ROCK STARROOKEDBY HER OWN CREW!I worked for Courtney Love doing star consultings (up to forty emails a day, for eight years). For the last few of those years, she confided that her bank, her personal Manager boyfriend, her gal bookkeeper and her personal secretary gal had seeminly colluded in stealing large sums of money. The Bank had made her sign up with that bookkeeper or they said they wouldn't handle her account. STRANGE, no? The girl was just a bookkeper, not a real bonded, licensed accountant.
HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME, GUYS?
So no surprise, daily, dozens of checks went from that accountant's hand, signed, through her bank accounts to people that the star did not know. The bank saw this hemhorrage but never stopped paying them. They were addressed to those anonymous post boxes thieves rent. The bank and the bookkeeper paid all these unknown people, dressmakers, hatters, antiquarians, unknown designers, ostensible memos for bridles and saddles but for folks the star had never used! $10,000 a day drained out of her accounts. This same bank had done this to a big basketball star, draining him of millions. Name available on request.
One night, Courtney wanted to see if her boyfriend/ manager was in on it. She broke a window to go into the house that SHE HAD RENTED for her boyfriend/ manager (she'd also rented him a Porsche) A neighbor heard the glass break and got arrested by the police. That arrest was good in a way, it got her into rehab and she popped back even stronger. She then got a private detective to locate properties all over America that this boyfriend manager had purchased --using her money. She located many properties and then the detective and travel agent found plane tickets that proved her boyfriend/ manager had travelled on trysts with her secretary! There were plane trips to foreign countries where ostensibly, they'd carried cash on their person to bank. Millions in offshore or Switzerland.
She went to the FBI, to the Attorney General in New York State and began seeking lawyers and accountants to handle the case. That was a few years right there. Meanwhile her checks to me were bouncing, but I understood. I was going to be a good kid. I stuck with her until 2007 when I guess she disappeared in shame. I'm not sure. She told me that she'd discovered chanting worked better than astrology. I didn't push, knowing that all this horror was going on. She told rock magazines about it but nobody believed her. She went on Dave Letterman and told him, and nobody reacted. People heard her and tuned it out. The biggest single celebrity Embezzlement since Doris Day got taken by her own husband, Marty Melcher!
SO
Finally, today I was gratified to read that she has begun working with
the right team of lawyers and forensic accountants. An online entertainment
newspaper says: " Courtney Love is claiming that the fortune left to her
by her late husband Kurt Cobain, including at least $30m in cash and $500m
in property, has been stolen by employees who were supposed to be managing
the inheritance. She says they have drained the Nirvana frontman's estate,
using the identities of Cobain, Love and their 16-year-old daughter Frances
Bean (pictured with Love) to buy and sell a network of property across
the United States.
Rhonda Holmes, a San Diego lawyer representing Love, said: "Courtney noticed the money was gone when there wasn't any left. It's no secret she struggled with substance-abuse issues, but in the last year she's taken a more serious approach to sobriety and started noticing things were wrong."
As a result, Love hired private investigators and forensic accountants to track down the thieves. She is now preparing to go to court in California. But instead of keeping whatever property she is able to recoup, she claims she intends to create a foundation and give it away to Americans whose homes have been repossessed during the recession.
Holmes said: "I have never seen such greed and moral turpitude... We will be filing civil cases within the next 30 days. There are many, many millions missing."
The lawyer claimed that dozens of people had been involved in the serial thefts. "In some cases," she said, "they wired money to themselves, wired money to friends, wired money to others, bought anything from cars to homes for themselves, others, stole jewellery... items that were Kurt Cobain's - guitars, photos, memorabilia, you name it."
Holmes said that the stolen money and property had been laundered through the purchases of a network of homes across the US. "This case is going to make Bernie Madoff look warm and fuzzy," she said. "It's a pretty bad scene."
What can we learn? Rules come to mind. Never let employees get chummy with you or with each other. But that's ridiculous. Don't hire family members of employees. But families are loyal, not thieves. Maybe Don't have money dealings with sweethearts as nobody gets more bitter than your ex lover and bitter people steal for revenge. Yes. that one. But that rules out marriages where money is comingled and cohandled.
Is there a way for a big star to achieve money security when her manager, accountant, banker and secretary all have a way to get at your bank account? Well yes. A proper accountant. But this bookkeeper was stipulated by the very bank. That is one collusion too many!
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