This Jan. 31, 2008, video frame grab, released by AP Television, shows Sam Lutfi leaving UCLA medical center after visiting Britney Spears in Los Angeles. (Photo: AP )
Britney Spears was not in a Los Angeles court Thursday, but her parents were.
They
watched and listened as opening statements were made by the attorney
for Sam Lutfi, the pop star's former manager, who is suing Spears and
her parents for breach of contract.
The big accusation from
Lutfi's camp: Attorney Joseph Schleimer told the court that Spears used
his client as a "scapegoat" to cover up her use of amphetamines,
including speed, reports AP. The accusations refer to the years that
Lutfi was Spears' manager, before he was fired from her team in 2008.
Schleimer's
opening statements included showing photos of Spears with a shaved head
and hitting an SUV with an umbrella. He said one of Lutfi's first
actions after being hired as manager was having drug-sniffing dogs
search the singer's hilltop home.
"She liked to use amphetamines - speed or uppers," said Schleimer, according to E! News. "She liked to take that drug. And most of the things that went wrong were related to that drug."
Lutfi is suing the star's mother, Lynne Spears, for defaming him in her book Through the Storm: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World.
He is also suing Jamie Spears, the singer's father, for punching him.
And he is seeking a share of Britney's fortune, saying he had an
agreement to act as her manager in exchange for 15% of her earnings.
Schleimer described Lutfi as a "concerned friend" who was trying to
get the pop star off drugs before the psychiatric episode in 2008.
Schleimer told the jury that the day of Spears' breakdown, Jan. 28,
2008, Spears had an amphetamine prescription filled and took six to
eight pills early in the day,
reports TMZ.
Spears
was hospitalized and her father then became conservator of her estate; a
restraining order was issued against Lutfi. Jamie and Lynne Spears say
Lutfi cut their daughter's phone line, hid her mobile phones and used
the paparazzi as "henchmen."
The case is the culmination of years
of fighting between Lutfi and Spears' family and conservators, who
successfully obtained a restraining order against him to keep him from
contacting the singer or trying to intervene in her life.
The trial resumes today, reports AP, when attorneys for Spears' parents will make their opening statements.
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