Simply final yr, Brad Herman, a longtime behind-the-scenes aide to celebrities, drew reward from the household of Cindy Birdsong, an ailing former member of the Supremes. He was credited with serving to to rescue her from what they described as a buddy’s undue affect over her care and funds.
However now, Mr. Herman has been named in a petition introduced by Ms. Birdsong’s son, who’s accusing him in court docket papers of monetary elder abuse and misappropriation of her cash.
The son, Charles Hewlett, who has been appointed the conservator of his mom’s affairs, is looking for damages and the return of what his petition describes as lacking funds.
The allegations observe months of court docket proceedings over who ought to management a conservatorship overseeing the funds and medical choices of Ms. Birdsong, 84, who was as soon as a part of a Motown group that turned music royalty.
At this time, Ms. Birdsong is just not capable of talk and is on a feeding tube after a sequence of strokes. She has lived at nursing services and hospitals since 2021 and a decide finally put Mr. Hewlett in control of her affairs late final yr.
“Mr. Herman used his place of belief and confidence to reap the benefits of Ms. Birdsong’s dependency and exercised care, custody and management over Ms. Birdsong’s property,” argues the petition filed in Los Angeles Superior Court docket this month by Susan Geffen, a lawyer for Mr. Hewlett.
Mr. Herman defended his dealing with of Ms. Birdsong’s affairs in an interview on Friday, saying he’s “dedicated to creating sure that Ms. Birdsong’s property receives all that’s due.” He mentioned he has an accountant inspecting Ms. Birdsong’s banking information and that he’s “satisfied that the accounting shall be so as” forward of a June listening to within the case.
Years in the past, Mr. Herman mentioned, he stepped in to assist Ms. Birdsong on the request of relations who lived exterior of California. He mentioned that Mr. Hewlett on the time didn’t appear fascinated with interceding.
“If any person else was taking good care of her I wouldn’t have wanted to be requested to assist,” he mentioned, later including that “on the finish of the day all that issues is Cindy’s welfare and well-being.”
Ms. Birdsong was a Supreme for practically a decade throughout a part of the group’s heyday after changing Florence Ballard in 1967. She carried out hits like “You Can’t Hurry Love” and “Come See About Me” alongside Diana Ross and Mary Wilson, dwelling the glamorous lifetime of a Motown star. However her profession took a downturn after she was minimize from the group in 1976.
Her funds fell aside — which she attributed to a “unhealthy closing deal” with Motown Data — and he or she largely withdrew from the limelight. She lived a lot of her later years in what relations described as an more and more remoted life at a Los Angeles house that she shared with Rochelle Lander, a longtime buddy with whom she began a Christian ministry.
In interviews final yr, Mr. Herman, Ms. Birdsong’s three siblings and a sister-in-law described their efforts to get Ms. Birdsong out of the house, the place, the siblings mentioned, her well being gave the impression to be deteriorating and Ms. Lander was not sharing details about her well-being.
The siblings signed papers granting Mr. Herman, who they mentioned was really useful by mutual buddies, her energy of lawyer. In 2021, he orchestrated Ms. Birdsong’s removing from the house with assist from the Los Angeles police and a non-public paramedic service. With energy of lawyer, Herman additionally arrange a checking account for Ms. Birdsong that was in each of their names, based on court docket papers, an association that Ms. Birdsong’s relations mentioned they understood as an try and marshal the singer’s funds for her profit.
(Ms. Lander, who has not agreed to an interview, has in prior settings defended her care. She has not interceded in court docket proceedings which have adopted Ms. Birdsong’s removing.)
Final Could, a yr and a half after Ms. Birdsong had been relocated to a nursing facility, Mr. Herman utilized to be co-conservator of Ms. Birdsong along with her brother, Ronald Birdsong.
However a decide in Los Angeles requested county officers to take over after they raised issues about how her funds had been dealt with. The county officers pointed to greater than $190,000 that they mentioned had been faraway from her checking account however didn’t seem to have been put towards her care at nursing services.
The court docket revoked Mr. Herman’s energy of lawyer, he dropped his request to be appointed her conservator and a county company, the Workplace of the Public Guardian, started to supervise Ms. Birdsong’s affairs quickly, till Mr. Hewlett was appointed final December.
In latest court docket hearings, Mr. Herman had more and more tense interactions with Decide Lee R. Bogdanoff, who ordered him to supply an accounting of Ms. Birdsong’s funds and produce $120,000 that Mr. Herman had mentioned he had in money and cashier’s checks locked in a secure at house.
In January, when Mr. Herman handed Ms. Birdsong’s son a verify for $71,000 within the courtroom, Decide Bogdanoff challenged why the sum was lower than what Mr. Herman had earlier reported. In court docket, Mr. Herman attributed the distinction to “offsets and deductions.”
“You’re not entitled to make any offsets and deductions,” Decide Bogdanoff replied. “It’s not your cash.”
Though Ms. Birdsong didn’t retain important royalty rights, the information point out she was receiving common funds — month-to-month checks between a number of hundred {dollars} and greater than $10,000 — from SoundExchange, which distributes funds to musicians.
The petition accuses Mr. Herman of constructing “important withdrawals or transfers of money from Ms. Birdsong’s account that weren’t used for her care.”
“We had been led to imagine Brad was retaining the cash secure,” mentioned Melody Birdsong, a sister-in-law of Ms. Birdsong’s, in an interview.
Mr. Herman has beforehand mentioned in interviews that he was at one level answerable for paying Ms. Birdsong’s bills on the expert nursing services the place she had lived. The petition doesn’t absolutely element the quantity Ms. Birdsong has incurred for her care since her removing from the house, however county officers informed the court docket final yr that she had an impressive steadiness of greater than $30,000 at varied nursing services.
A Hollywood Reporter profile from 2022 described Mr. Herman as somebody who had “smoothed out difficulties” for Hollywood elite for many years, describing his consumer checklist as having included Frank Sinatra, Johnny Carson and Burt Reynolds, and certainly one of his areas of experience as navigating the Division of Motor Autos.
In recent times, Mr. Herman has been embroiled in a authorized dispute with the daughter of certainly one of his former shoppers, Stan Lee, the Marvel Comics creator. After Mr. Lee died in 2018, Mr. Herman sued Lee’s daughter, J.C. Lee, over allegations that she had made to The Day by day Beast about his conduct, together with that he sneaked into her father’s house, which he mentioned in court docket papers was false.
Ms. Lee then filed a defamation lawsuit in opposition to Mr. Herman over his accusation on a podcast that she had slammed her father’s head right into a chair, a narrative that she mentioned in court docket papers was fabricated. Within the authorized papers she accused Mr. Herman of forging her father’s signature on mortgage paperwork — an assertion he referred to as “flat-out made up” in Friday’s interview.
A decide dismissed Mr. Herman’s lawsuit in opposition to Ms. Lee and ordered him to pay her lawyer charges, based on court docket paperwork. In her defamation case, Ms. Lee acquired a default judgment final month after Mr. Herman didn’t seem in court docket or reply to filings. He was ordered to pay Ms. Lee greater than $100,000. Within the interview, he mentioned he had not been conscious of the latest court docket actions within the case and that he deliberate to enchantment the choice.
Mr. Herman has mentioned that he took on Ms. Birdsong’s case along with her finest pursuits at coronary heart. However he was questioned carefully on the listening to in January at which Decide Bogdanoff requested him to clarify why he had not turned over cash of Ms. Birdsong’s that he mentioned he had. Mr. Herman responded that he had been working in tandem along with her household because the starting.
“Your honor, if I could say so, with respect and with humility, Ms. Birdsong wouldn’t be alive had been it not for me,” he mentioned, “and I’m happy with that.”
