Stan Lee’s ex-business manager has been charged with abusing the late comic-book legend, who died in November 2018. On Friday, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office charged Keya Morgan—a former memorabilia dealer who has been investigated for committing elder abuse against Lee since last year—with “one felony count of false imprisonment of an elder adult, three felony counts of theft, embezzlement, and forgery or fraud against an elder adult, along with an initial elder-abuse misdemeanor count,“ Deadline notes. A $300,000 warrant has been issued for his arrest.
Morgan began “increasingly” controlling Lee’s business and personal affairs in February 2018, according to the A.P. Lee’s attorney, Tom Lallas, said Morgan began isolating and influencing Lee, taking advantage of the Marvel icon’s advanced age. He was arrested last June for allegedly filing a false police report and claiming burglars were in Lee’s house, when, in reality, there were two detectives and a social worker there, doing a welfare check on the comic creator. Lee was also granted a restraining order, filed by Lallas, against the former memorabilia dealer that month.
At the time, Morgan denied the allegations of isolating Lee.
“I have taken great care of Stan Lee for the past many years, and have never had a problem directly with Stan,” he said in a statement to TMZ. “I have a fantastic relationship with him for the past many years, as he has stated countless times on the record, and I literally saved his life once . . . This is a witch hunt by his daughter and her lawyer against me, because she cannot stand the fact Stan likes me so much. I will 100 percent prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the allegations against me are false. And I will definitely take legal action against anyone who is making up these lies. The truth will come out.”
Reps for Morgan have not yet responded to Vanity Fair’s request for comment about the latest elder-abuse charges.
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