Another of Casey Kasem’s children is seeking to become his temporary conservator, once again alleging that the radio legend’s wife is preventing his offspring from visiting him, court papers obtained on May 8 show.
Model and radio personality Kerri Kasem filed documents in Los Angeles Superior Court alleging that Jean Kasem “continues to cruelly prevent (Casey Kasem) from seeing his loved ones, including his children, brother and close friends.”
A hearing is scheduled Monday on the temporary conservatorship bid. Kerri Kasem also is seeking a restraining order that would prevent her stepmother from moving her father to another convalescent home unless there is a medical emergency.
Jean Kasem’s attorney, Charles Kriendler, did not immediately return a call for comment.
Kerri Kasem’s sister, Julie Kasem, and her physician husband, Dr. Jamil Aboulhosn, previously filed a similar request for temporary conservatorship last year, but the two sides reached a settlement just before Christmas.
In a sworn declaration filed with the court on May 7, Kerri Kasem says that her father has Lewy Body Disease and that it has many similar symptoms to Parkinson’s disease, but with a greater impact on the sufferer’s cognitive functions.
Kerri Kasem claims her stepmother moved her father to five different facilities to keep his children and other loved ones from visiting him. She said she and her sister Julie were able to locate and visit him on Tuesday at Berkley East Convalescent Hospital in Santa Monica and that it was the first time she had seen him since December.
“My father was very responsive and happy to see my sister and me,” her declaration says. “He smiled the entire time we were there. He tried to talk to us and was able to say, `I love you’ a few times so that everyone could hear.”
As they left, Kasem asked his two daughters when they would return, according to Kerri Kasem. Nurses at the facility told them it was the happiest they had seen him since he arrived at the hospital, she says.
Jean Kasem allowed Julie Kasem to visit her father for a while after the settlement was reached, but starting in January, she refused to allow any of his daughters to see him “in violation of the visitation agreement,” Kerri Kasem alleges.
She says she was dissatisfied with the visitation arrangements offered her under the previous settlement because it was “much too restrictive” and required that any time she spent with her father had to be in the presence of an armed guard hired by her stepmother.
Julie Kasem also filed a sworn statement with Kerri Kasem’s court papers in which she says she spoke to her father by phone almost every day before August 2012 and that she and her sister spent time with him most Sundays up until then.
Kerri, Julie and Mike Kasem were born during their father’s marriage to Linda Myers from 1972-79. Jean Kasem has been married to the 82-year-old former radio personality for more than three decades.
After Julie Kasem filed her petition last year, Jean Kasem responded by filing court papers attacking the motives of her stepchildren, alleging they “single-handedly and irreparably shattered the lives of their father, his wife and youngest daughter, the calm of their home and their neighborhood by engaging in uncalled for public demonstrations and personal attacks in the
media. They are doing so with a professionally orchestrated media and legal campaign that has disgraced their father and vilified their stepmother….”
