Brit Manager Served at Last

Thu., Aug. 30, 2007 2:19 PM PDT by Gina Serpe

He can tan, but he can't hide.

Despite doing his best to hide from Kevin Federline's subpoena-happy legal team, Britney Spears' former manager Larry Rudolph has finally been served to testify in the couple's ongoing child-custody battle.

While Spears' career Svengali told E! News anchor Ryan Seacrest earlier this week that he had spent the past few weeks on the run from Federline's process server, his incognito skills are either sorely lacking, or he gave up the game, finally getting slapped with the paperwork at the West Los Angeles branch of the Sunset Tan tanning salon Thursday morning.

Over the weekend, Rudolph expressed his reticence at testifying in the case to Seacrest, saying he wished to remain loyal to the tabloid trainwreck despite his rocky professional relationship with the singer, with whom he has twice parted ways. He told Seacrest that, should he be made to testify, it "won't be good for Britney."

In a statement issued to That Other Blog later in the week, Rudolph said he didn't take personally some of Spears' comments directed at him in the media, namely that forcing her into rehab was Rudolph's brainchild, saying, "I understand where she's coming from."

Rudolph also said that despite her recent, and intense, downward spiral in the public eye, "my loyalty will always stay strong with Britney...I do understand that eventually the time will come when they will find me, but until then, I'm trying to avoid being brought into this mess."

The time, apparently, has come.

Rudolph is the latest in an increasingly long line of current and former Spears hangers-on who've been subpoenaed by Federline's lawyer, Mark Vincent Kaplan, to testify in the custody case next month.

The string of subpoenas kicked off earlier this month, following a judge's finalization of the Spears-Federline divorce, in which joint custody of kids Sean Preston and Jayden James was granted to the exes. However, about two weeks after the decision, Federline went to court seeking primary physical custody of the boys, claiming concern over his sons' well-being in Spears' custody due to her often erratic public behavior.

So far, Spears' personal assistant of one month and firsthand witness to her disastrous OK! cover shoot, Shannon Funk, has been served, as has Spears' longtime sidekick and oft-billed "cousin" Alli Sims and her former bodyguard turned manny Daimon Shippen.

While one of the people closest to Spears, or at least one of the people formerly closest to Spears, her mother Lynne, has yet to be subpoenaed, time may be winding down for her, as well.

A source close to Federline told E! Online earlier this month that the once aspiring rapper has been weighing whether to slap his onetime mother-in-law with a subpoena in the case.

"Lynne Spears has stopped short of criticizing Britney in public, choosing instead to support Kevin behind closed doors," the source said. "But that's become such a sore spot between Brit and her mom."

"Britney really resents her parents for backing Kevin. And if Kevin drags them all in court, it's going to get so ugly."

Lawyers for both Spears and Federline are due back in court on Sept. 14—the day Sean Preston celebrates his second birthday—to determine whether certain sealed documents pertaining to their custody dispute should be made public. They face off again on Sept. 17 in another hearing in their custody case.