Allred seeks guardian for octuplets’ finances
Earlier this year, Los Angeles attorney Gloria Allred held news conferences on behalf of nurses upset about how octuplet mother Nadya Suleman cared for her children.
Now, Allred has another client who has a problem with Suleman: former child actor Paul Petersen, president of A Minor Consideration, a nonprofit foundation that supports young performers.
On Monday, Allred held a news conference to announce that she and Petersen had filed a petition in Orange County Superior Court seeking a guardian to protect the financial interests of the octuplets.
“Rather than choosing to provide her children with a normal life, their mother, Nadya Suleman, has chosen instead to commercially exploit them,” Allred said. “We believe that the babies are entitled to remuneration, since much, if not most, of the compensation appears to be for the use of their images.”
Since bringing her babies home, Suleman has allowed them to appear on the celebrity website Radaronline, and a photo agency has released their images for sale. Suleman has also talked of signing a contract for a reality television show and had her “Octomom” nickname trademarked.
Allred and Petersen are seeking an order that would create separate bank accounts for the babies’ earnings and require Suleman to hire a professional agent for them, separate from her agent.
Suleman’s lawyer, Jeffrey Czech, said in a statement: “Persons who do not have any knowledge of the Suleman children are interfering into their lives in an apparent effort to gain publicity and financial reward for themselves.”
But he added that Suleman “takes the petition seriously and will respond accordingly.”
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