Casey Kasem’s youngest daughter has been added as a defendant in a wrongful death lawsuit filed last year against the late “American Top 40” host’s second wife by his oldest children and his brother.
Liberty Kasem, 25, is the only child born to Casey and Jean Kasem, who was married to the longtime radio personality from 1980 until his June 2014 death at age 82 from a form of dementia and a severe bedsore.
The amended Los Angeles Superior Court suit alleges Jean and Liberty Kasem are liable for wrongful death, elder abuse and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
The complaint further alleges Jean Kasem committed intentional infliction of emotional distress by isolating her husband’s older children from their father before his death and that she breached a settlement agreement she had with one of his other daughters, Julie Kasem, by making it hard for her to visit with her father during most of the last six months of his life.
“Plaintiffs seek justice in this action through the only available means … for the grossly harmful mistreatment and isolation of their father and brother and for the hastening of his death,” the amended complaint alleges.
A representative for Liberty Kasem could not be immediately reached. However, after a probate court hearing regarding her late father in September 2014, she said he was given good care by her mother and that family members who said otherwise were not telling the truth. “I’m going to have justice for my dad,” she said.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Kerri, Julie and Michael Kasem and their uncle, Mouner. They fought Jean Kasem over visitation access before her husband died.
Kerri Kasem was given temporary conservatorship powers over her father and had control of his medical care. The temporary conservatorship expired upon his death, but she was later appointed special administrator of her father’s estate.
In their court papers, the plaintiffs cited Jean Kasem’s decision to move her husband from a medical facility in Santa Monica to a friend’s home in Washington state.
“Jean chartered a plane to avoid detection and flew Casey to … Washington,” the suit states. “There, she and Liberty moved Casey in with a childhood friend …. whom Casey had never met.”
The traveling took its toll on the famed deejay, causing him to suffer a bedsore a month before he died “after a seven-day sojourn in Jean and Liberty’s custody,” the suit states.
After his death, Jean Kasem transported her husband’s body to Norway, where he was buried in an unmarked grave despite his wishes to be buried at a cemetery in Los Angeles, the lawsuit states.
Last May, the District Attorney’s Office declined to file criminal charges against Jean Kasem regarding her husband’s death.
Casey Kasem began his “American Top 40” radio show in July 1970, signing off each time with the message, “And don’t forget: Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars.”
Kerri, Julie and Michael Kasem were born during their father’s 1972-79 marriage to Linda Myers.
