A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled today that 82-year-old radio legend Casey Kasem should be fed and continue to be given needed medicine while hospitalized in critical condition in Kitsap County, Washington.
The decision by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Daniel Murphy was a victory for Jean Kasem, who was in a California court today for the first time since her stepdaughter, Kerri Kasem, was given temporary conservatorship powers over the radio legend last month.
Murphy also said he will consider a petition by Jean Kasem to replace her stepdaughter as her husband’s temporary conservator. A hearing is scheduled Friday.
The judge ordered Samuel Ingham, Kasem’s court-appointed attorney, to fly to Washington to evaluate and monitor matters there.
Jean and Kerri Kasem have waged a pitched battle over Kasem’s care. He suffers from dementia and Lewy body disease, which has symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease.
Court papers filed on Jean Kasem’s behalf today by her attorney, Steven Haney, state that Kerri Kasem recently ordered that her father be placed on “morphine type drug that would lead to his imminent death.”
“Only God knows when to take someone,” Jean Kasem said after today’s hearing. “My husband is an American treasure, a great man. He didn’t deserve this.”
She said her husband told her and their daughter, Liberty, over the weekend that he “desperately communicated to us that he absolutely wanted to live.”
In a sworn declaration, she alleges her stepdaughter wants her father dead.
“I am broken-hearted that Kerri Kasem would unilaterally decide to kill her father and my husband of nearly four decades. None of this would have been possible if Kerri had not fraudulently claimed that Casey was not receiving appropriate medical care in order for her to be appointed temporary conservator.”
Kerri Kasem’s lawyer, Martha Patterson, said the change in the former “America’s Top 40” host’s treatment was ordered by his doctors, not by her client.
A model and radio personality, Kerri Kasem previously filed documents alleging that her stepmother “continues to cruelly prevent (Casey Kasem) from seeing his loved ones, including his children, brother and close friends.”
Kerri Kasem claims Jean Kasem previously 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 May 6 at Berkley East Convalescent Hospital in Santa Monica, and that it was the first time she had seen him since December, but he was moved again the following day without their knowledge.
Kitsap County sheriff’s deputies reported they had found Kasem at a home in Silverdale.
Jean Kasem alleges in her latest court papers that her stepdaughter is a Scientologist and has posed for “soft-core pornography,” both over the objections of her father.
