafficking and abuse and that these folks should go to jail," Stockman, who is not involved in the legal battle, states. "These are some pretty strong allegations."
While it's clear that Britney wants the conservatorship to end and get her own attorney, Stockman says her next steps should be to "find [a] private attorney and then she needs to really officially petition to end her conservatorship."
During her testimony, Britney claimed that no one told her she could easily file the petition to end the conservatorship, saying even her court-appointed attorney, Samuel D. Ingham III, didn't inform her.
"It is almost somewhat hard to believe [that she didn't know], but the way she said it was very believable," Stockman relays. "But it seems like negligence in a sense that she was never informed, you would think that her attorney would have told her. 'Listen, if you don't want this anymore, you can petition and you can try to end this yourself.' But apparently, according to Britney, no one ever told her…Of course, we don't know the whole story here."
Britney also expressed that she wants her conservatorship to end without going through another mental evaluation. Would that be possible? According to Stockman, it's possible "but not likely."
"But oftentimes in situations like this, judges are going to want to hear medical opinions and opinions from investigators to find out what's really going on," she notes, explaining that the singer would have to explain why it's in her best interest to end the conservatorship. "And that she is in full control of her life and that she can make these important decisions without the help of someone else in her life that has control of it."
Stockman also touched on a couple of claims Britney brought up, including her being forced to keep an IUD. Under a conservatorship, there is a person in charge of making medical decisions on their behalf, with their best interest at heart. Jamie serves as only her conservator of her estate and finances, and has not served as her conservator of her person since September 2019.
"So there's a real question here as to whoever was making the medical decision to keep that IUD in her was after her best interest," Stockman states, also noting that a doctor had to make the decision to put Britney on lithium. "It really gets into a broader issue of reproductive rights and it’s really Britney's decision whether or not she wants to have more children. It's quite shocking that she was told she had to keep this in, if that does pan out to be true…In her statement, she made it sound like it was her father that made her do this, but we're not clear because at one point he was taken off of the authority over her person. So it's not clear who would have made that decision."
To get the IUD removed, Britney would have to ask her conservator, who, according to Stockman, "would consult a doctor or two and get a medical point of view on whether this should be done." However, legally they cannot force her to have or not have a child.
When asked if Britney had a say to be put on lithium, Stockman adds, "It's very hard to say because every person is different and you don't know what was happening behind the curtain. This was a decision a doctor made and felt like she needed to be on this, but because she is under a conservatorship, someone else is in charge of her medical decisions."
As for her statements that Jamie and members of her management should go to jail, Stockman explains that there aren't enough facts known for charges to be warranted. Only if investigators found there was financial fraud, "then certainly there could be a criminal case. At this point it does not sound criminal."
As for Jamie's next steps, the judge will hear his side of the story, and he can either decide to step down from his position or remain as co-conservator. Britney, on her end, expressed that moving forward, she would like the hearings to be sealed and not be made public.
"I think they'll probably from here on out make this more private," Stockman expresses. "I think Britney wanted the public to hear what she's been going through because she kept referencing speaking to the media, but then she said, you know what, this is my chance right now to tell the world. So I think Britney's platform for this was not just the judge. Certainly she wanted this judge to hear, but I think she wanted the whole world to hear what she was saying as well."
For more on Britney's testimony, watch below.
RELATED CONTENT:
