Courtney Going To Court To Recover Lost Money

04/08/09 11:37am

Courtney Love's incessant, rant-filled MySpace blog posts about people stealing millions of dollars from her estate may actually have some validity, as her lawyer says civil lawsuits against some of the alleged embezzlers will be launched within the next month.

Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain, Love's late husband, committed suicide 15 years ago. He left at least $30 million U.S. (about $37 million Canadian) in cash and up to $500 million in property for his relatives, including Love and their daughter, Frances Bean Cobain.

But some of the people hired to oversee the estate allegedly set up bank accounts and withdrew money from them by using the identities of the rock couple and their daughter to buy and sell real estate across the U.S.

"I have never seen such greed and moral turpitude," Love's lawyer, Rhonda J. Holmes, told the New York Post newspaper. "This case is going to make Bernard Madoff look warm and fuzzy.

"We will be filing civil cases... within the next 30 days. There are many, many millions missing.

"We've only been able to track down $30 million, but there is more. And then there is the real estate."

Oh, yes, the real estate, which apparently makes the cash loss look like a pittance.

"There is now a web of homes which were bought, flipped and used to launder money — up to $500 million worth," Holmes told the Post. "Any of the property we can get back will be donated to people who have lost their homes in foreclosures."

Holmes told the newspaper she blames Love's drug and alcohol use for her failure to realize sooner how such a vast sum of money could have disappeared.

"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. She hired private investigators, accountants and me.

"We are also working with local and federal authorities. When Mr. Cobain died in 1994, he left his enormously wealthy estate behind for the benefit of his mother, two sisters, a brother, his wife and young daughter. Many of those [involved with] the estate's coffers mismanaged, stole and outright looted it shamelessly."

This seems potentially plausible when Holmes explains it. But when you read Love's take on the situation, you just assume the woman is crazy — even when she produces documentation to try and back up her claims. Check out some of these blog entries from when the singer/musician/actress was serial-posting in mid-March.

We're not sure if Ryan Adams is one of those who'll be sued, since Love alleges he charged $858,000 on one of her 29 American Express cards she claims she didn't know existed and she paid for the singer/songwriter's 2003 Rock N Roll album.

Love may also find herself in court as the accused instead of the accuser after she was hit with a six-count lawsuit launched by an Austin, Texas fashion designer. The woman claims Love is trying to ruin her career and defame her by writing cruel and untrue things about her in more of those infamous blog entries.

Love was sued two years ago for not paying for her costly 11-week stay in a California rehabilitation clinic in 2005, before she sold 25 per cent of her share of Nirvana's music publishing catalogue for a reported $50 million.