K-Fed getting a bad rap over his legal bills?
Whether it was a $1,100 tip at an L.A. restaurant or a $2,000 tip at a Vegas strip club, Kevin Federline’s 2007 spending – detailed in recently released financial documents – has critics buzzing over his lavish lifestyle. But his lawyer says they need to look at the bigger picture before passing judgment.
“He’s totally getting a bad rap here,” according to Federline attorney Mark Vincent Kaplan, who says the “court of public opinion” is focusing on a few outstanding expenditures. “It seems like an unnecessary attempt to knock him when there’s really no basis to do that.”
Kaplan claims that even the $2,000 Scores strip club tip has a logical explanation. “That was for a group of people for a friend’s bachelor party,” says Kaplan, who adds that it wasn’t a tip: “That’s just how the club categorized it.”
Many of Federline’s tips are less extravagant. During a September trip to Fat Tony’s Italian Restaurant in North Carolina, he tipped $10.00 on a $41.69 bill.
Federline’s Double Life
The papers show two sides to K-Fed. Last August, he spent $304.30 to fly to Las Vegas on low-cost Southwest Airlines. (”He doesn’t fly private and more often he drives,” says Kaplan.) But once he was there, he didn’t cut corners. Over the next three days, he spent $3,038.69 at the Hard Rock Beach Club, $3,863.50 at Tao, and $10,220.65 at The Venetian.
Still, some of his spending is less rock star and more suburban dad. Routine charges at Target ($115.10), IKEA ($246.66) and Albertson’s grocery store ($405.75) fill his credit card statements, interspersed with occasional shopping sprees at toy stores. (In May, he dropped $2,167.52 in one day at Toys R Us and Babies R Us.)
Kaplan also disagrees with Britney Spears’ legal team’s argument that the larger expenses suggest Federline should foot some of the custody-battle legal bills that he’s asked her to pay.
“Don’t focus on whether he spent too much money going on a vacation or going to a restaurant,” says Kaplan. “Focus – as the court does – on was he reasonable having to incur these [court] fees? The answer is a resounding yes.” Kaplan says that the legal fees were “built up quite frankly by the conduct of [Spears]” during some of her court-delaying, widely-publicized antics.
“I don’t think the court should be distracted by the fact that he went to Las Vegas and spent $1,000 or $5,000,” says Kaplan. “It’s not relevant.”
WENN
