Why Britney Spears' Lawyer Samuel Ingham III Was Accused Of Conspiring To ‘Isolate & Kill’ Radio Icon Casey Kasem
Inside his controversial past.
s_buckley / Tinseltown / Shutterstock Britney Spears’s lawyer, Samuel Ingham III, has submitted a request to resign from his role amid growing concerns over the singer’s wellbeing under her conservatorship.
Ingham has represented Spears since the beginning of her conservatorship, after being appointed by the court in 2008.
The troubled pop star told a court last month that Ingham had discouraged her from speaking out against alleged conservatorship abuse. She then requested that she be allowed to hire her own counsel rather than have another court-appointment attorney assigned to her.
Spears’s allegations of abuse and apparent lack of knowledge of her rights within the conservatorship have raised questions about Ingham having a potential conflict of interest and making ethically questionable choices in representing the singer.
Equally, many feel Ingham’s mysterious and controversial past paints an even more concerning picture of what his motives may be as Spears’s attorney.
Why was Britney Spears’s soon-to-be-former lawyer, Samuel Ingham III, accused of conspiring to kill Casey Kasem?
While representing Spears, Ingham made headlines for his work with another celebrity client, radio icon Casey Kasem, who passed away in June 2014 at the age of 82.
Ingham became Kasem’s lawyer when his daughter, Kerri Kasem, was granted a temporary conservatorship over her father in May 2014.
One month later, Jean Kasem, his now-widow and wife of 34 years, raised concerns about her husband’s end-of-life care, petitioning the court to allow Kasem to be fed, hydrated and given medication, against the wishes of Kerri, reported to be a Scientologist.
While police found no evidence of wrongdoing in Kasem’s death, Jean later claimed Ingham and Kasem’s older children deliberately isolated her husband in order to accelerate his health decline.
In 2019, Jean filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Ingham, alleging the attorney was involved in a plot to kill her legendary husband, accusing the lawyer and her husband’s adult children of plotting to “to isolate and kill Casey Kasem for financial gain.”
The filing was part of a string of lawsuits and allegations between Jean and Kasem’s children in the years after his death.
Court documents filed on Jean's behalf alleged “Ingham and Casey’s older adult children ensured that Casey starved to death in a strange hospital far from home without his wife of more than three decades and youngest daughter [Liberty Kasem] by his side.”
The lawsuit profusely criticized Ingham’s representation of Kasem, alleging that he had conspired with the host’s children to get access to his reported $80 million fortune.
The suit claimed Ingham was “an active participant in this horrifying plot to end Casey’s life for financial gain. To that end, he performed actions that were far outside the bounds of any conceivable ‘representation’ of Casey.”
Jean also claimed that Ingham profited by billing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees to the estate — an allegation that will sound familiar to those following the #FreeBritney movement.
Ingham has reportedly made $3 million from his work as Spears’s attorney over the past 13 years.
A judge later granted Ingham’s request to remove his name from Jean’s wrongful death suit against Kasem’s children. Both parties’ countersuits were eventually dismissed.
Ingham has allegedly been named in at least two other federal suits in regards to his legal work in conservatorship.
In each case, the plaintiffs against him lost their bids.
Ingham’s controversial past continues to raise questions about Spears’s conservatorship.
Though Spears did say that she and Ingham have developed a closer relationship in recent months, she also hinted that he may be dissuading her from ending her conservatorship.
“My lawyer, Sam, has been very scared for me to go forward because he’s saying if I speak up, I’m being overworked in that facility of that rehab place, that rehab place will sue me,” Spears told the court on June 23. “He told me I should keep it to myself.”
As he attempts to exit her legal team, it’s likely his controversial past will raise more and more questions about his role in the singer’s conservatorship.
Alice Kelly is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York. Catch her covering all things social justice, news, and entertainment. Keep up with her Twitter for more.