Lawyer seeks guardian over octuplet assets

Says doesn’t want Suleman’s children to be commercially exploited

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updated 9:22 p.m. ET May 4, 2009

SANTA ANA, Calif. - An advocate for child actors wants a judge to appoint a guardian to oversee the interests of Nadya Suleman's octuplets if they are featured in TV shows, Internet videos and magazines.

Lawyer Gloria Allred said Monday she filed the petition in Orange County Superior Court on behalf of Paul Petersen, president of A Minor Consideration and a former Mouseketeer who grew up on "The Donna Reed Show."

Allred represents Angels in Waiting, a nonprofit group of nurses that helped care for Suleman's children.

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She says a guardian would ensure that payments for the octuplets' appearances are placed into accounts separate from their mother's and that laws regarding child performers are observed.

"Rather than choosing to provide her children with a normal life, their mother, Nadya Suleman, has chosen instead to commercially exploit them,” Allred said in a statement. “We believe that the babies are entitled to remuneration, since much, if not most, of the compensation appears to be for the use of their images.”

Suleman's attorney, Jeff Czech, called the petition an imprudent publicity ploy that will waste "the precious little funds the children can look forward to."

Suleman, who gave birth to the octuplets in January, has six other children.

More on: Nadya Suleman