Jerry Lee Lewis in 2011 (photo: Larry Philpot, soundstagephotography.com, CC by SA 3.0)
A federal judge has struck down claims by Jerry Lewis alleging that his daughter had stolen money from him.
In a decision signed April 25th, U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers ruled that the majority of the claims were barred because of a three-year statute of limitations. The only claim that is still in contention is the allegation that the daughter slandered Lewis and his current wife using online comments.
The legendary rocker has been plagued throughout his life with family troubles. The daughter named in these lawsuits is Phoebe Lewis-Loftin, born to Lewis and his ex-wife, the former Myra Gale Brown. Lewis-Loftin had been in charge of her father’s finances since 2002, keeping all of his earnings and putting them into her own personal bank account.
In 2010, Lewis-Loftin hired Judith Brown to be her father’s caretaker. Lewis and Brown became involved romantically and then married in March of 2012. Brown became Lewis’ seventh wife. Right after the marriage, Lewis told his daughter that he did not want her to run his career and finances, while also revoking her power of attorney.
It was not until 2017 that Lewis sued his daughter and her spouse, Zeke Loftin, alleging that the pair owed him a significant amount of money.
One component of the lawsuit was the allegation that Zeke Loftin slandered the musician and his seventh wife as well as his son, Jerry Lee Lewis III, through a series of Facebook posts in 2016. This is the only part of the lawsuit that was not thrown out under the statute of limitations.
Biggers dismissed the financial claims because he said that Lewis and his wife knew about the mismanagement of funds by 2012, yet they did not make a move to sue until June 2015.
The 83-year-old Lewis had a stroke in February of this year, resulting in the cancellation of all of his upcoming scheduled performances.