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TORRANCE (CNS) - The daughter of the late music producer Phil Spector, having previously obtained a temporary restraining order preventing the sale at auction by Juliens Auctions LLC of memorabilia that once belonged to her father, says in new court papers that she believes her father's former wife impersonated her in order to get the items to the auction house.
On May 18 Torrance Superior Court Judge David K. Reinert issued a TRO in favor of Nicole Spector, preventing any auction from going forward before a July 27 hearing on whether a preliminary injunction should be issued pending the full outcome of the case.
According to Nicole Spector's suit filed May 16, she obtained a detailed probate court order after her father's death "specifically confirming" that the personal property at issue belongs to the trust established by Phil Spector in 2016, which names her as the sole trustee.
The suit states that Nicole Spector obtained the probate order after her father's ex-wife, Rachelle Spector, refused to turn over or allow the plaintiff access to property that remained in the former spouse's possession after the divorce was final.
In a sworn declaration submitted Friday in support of her request for a preliminary injunction, Nicole Spector says a Julien's representative stated that the Spector property was obtained from a woman associated with Antiques on Magnolia in Burbank, who claimed to have obtained the property from a woman purporting to be the musician's daughter.
"Based on Rachelle's prior behavior, and what I understand Julien's to have represented regarding the manner in which it obtained the Spector property, I believe that Rachelle impersonated me, or a representative of the estate, and provided the items to Julien's, personally or through a third party, on the pretense that Rachelle was me and thus was entitled to sell the Spector property," Nicole Spector says.
Nicole Spector further says she went to her father's Alhambra home in January 2019 and took every item of her father's personal property made accessible to Rachelle Spector.
"Not a single item made available to me that day was the Spector property now in Julien's possession," Nicole Spector says. "At that time, I specifically asked Rachelle about the missing items of personal property confirmed to belong to my father in the divorce judgment, including certain items that now appear as part of the Spector property given by Rachelle to Julien's for sale, and Rachelle responded that she did not possess any of those items and did not know where they were."
Nicole Spector further says she "never had any intent to abandon any of the Spector property" and that she filed a police report regarding the missing items in mid-May.
The property at issue includes gold and platinum records, awards from the Songwriter's Hall of Fame and numerous others, original master recordings, music and lyric sheets, a framed photo montage given to Phil Spector by John Lennon and numerous other valuable items.
In her own sworn declaration, Rachelle Spector says that of the items listed for auction, many were not identified as being granted to Phil Spector in the divorce settlement because they were deemed to be her property at the time.
"The remaining items in the Julien's auction are my property as they had been left behind by Nicole back in January 2019," Rachelle Spector says. "I now wish to sell my property at auction and I understand that any delay would likely cause a substantial decrease the value of these items."
Rachelle Spector says she did not impede Nicole Spector during the latter's January 2019 visit.
"For two days, Nicole was given full access to the house and she had free rein to direct the movers she had hired to remove any items that she believed belonged to Phil," Rachelle Spector says. "The movers removed many items, and I did not raise any objections to the items that she identified for removal."
Phil Spector died in January 2021 at age 81 while serving a sentence of 19 years to life for the murder of actor Lana Clarkson. The cause of the "Wall of Sound" producer's death was complications from the coronavirus, Nicole Spector said at the time.