Attorney sues self-styled celebrity manager, claiming he stole his client
By Kevin Featherly
BridgeTower Media Newswires
MINNEAPOLIS, MN — In a strange offshoot of the never-ending Prince estate saga, a federal judge is allowing part of a Minnesota lawyer’s suit for defamation, tortious interference, abuse of process and conspiracy to move forward against a self-styled celebrity manager and his ex-lawyers.
Justin Andrew Bruntjen, owner of Wayzata-based Decerto Law LLC, filed suit in August against a celebrity hanger-on named Raffles Van Exel, plus two law firms and several individual attorneys.
Bruntjen, who once represented Prince’s half-brother Alfred Jackson in the estate litigation, contends defendants conspired against him to, in effect, steal his client—and his client’s estimated $50 million share of Prince’s estate.
In a Dec. 11 order, Minnesota U.S. District Court Judge Michael J. Davis dismissed the portion of Bruntjen’s complaint involving Missouri-based law firm James W. Tippin & Associates, and its partner lawyer Keith Anthony Cutler. The court lacks jurisdiction over their alleged activities, the judge found.
But litigation can proceed against the man Davis refers to as “Raffles,” and against the Texas law firm White, Wiggins & Barnes, and its managing partners, Ward Allen White IV and Kennedy Lowell Barnes.
The story behind the suit not only involves tortious but—for those trying to read the ruling and its accompanying complaint and reply memos—torturous claims.
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Ubiquitous Raffles
It all swirls around the ubiquitous Raffles.
Raffles Van Exel—Bruntjen suggests that is not his real name—is an “entertainment consultant” who has been associated with Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Patti LaBelle and Ray Charles, among numerous other R&B music stars. Those associations, allegedly, have not always been savory.
Davis’ ruling, citing Bruntjen’s complaint, notes that Van Exel allegedly was present either during or immediately after Houston’s 2012 death. He also “allegedly removed evidence from the room prior to the police arriving, and … provided her cocaine shortly before her death,” the ruling says.
According to Bruntjen’s complaint, Van Exel reached out to Alfred Jackson’s brother Bruce—who is not related to Prince—immediately after Prince died in April 2016. Van Exel allegedly told Bruce Jackson to remove Alfred from the Waite Park, Minnesota, long-term care facility where he was living. Alfred eventually moved to Missouri.
After their first contact, Van Exel flew to Minneapolis to meet with the brothers. There Van Exel held himself out as a celebrity manager, according to Bruntjen’s complaint, claiming he previously had worked for Prince. He convinced Alfred Jackson to sign a letter of agreement paying him a 10% commission, according to Davis’ ruling.
At the same meeting, Van Exel introduced Alfred Jackson to Indianapolis attorney Frank Wheaton. Jackson hired Wheaton to represent him in the estate litigation. Wheaton, in turn, recruited Bruntjen to serve as local Minnesota counsel.
The relationship between Wheaton and Bruntjen soon soured, and by late 2017 Wheaton would write Carver County District Court Judge Kevin Eide to complain that Bruntjen unethically muscled him out of the case. However it happened, Bruntjen became Jackson’s primary counsel in March 2017.
From the time of Prince’s death, Bruntjen claims, Van Exel “ran a con” on Jackson, ingratiating himself into Jackson’s life. By January 2017, Van Exel took him to a Minneapolis Wells Fargo bank to open a bank account in both their names. When Alfred Jackson told Bruce Jackson about it, the family immediately cut off communication with Van Exel.
But “Raffles” worked his way back into Alfred Jackson’s good graces.
In August 2018, Davis writes, “Raffles began a campaign to get plaintiff fired as Jackson’s attorney, telling him that plaintiff was racist and that he didn’t like black people.”
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The replacements
On Nov. 2, 2018, Bruntjen was supplanted as primary counsel by White Wiggins & Barnes, L.L.P. (WWB). The Texas firm apparently was recruited by Van Exel.
Several months later, WWB attorney Barnes filed suit against Bruntjen in Missouri’s Western U.S. District Court, claiming that Bruntjen stole $500,000 by withholding the final installment of a $2 million loan to Jackson. The Tippin firm’s Cutler acted as local Missouri counsel in that suit.
Bruntjen proved the allegation false by submitting a copy of a wire confirmation showing the final installment had been paid, minus attorney’s fees. The suit was then withdrawn, but not before a website, TheBlaze.com, publicized the allegations against Bruntjen.
That alleged defamation and the machinations leading up to it constitute much of the basis for Bruntjen’s suit. But the narrative in Davis’ ruling doesn’t quite end there.
It goes on to relate that Van Exel—working through yet another law firm not named in the complaint—allegedly wrangled an Aug. 27, 2019, deal to sell Jackson’s entire share of Prince’s estate. Either that same day, or the next, Alfred Jackson died of what were described publicly as natural causes.
Just a month earlier, Bruntjen alleges, Van Exel directed an attorney to draft a new will naming himself sole beneficiary of Alfred Jackson’s estate. On Nov. 13, 2019, Van Exel’s new lawyers filed that new will.
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Nine counts
Bruntjen’s nine-count complaint alleges:
Defamation per se against Van Exel.
Defamation per se against the WWB law firm.
Defamation per se against law firms WWB and Tippin.
Tortious Interference with contract against Van Exel and WWB.
Tortious interference with prospective economic advantage against Van Exel and WWB.
Civil conspiracy to tortiously interfere with a contract against Van Exel and WWB.
Civil conspiracy to defame against Van Exel and WWB.
Civil conspiracy to defame against WWB and Tippin.
Abuse of process against WWB and Tippin.
Judge Davis quickly dispatched with the claims against the Tippen firm, granting the firm’s motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.
Davis ruled his court has neither general nor specific jurisdiction over Tippen’s activities, because its lawyer isn’t licensed to practice in Minnesota. The firm had no contact with the plaintiff and never wrote, emailed or otherwise corresponded with him, the ruling says.
Further, Davis writes, “There are no allegations in the complaint which demonstrate that Tippin was involved with the alleged plan by Raffles and WWB to get plaintiff fired as Jackson’s attorney.”
However, claims against Exel, WWB and its managing partners survive, the judge ruled.
Exel, Barnes and White all traveled to Minnesota in pursuit of the conspiracy, Bruntjen alleges. And the two lawyers were admitted pro hac vice to represent Alfred Jackson in Minnesota in the Prince estate matter.
Davis ruled that while his court has no general jurisdiction over the WWB law firm, it does have specific jurisdiction.
“The allegations in the complaint as a whole show that defendants had substantial contacts with Minnesota because the ‘prize’ was to get paid by Jackson’s windfall from the Prince estate and from the trustee for the Prince estate,” Davis writes.
He denied defendants’ motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. Davis also denied the remaining defendants’ request to dismiss the case based on a failure to state a claim.
The two sides disagree on whether WWB was retained as Jackson’s counsel when its lawyers learned of the—false, it turns out—allegations that Bruntjen stole $500,000 from Jackson. Because that timing is disputed, WWB’s claim that it has absolute immunity from the suit is denied, Davis ruled.
“Furthermore,” Davis continues, “whether the evidence shows that WWB did not represent Jackson at the time the Missouri action was filed, and that defendants knew that plaintiff had demonstrated he sent Jackson the last installment prior to the Missouri action, are fact questions for a jury to decide.”
Bruntjen is represented in the case by Lee A Hutton III of Minneapolis law firm Elefterakis, Elefterakis & Panek.
The lawyers representing the case’s remaining defendants are Laura E. Kuipers and M. Gregory Simpson, of Minneapolis firm Meagher & Geer, P.L.L.P., according to the case’s civil docket.
