Anna Nicole Smith's Boyfriend, Doctors Charged With Illegally Giving Her Drugs

[Poochy]

http://www.comcast.net/articles/entertainment/20091007/US.Anna.Nicole.Smith.FBI/

AP: Anna Nicole Smith investigated in murder plot
By MATT SEDENSKY, AP
2 hours ago

 MIAMI — The FBI investigated whether Anna Nicole Smith was part of a plot to kill her tycoon husband's son, whom she was battling for his late dad's fortune, but prosecutors ultimately decided there wasn't enough evidence to charge the Playboy Playmate who died in 2007 from a drug overdose, newly released files show.

Smith's FBI records, obtained exclusively by The Associated Press, say the agency investigated Smith in 2000 and 2001 in a murder-for-hire plot targeting E. Pierce Marshall, who was at the center of a long legal fight to keep the starlet, model and stripper from collecting his father's oil wealth, valued in the hundreds of millions. The younger Marshall has since died.

The documents released under the Freedom of Information Act depict an investigation going on as the fight raged over J. Howard Marshall II's estate. Vast sections of the 100 pages of released materials — a fraction of Smith's full FBI file — are whited out, and no evidence of her involvement in such a plot is detailed.

There is no indication how authorities became aware of the alleged scheme, but agents interviewed Smith on July 3, 2000. When told why she was being questioned, "Smith began crying and denied ever making such plans," a report said.

"Smith adamantly denied ever contemplating such a crime," an agent wrote, and prosecutors eventually agreed the case could not go forward. An April 26, 2001, letter to the FBI from Sally Meloch, an assistant U.S. attorney, said she reviewed the reports but "determined that there is insufficient evidence to establish that there was a murder-for-hire plot by Ms. Smith to kill Pierce Marshall."

Reached at her Los Angeles office on Tuesday, Meloch didn't recall the case, but said, "Any investigations that we didn't proceed with, we couldn't comment on anyway."

An attorney for Smith's estate, Kent Richland, was surprised by the allegations.

"I have not heard anything about that," he said.

An attorney for the Marshall estate, including for the younger Marshall's widow, said he couldn't immediately comment.

Smith was 26 when she wed the 89-year-old Marshall, owner of Great Northern Oil Co., whose wealth was estimated by Forbes to be $550 million in 1992. They met while she was a topless dancer at a Texas strip club.

He died of natural causes in 1995, little more than a year after they wed. His son died in 2006 at age 67 of an infection and Smith died a year later at age 39 after collapsing in her South Florida hotel room.

The FBI files show a .357 Smith and Wesson revolver was confiscated from Smith's home, along with a 3 1/2-inch stainless-steel knife and, for reasons that were not explained, a black and orange hat described as "Dr. Seuss." All three objects were returned to her about seven months later.

The FBI reviewed tape recordings of phone calls involving Smith during their investigation, though transcripts were not included in the released materials. Among the things that were included were agents' scribblings in spiral-bound notebooks, accounts of Smith's past arrests for drunken driving and battery, and an interview of the younger Marshall.

In that June 27, 2000 interview, Marshall said Smith rarely spent time with his father after their 1994 marriage and said his father complained that she asked for $50,000 to $60,000 twice a week.

Smith's lawyer and companion Howard K. Stern and two doctors, Dr. Sandeep Kapoor and Dr. Khristine Eroshevich, are charged in California with helping the model obtain drugs that ultimately killed her. All have pleaded not guilty.

The dispute between Smith and the Marshall estate has bounced around courts for years.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 2006 that Smith could pursue her late husband's fortune, overturning an appellate decision, which continues to be fought in California. The money became a factor after Smith's death, too, with Stern, her mother, and another boyfriend all fighting over an estate that ultimately will go to her daughter, who is now 3.

[Carnut]

Anna Nicole's last days: Drinking from baby bottle

By Howard Breuer

(People.com) -- As the new spokesmodel for Trimspa diet pills in 2003, Anna Nicole Smith was a bubbly picture of health.

 But just four years later, at 39 years old, the former blonde bombshell drifted out of consciousness in a Florida hotel room -- too weak to walk, sit up or even drink from a glass, until her heart stopped.

What had happened?

Prosecutors blame a battery of 44 different medications provided by some of the people closest to her: the man who claimed to love her more than anyone in the world; a psychiatrist who claims she was trying to help the former Playmate endure the recent death of her son, Daniel; and Smith's own physician.

For the first time, many of the tragic details of Smith's final hours are being revealed in court. The first witnesses took the stand this week in Los Angeles to determine whether Howard K. Stern, 40, Khristine Eroshevich, 61, and Sandeep Kapoor, 41, should stand trial on felony charges of conspiring to give dangerous drugs to an addict through fraudulent means, such as by using fake names.

Powerful, tragic testimony

The hearing, which follows a two-year investigation into Smith's death, began with a bang. Maurice Brighthaupt, Smith's security guard, described watching Smith slurp from a baby bottle of the powerful sedative chloral hydrate -- cited by a coroner as a primary cause of Smith's fatal overdose -- as if it were a Pepsi.

 "I saw her use a spoon maybe twice and after that it was bottle to mouth. Gulp," Brighthaupt, also a Miami firefighter, testified, adding that he had several conversations with Eroshevich in which the psychiatrist expressed concern about Smith overdosing.

Stern's lawyer said he trusted Smith's doctors to prescribe what she needed for her physical pain and is not liable for the way they obtained the drugs.

Doctors to blame?

"I don't think anyone can say that Howard K. Stern didn't love Anna and didn't attempt, in his way, to do the best thing for her," Stern's attorney, Steven Sadow of Atlanta, told PEOPLE.

Stern has pleaded not guilty to 11 felony counts, including prescribing, administering or dispensing a controlled substance to an addict, obtaining a prescription for opiates by fraud, deceit or misrepresentation, and conspiracy to commit a crime. Eroshevich and Kapoor are each charged with six felony counts, including unlawfully prescribing a controlled substance, prescribing, administering or dispensing a controlled substance to an addict and conspiracy to commit a crime.

The case is far from a slam dunk for prosecutors, and even Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry has wondered aloud about placing criminal liability on doctors and a friend: "Whose fault is it that somebody takes too many pills?"

Deputy District Attorney Renee Rose replied that the defendants were "fully aware" that Smith was an addict who could not control herself around drugs.

"It's like putting a gun in the hand of someone who is suicidal and saying don't pull the trigger," Rose said.

Sad scene at the hotel

Special Agent Danny Santiago of California's Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement said that Smith was clearly ill when she checked into the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida, on February 5, 2007. Santiago testified a hotel clerk told him that Smith, a repeat customer, leaned on Stern to walk and seemed "out of it."

Another hotel employee assigned to act as Smith's personal assistant recalled Eroshevich telling her that Smith had the flu. The psychiatrist said she wasn't licensed in Florida and needed help in getting a prescription for the model, Santiago said.

The hotel dispatched a local doctor to go to the room and treat Smith, but then Stern insisted the doctor stay away, citing concerns about negative press coverage.

"They didn't want any leaks about Anna's physical condition," Santiago said.

Baby bottle and injections

He said that when detectives asked Stern where Smith's baby was, he told them Dannielynn had stayed behind in the Bahamas. When asked about a baby bottle at Smith's bedside, Stern replied that "she was so weak that that was the only way she could drink the Pedialyte" -- a rehydrating drink for children.

Stern, a lawyer who became Smith's fiancé, knew about her use of chloral hydrate and would pass her the bottle when she asked for it, Brighthaupt testified.

Brighthaupt said he also saw Stern inject Smith with other medication "more than seven times" and recounted seeing Stern in a bathroom using a cigarette lighter and a spoon to melt Valium into an injectable form.

"They felt it would get in her system faster," he said.

Smith's autopsy blamed her death on an acute combination of toxic drugs, especially chloral hydrate, Benadryl, clonazepam, diazepam and lorazepam.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/TV/10/16/anna.nicole.smith/index.html

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Anna Nicole Smith drug case to go to trial

By Alan Duke

Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- A judge ruled Friday there was probable cause to try Anna Nicole Smith's boyfriend Howard K. Stern and two doctors for involvement in an alleged conspiracy to provide drugs to a known addict.

"Evidence in the record strongly suggests she was an addict," Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Perry said at the end of a 13-day preliminary hearing.

Perry said "there was a widespread and ongoing effort" to obtain drugs for Smith, whom he characterized as a "strong-willed person" intent on getting drugs.

The doctors may have been "blinded by the celebrity of their patient," Perry said.

A defense lawyer said the case could have a chilling effect on doctors who treat patients for pain, since the doctors could be held criminally liable if their prescriptions are deemed excessive.

Witnesses described Smith as weak and "zombie-like" much of the time in the months after September 11, 2006, when her 20-year-old son died in the Bahamas hospital room where she was recovering from the birth of her daughter.

Smith died February 8, 2007, five months after her son's death, from what a Florida medical examiner ruled was "acute combined drug intoxication."

The defendants, who are out on bond, return to court December 11 for arraignment. No trial date has been set.

The 23 charges against Stern and co-defendants Dr. Khristine Eroshevich and Dr. Sandeep Kapoor included three counts of conspiracy to dispense and administer controlled substances to a known addict.

The three also allegedly conspired to use false names to obtain drugs for Smith, a practice defense lawyers argued was intended to protect the celebrity's privacy.

Stern's lawyer, Steve Sadow, argued that Stern should not be charged because he did not know his companion was an addict or that it was illegal to obtain medication with a prescription written out to a false name.

"He's being charged here with doctor-related activities, which doctors have specific knowledge [of] and he's just a layperson," Sadow told the judge.

Prosecution witnesses outlined evidence that the doctors wrote many prescriptions using several names, including Stern's, for drugs intended for Smith.

"One of their theories is that the mere prescribing of medications using a pseudonym is a crime and it's rebutted by the fact that some of the most respected hospitals in this city use this practice to protect the privacy of some of their celebrity patients," Eroshevich defense lawyer Adam Braun said.

Prosecutors argued that Stern used the false names to get double doses of dangerous drugs to feed the addiction of the former Playboy model and reality TV star.

Kapoor's lawyer said prosecutors could make it difficult for California doctors to treat their patients for pain.

"If this prosecution is successful, you can all plan to call the D.A. office every time you ask your doctor for a prescription for pain, because that's going to be the standard," attorney Ellyn Garafalo said.

Perry agreed with Braun's argument that Eroshevich, a psychiatrist, "deeply cared for Anna Nicole Smith and was well intentioned" with her treatment.

"I made that observation," the judge said.

As Eroshevich left the courthouse Friday, she said she had wanted to stand up and speak several times during the three weeks of testimony, especially when the prosecution hinted that she had had a lesbian relationship with Smith.

Perry refused to allow the prosecutors to show photos they said would prove sex as a motive.

The defense lawyers said they had no expectation that the judge would throw out any of the charges, because the prosecution needed to show only a minimal level of suspicion to get the case sent to trial.

They insisted on the hearing, however, as a way to learn more about the case against them.

"We got to see a few of the witnesses to testify," Sadow said. "We got to see the prosecutors at work, all of which is knowledge we will use."

Braun called the hearing "a gift to us."

"We were tickled to death, though, that the prosecutor called some of their best witnesses and gave us a chance to size up their weaknesses and to get ready for trial," Braun said.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/10/30/anna.nicole.decision/index.html

[Puma]

I was looking through some pics of celebs on a website and up popped DannieLynn and Larry Birkhead.   Hope they're both doing well.   (If Car or Debbie want to move it to an ANS thread somewhere around here, that's cool.)

[Carnut]

Anna Nicole Smith's estate loses $300 million court fight

CNN) -- Anna Nicole Smith's estate is not entitled to $300 million the deceased actress had claimed was intended as a gift from her oil tycoon husband, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

Smith, a former Playboy pinup and stripper, fought for more than a decade with a son of J. Howard Marshall over a fortune estimated as much as $1.6 billion.

It was a court battle that outlived the chief combatants. Marshall's son, E. Pierce Marshall, died in 2006, and Smith died in 2007 from what a Florida medical examiner ruled was "acute combined drug intoxication." Her 3-year-old daughter is her sole heir.

In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a federal appeals panel in California to reconsider its ruling against Smith, whose real name was Vickie Lynn Marshall.

The judges' newest decision pointed to a Texas jury's verdict that the money was not a gift as the chief reason for denying Smith's claim.

"The district court should have afforded preclusive effect to the Texas probate court's factual findings and relevant legal conclusions," Friday's ruling said.

Smith's attorneys claim that apart from the will and trust, Howard Marshall promised his young wife a share of assets earned while they were married.

The Yale-educated businessman was 89 in 1994, when he married the 26-year-old Texan. They had met a few years earlier at a strip club where she worked. Marshall died a year after the wedding, but Smith, according to legal briefs filed with the court, was not given a share of the estate in the will or separate trust.

Smith claimed that Marshall's son "used fraud and undue influence" in his father's last months to have him leave Smith out of his will. State and federal courts have disagreed over whether Smith should receive any part of the estate.

"The lies that were told about told about E. Pierce Marshall have finally been put to rest," Marshall's family said in a written statment. "Pierce Marshall was never intimidated by Anna Nicole and her bevy of contingency fee lawyers' use of her celebrity and the legal system to try to loot J. Howard's estate."

A U.S. bankruptcy judge initially awarded Smith $474 million, which later was reduced to about $90 million. A federal appeals court eventually dismissed the entire award. A Texas probate court also dismissed her claims.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/03/19/anna.nicole.estate/index.html

[Carnut]

Court Rules Anna Nicole Smith's Estate Gets No Money From Oil Fortune

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court ruled Friday that Anna Nicole Smith's estate will get none of the more than $300 million the late Playboy model claimed a Texas billionaire to whom she was briefly married meant to leave her after he died.

The ruling came in a 15-year legal battle that started in a sleepy Houston probate court and stretched all the way to the U.S Supreme Court.

It initially pitted Smith against the son of J. Howard Marshall over the $1.6 billion estate the oil tycoon left after his 1995 death at age 90. J. Howard Marshall had wed Smith the year before when she was 26.

Marshall's son E. Pierce Marshall died in 2006 and Smith perished after a drug overdose in 2008. Their heirs and lawyers kept up the legal fight that included one ruling awarding Smith $474 million.

Kent Richland, who represents the Smith estate, said he would appeal the latest ruling but hasn't decided whether to ask the appeals court for another hearing or take the case back the U.S. Supreme Court regarding different issues.

Eric Brunstad, a lawyer for Marshall family members, said they hoped the legal fight was over.

"Our only wish would be that Pierce were here to see his vindication," the family said in a prepared statement.

The three-judge appeals court panel ruled unanimously that a 2001 jury verdict in Houston in favor of the Marshall family should be honored over two federal court rulings in Smith's favor.

The appeals court said the federal bankruptcy court award of about $447 million and a subsequent federal trial court ruling that lowered the amount to $89 million should be ignored.

The appeals court said the Houston jury heard from all the parties, including Smith, during a five-month trial in which she accused E. Pierce Marshall of illegally coercing his father to keep Smith out of his will.

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2010/03/19/court-rules-anna-nicole-smiths-estate-gets-money-oil-fortune/

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Judge Barring Overdose Evidence in Anna Nicole Smith Case

The judge in the trial of Anna Nicole Smith's doctors and lawyer-boyfriend says he will bar all evidence linking the defendants to Smith's fatal drug overdose.

Superior Court Judge Robert Perry said during a pretrial hearing Friday that he fears the defendants cannot get a fair trial if attorneys focus on Smith's cause of death.

The defendants are accused of illegally providing Smith with opiates and sedatives. They are not charged with causing her death.

Dr. Sandeep Kapoor, Dr. Khristine Eroshevich and Howard Stern have pleaded not guilty to conspiring to illegally prescribe drugs.

Perry also says he doesn't understand why the case was not filed in Florida, where the former Playboy model died in 2007.

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2010/07/30/judge-barring-overdose-evidence-anna-nicole-smith-case/

[Carnut]

Bodyguard testifies that Anna Nicole Smith's boyfriend, doctor supplied her with drugs

Anna Nicole Smith's bodyguard says he saw her boyfriend and a psychiatrist supply the former Playboy model with drugs as she slipped into addiction in the year before her death.

Maurice Brighthaupt — one of the last people to see Smith alive — testified Friday in the trial of Howard K. Stern and two doctors accused of conspiring to supply Smith with massive amounts of drugs, including powerful sedatives and painkillers.

They are not charged with causing her 2007 overdose death.

Brighthaupt says Smith popped pills for years. He says she fell into a depression following the 2006 death of her son and began taking 20 pills at a time and spending most of her time sleeping.

Brighthaupt says Stern sometimes gave her the pills and he once saw Smith's psychiatrist provide Smith with chloral hydrate.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A bodyguard who tried to revive Anna Nicole Smith as she lay lifeless in a Florida hotel room is taking the witness stand in the drug conspiracy trial of her lawyer boyfriend and two doctors.

Friday's expected appearance by Maurice Brighthaupt follows testimony Thursday during which police detective Katherine Frank said she found drug bottles, a duffel bag full of cash and a sobbing Howard K. Stern in the room where Smith died.

Stern, Dr. Sandeep Kapoor and Dr. Khristine Eroshevich have pleaded not guilty to conspiring to supply Smith with vast amounts of powerful opiates and sedatives. They are not charged with causing her death.

Brighthaupt's testimony is expected to focus on changes he made in his story since 2007 when he was paid $150,000 for interviews with various cable TV outlets. He has claimed that many things he said then were lies intended to protect Smith's reputation.

On Thursday, Frank said that shortly after Smith's body was found and taken away, Stern fell to his knees in the room and began crying.

"He was visibly shaken with reddened eyes, tears and trembling," Frank said.

The account was elicited by Stern's lawyer, Steve Sadow, who has said Stern was in love with Smith and all his actions were directed at trying to help her.

The detective said a duffel bag found in the room at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel contained more than $8,000 in cash.

Under prosecution questioning, pharmacist Olga Kopetman identified multiple prescriptions written by Eroshevich, a psychiatrist, to Anna Nicole Smith, Vicky Marshall, which is Smith's real name, and three other names including Stearn, a misspelling of Stern, from 2003 to 2006. They were filled at a pharmacy in Studio City.

Some were for the painkiller Vicodin and anti-anxiety drugs Xanax and Zoloft. Others were for sleep and anti-seizure medications, the pharmacist said.

Stern paid for the drugs, Kopetman testified, with one bill totaling $4,474.

Kopetman and another pharmacist, Emma Avakian, testified that Stern frequently picked up drugs prescribed by Eroshovich, and that they never saw Anna Nicole Smith pick up her own prescriptions, which often included large quantities of drugs with refills available.

Avakian said one prescription for Valium provided 240 pills and was refilled after just three weeks.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/08/06/bodyguard-testifies-anna-nicole-smiths-boyfriend-doctor-supplied-drugs/

[Carnut]

Judge in Anna Nicole Smith drug trial questions case

By Alan Duke, CNN

Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- The judge in the drug trial of Anna Nicole Smith's boyfriend-lawyer and two doctors raised questions Wednesday about the California law being used to prosecute them.

Judge Robert Perry said he did not realize until researching the law on Tuesday night that the California Legislature changed the definition of an addict after most of the incidents the three are accused of allegedly happened.

While Perry was not ready to decide how it might change the course of the trial, he suggested he would revisit the issue. "We'll keep going forward," Perry said.

Howard K. Stern and Drs. Khristine Eroshevich and Sandeep Kapoor are accused of a conspiracy to provide drugs to an addict and using false names on prescriptions for Smith.

The prosecution alleged both doctors gave the former Playboy model and reality TV star a steady flow of dangerous painkillers and anti-anxiety drugs while knowing she was a drug addict.

The charges cover the last three years of Smith's life, which ended in a Florida hotel room with her death caused by "acute combined drug intoxication" on February 8, 2007. The three are not charged in Smith's death.

On Tuesday, Perry suggested the prosecution had fallen short so far in proving the core of its case, including that Smith was a drug addict.

Perry began Wednesday's session by saying he had not realized revisions in the "Intractable Pain Act," which guides the use of controlled drugs for pain treatment, were made in September 2006.

"An addict meant something different from what it meant before September, 2006," after most of the conspiracy allegedly happened, he said.

The law was changed to specify that a patient who depended on drugs for pain treatment could not be considered an addict.

Defense attorney Ellyn Garafalo said before the law was changed, a doctor might have been prosecuted if he or she gave drugs to ease pain for a drug addict who broke an arm.

Perry read from the law, which included a statement that the California Legislature "recognizes that prescription drugs can play a critical role in treatment of pain. Undertreatment of pain is a continuing problem."

A prosecution witness, who had concluded from a review of medical records that Smith was an addict, acknowledged during testimony Wednesday that Kapoor may have actually "undermedicated" the actress when treating her for two fractured ribs in 2004.

The defense contends that Smith was in chronic pain, including from the rib injuries and later from childbirth and the death of her son.

The trial, which began on August 4 in Los Angeles Superior Court, is expected to last at least two more weeks.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/09/01/california.anna.nicole.trial/index.html