LOS ANGELES (CNS) – A settlement was reached between Mickey Rooney and
one of his stepsons, who the 90-year-old actor had accused of trying to gain
control of his assets, an attorney for the movie icon said after a court
conservatorship hearing today.
Lawyer Bruce S. Ross said the resolution means a scheduled April 5
hearing on a possible extension of the current stay-away order against
Christopher Thomas Aber and his wife, Christina, will not be held.
He said both Abers have agreed to the provisions of the current order
without having to have further enforcement by a judge.
The restraining order directed Aber and his wife — who both denied any
wrongdoing — to stay at least 100 yards from Rooney and his home.
Also protected under the order were another Rooney stepson, 48-year-old
Mark Aber Rooney, and the latter’s 58-year-old wife, Charlene. Both have lived
with the actor since April 2009.
In another development today, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Reva
Goetz approved the provisions of Rooney’s voluntary agreement to have Alhambra
attorney Michael R. Augustine made the permanent conservator of the actor and
his estate.
Goetz previously appointed Augustine the temporary conservator.
Rooney, the former star of the Andy Hardy films, asked for the
conservatorship to protect his assets from the Abers, according to his court
papers.
Christopher Aber, 52, regularly went to Rooney’s home unannounced and
the actor hid in his room to avoid him, according to court papers submitted by
the actor’s lawyers in support of the restraining order.
In a sworn declaration, Augustine says Rooney wanted the conservatorship
to remain in place. He says he went with Rooney to banks where the actor kept
money, and that he found that $400,000 belonging to the actor was missing.
Augustine also says Rooney is so financially strapped that he frequently
wears the same clothes and has only one pair of shoes. He stated that Rooney
told him he was unable to buy his wife, Jan, flowers on Valentine’s Day because
“I have no money.’
Mitchell Karosov, an attorney for Rooney’s wife, told Goetz that his
client supports a permanent conservatorship. The lawyer read from a document
in which she described her husband as “one of the remaining Hollywood
legends’ and said she hoped he would benefit by the conservatorship’s
“inherent checks and balances.’

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