Mariah Carey's Ex-Manager Sues Lawyer for Bad Mouthing Her to Mimi and Allegedly Stealing Money

Mariah Carey's former manager claims a lawyer she hired went behind her back and lied about her to Mariah, which she claims cost her millions of dollars.

According to court documents obtained by The Blast, Stella Bulochnikov claims she hired a lawyer in January 2016 named Zarina Burbacki (who also happens to be Bulochnikov's cousin) to work with Stella and Mariah. But Bulochnikov claims Burbacki misrepresented the extent of her legal expertise, specifically "that she could obtain necessary patents and trademarks for a contemplated skin care line Ms. Bulochnikov was working on."

Bulochnikov claims Burbacki recorded their phone calls without her permission and "forged Ms. Bulochnikov signature on various documents, including contracts, without Ms. Bulochnikov’s knowledge or permission." She also claims Burback conspired to get into Bulochnikov's emails and spied on her communications with other parties.

In the lawsuit, Bulochnikov cites two instances where she claims Burbacki made false accusations about Bulochnikov to her clients.

*Note: the lawsuit does not mention Mariah Carey specifically by name, but we have confirmed from multiple sources the incidents described below are about Carey.

Bulochnikov claims on August 29, 2017, in Denver, Colorado, "Burbacki made false and defamatory statements to entertainment industry personnel that Ms. Bulochnikov was stealing from a client, improperly structuring deals to take a bigger cut of the revenue from the deal, and was hiding those “stolen” funds in a secret bank account. Burbacki falsely represented this secret bank account had $5 million in it."

On October 14, 2017, Bulochnikov claims Burbacki and her husband went to Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut and "participated in a clandestine meeting with a client of Ms. Bulochnikov where they repeated the falsities they had been spreading about Ms. Bulochnikov concerning her purported self-dealing and theft and impugned her character and intentions as a talent manager."

In that meeting, Bulochnikov claims Burbacki "shared an illegally recorded telephone call between her and Ms. Bulochnikov, which was taken out of context to support her false, misleading and defamatory statements."

Bulochnikov and Carey parted ways roughly three weeks later.

Bulochnikov also claims Burbacki had money transferred into her own accounts that belonged to Bulochnikov, but only returned a portion of it to Bulochnikov. The total amount in question was $275,000.

Ultimately, Bulochnikov claims Burbacki and her husband cost her $20 million.

We reached out to Burbacki for comment — so far, no word back.