Now Van Exel is accused of trying to steal $50 million from the estate of the late rocker Prince...
From Legal News
In a strange offshoot of the never-ending Prince estate saga, a federal judge is allowing part of a Minnesota lawyer’s suit for defamation, tortious interference, abuse of process and conspiracy to move forward against a self-styled celebrity manager and his ex-lawyers.
Justin Andrew Bruntjen, owner of Wayzata-based Decerto Law LLC, filed suit in August against a celebrity hanger-on named Raffles Van Exel, plus two law firms and several individual attorneys.
Bruntjen, who once represented Prince’s half-brother Alfred Jackson in the estate litigation, contends defendants conspired against him to, in effect, steal his client—and his client’s estimated $50 million share of Prince’s estate.
In a Dec. 11 order, Minnesota U.S. District Court Judge Michael J. Davis dismissed the portion of Bruntjen’s complaint involving Missouri-based law firm James W. Tippin & Associates, and its partner lawyer Keith Anthony Cutler. The court lacks jurisdiction over their alleged activities, the judge found.
But litigation can proceed against the man Davis refers to as “Raffles,” and against the Texas law firm White, Wiggins & Barnes, and its managing partners, Ward Allen White IV and Kennedy Lowell Barnes.
The story behind the suit not only involves tortious but—for those trying to read the ruling and its accompanying complaint and reply memos—torturous claims.
