Celebrity Mound

A Manhattan federal judge Tuesday called “preposterous” a tell-all book’s claim that Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith watched a video of her boyfriend having sex with lawyer Howard K. Stern.

Judge Denny Chin made the comment as lawyers for former televison reporter Rita Cosby urged him to toss out a libel suit Stern filed after the publication of her book, “Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith’s Death.”

“One of the parts I find troubling is the story that Anna Nicole Smith used to entertain herself by watching this supposed video,” Chin said. “I mean, on the face of it, the story seems preposterous. And the sources are questionable.”

The book cites sources claiming Smith watched a video of boyfriend Larry Birkhead and Stern having gay sex. Stern says the video doesn’t exist.

The attorney for publisher Hachette Book Group said editors relied on Cosby’s reputation for thoroughness.
Cosby’s attorney, Elizabeth McNamara, also told Chin that Stern couldn’t be libelled because his reputation was “in tatters” long before the book was published.

Newspapers and other media insinuated that Stern had something to do with Smith’s death, a claim that goes way beyond anything Cosby wrote.

“The book never calls him a murderer,” McNamara said. “The book doesn’t conclude that he is a murderer. But the press did repeatedly. And the press was far stronger on those counts than ever, the book was.”

Stern’s attorney, Lin Wood, told Chin the book subjected him to ridicule beyond what any news figure would expect.
“(It) doesn’t give you the right to say that you can call him a homosexual or give you the right to say that he engaged in homosexual acts with Larry Birkhead,” Wood said.

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Anna Nicole Smith’s lawyer-turned-boyfriend and two doctors pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges they conspired to provide thousands of prescription pills to the former model before her overdose death two years ago.

The appearance of Howard K. Stern and Drs. Khristine Eroshevich and Sandeep Kapoor in Superior Court set the stage for a preliminary hearing that all parties said could last at least two weeks.

Deputy District Attorney Renee Rose said there are 1,400 pages of discovery in the case, which was investigated for two years before charges were filed. Court Commissioner Kristi Lousteau ordered documents in the case sealed, although attorneys said that about a quarter of the material has already been made public.

The hearing was brief and Smith’s name was never mentioned.

Stern, Eroshevich and Kapoor stood before Lousteau with their lawyers. The defendants said “yes” when she asked if they were pleading not guilty and when they agreed to delay the matter until June 8 for setting of the preliminary hearing date. They declined to comment outside court.

Stern’s lawyer, Steve Sadow, said he wanted the preliminary hearing to begin as soon as possible.

The commissioner granted a motion requiring each defendant to provide a handwriting sample and she transferred the case to a judge for the next hearing.

The prosecutor’s motion asked for the handwriting samples in order to authenticate Kapoor’s medical records on Smith and also to show that prescriptions written for Smith were picked up at pharmacies by Eroshevich, Stern or others designated by them who signed logs at the pharmacies. Sometimes, Rose said, they used Smith’s credit card.

Outside court, Stern’s lawyer was outspoken, exclaiming: “He did not commit a crime, period!”

Sadow said he had filed a demurrer, a legal document contending that the law under which Stern is charged does not apply to him.

“The statute deals with medical practitioners,” he said. “He is not a doctor.”

Sadow said he was not disputing the authenticity of Stern’s signature on any documents signed by him.

Kapoor’s lawyer, Ellyn Garafalo, said he continues to practice medicine and his patients have been supportive.

“We have no doubt Dr. Kapoor will be exonerated,” she said.

Smith, 39, was declared dead at a hospital after being found unconscious in her Florida hotel room in 2007. A medical examiner determined she died of an accidental overdose of a sleeping medication and at least eight other prescription drugs.

Prosecutors allege Stern was the principal enabler in a conspiracy to provide Smith thousands of prescription pills.

The defendants each face six counts including conspiracy, and up to five years, eight months in prison if convicted.

Psychiatrist Khristine Eroshevich surrendered Monday to face charges of excessively prescribing drugs to Anna Nicole Smith before the former model’s overdose death at 39.

Eroshevich turned herself in at the Van Nuys police station, said police spokeswoman Rosario Herrera.

She was released several hours later after posting $20,000 bail, according to a statement from her attorney Adam Braun’s office.

After a lengthy investigation by the attorney general and other state and federal agencies, Los Angeles County prosecutors charged Eroshevich last week with conspiring with another doctor, Sandeep Kapoor, and Smith’s lawyer-turned-boyfriend Howard K. Stern to provide Smith with thousands of prescription pills.

Attorney General Jerry Brown said Friday that the doctors wrote prescriptions in fictitious names and prescribed unwarranted amounts of highly addictive medications to Smith, knowing that she was an addict.

Brown described Stern as the “principal enabler” in the alleged conspiracy.

Stern and Kapoor turned themselves in last week and were each freed on $20,000 bond.

Braun has said Eroshevich was only protecting Smith’s privacy by writing prescriptions in false names and did not intend to commit fraud.

The psychiatrist, who had treated Smith since 2006, traveled several times over six months to the Bahamas, where the former Playboy playmate was living with Stern and wrote the prescriptions.

Smith died Feb. 8, 2007, in Florida after collapsing at a hotel. At the time, she was embroiled in a battle to inherit millions of dollars from her late billionaire husband’s estate; her 20-year-old son Daniel had died of an overdose in the Bahamas just five months earlier in Smith’s hospital room a few days after Smith gave birth to a girl, Dannielynn.

Anna Nicole Smith’s longtime companion and attorney Howard K. Stern and two psychiatrists were charged today with conspiring to furnish drugs to the one-time Playboy playmate in the years leading up to her 2007 death from a prescription medication overdose.

Stern, 40, and Drs. Sandeep Kapoor, 40, and Khristine Eroshevich, 61, were each charged with a single count of conspiracy, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. Arraignment dates have not yet been scheduled.

Eroshevich was Smith’s personal psychiatrist.

The charges allege that the trio conspired to furnish drugs to Smith between June 5, 2004, and Jan. 26, 2007.

Kapoor and Stern were also charged with one count of “prescribing, administering or dispensing a controlled substance to an addict.” Eroshevich was charged with the same crime in a separate count.

Kapoor and Stern were also charged with a single count of unlawfully prescribing a controlled substance between June 9, 2004, and Sept. 22, 2006. Meanwhile, Eroshevich and Stern were charged with unlawfully prescribing a controlled substance between June 5, 2004, and Jan. 26, 2007.

Kapoor and Eroshevich were also charged with one count each of obtaining a prescription for opiates by “fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.” They were also charged with a single count of obtaining a prescription for opiates by giving a false name or address.

The charges were filed in downtown Los Angeles as part of a felony complaint for arrest warrant for all three, prosecutors said. The entertainment news Web site TMZ.com reported that Stern planned to surrender to authorities , but it was unclear where or when.

Smith, who was 39, died in Hollywood, Fla., on Feb. 8, 2007, of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs shortly after the birth of her daughter and death of her son, who also died of a drug overdose.

Following Smith’s death, a legal battle erupted over who was the father of her daughter, Dannielynn Hope. DNA tests determined the father was photographer Larry Birkhead, who now has custody of the girl. Stern had also contended that he was the girl’s father.

The criminal charges filed today were the result of an investigation that involved not only the District Attorney’s Office, but the state Attorney General’s Office, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, California Medical Board and state Department of Insurance.

In October 2007, investigators served warrants at various medical offices and other locations in Los Angeles and Orange counties as part of the probe. The offices of Eroshevich and Kapoor were both searched.

“These individuals repeatedly and excessively furnished thousands of prescription pills to Anna Nicole Smith, often for no legitimate medical purpose,” state Attorney General Jerry Brown said. “There is ample evidence that Doctor Eroshevich and Doctor Kapoor violated their ethical obligations as physicians, while Mr. Stern funneled highly addictive drugs to Ms. Smith.”

Brown said the trio furnished Smith with pills including opiates, benzodiazapines and other controlled substances.

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She loves Elmo, singing with Dad and shopping!

On Dannielynn’s second birthday, Larry Birkhead opens up in the latest issue of Us Weekly, on newsstands now, about raising Anna Nicole Smith’s little girl and shares with Us his own family album of their time together.

“When I take pictures of her she likes looking at them just like her mom did,” Birkhead tells Us.

“Some days I think she looks just like her,” he says of the tot, who who turned 2 on Sept. 7.

Still coping from the loss of Smith — who died of an accidental overdose in February 2007, just five months after Dannielynn’s birth — the doting dad admits to Us that fatherhood changed him.

“I think about life in a different way,” he reveals. “I had kidney stones and was in the hospital for a week in July. I was freaking out thinking, If something happens to me, Dannielynn is by herself. I’m all this little one has left.”

Birkhead also updates Us on Dannielynn’s surgery for strabismus (the turning of one eye) earlier this year.

“The surgery went very well,” he says. “We still patch her [eye] to make sure the eyes stay equally strong — they’re still adjusting.”

Still, she might have to undergo another surgery.

“I’m so paranoid medically with what we’ve been through,” Birkhead tells Us. “If she has a sniffle: straight to the doctors. Anna had a fever when she passed away.”

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MOST people wouldn’t admit it, but designer Betsey Johnson is spilling details on the time she made out with Anna Nicole Smith. The quirky fashionista told BlackBook magazine, “I kissed Anna Nicole. She came to my rocker-chick show. She was wearing one of those dotted net see-through things with roses on her bullet bra underneath . . . It was when she was doing TrimSpa, and she looked really beautiful.”

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They’re not traditional family heirlooms, but Larry Birkhead’s is not a traditional family.

Anna Nicole Smith’s former boyfriend spent nearly $3,000 at a celebrity auction Saturday scooping up lingerie once worn in a Playboy shoot by the late playmate.

Birkhead said he is trying to make sure his 1-year-old daughter, Dannielynn, has something to remember her mother by.

“I have a lot of history I have to put together that she doesn’t really know about,” Birkhead told The Associated Press. “Playboy was such a big part of Anna’s career.”

Birkhead bought a pink bustier for $1,800 and a white negligee for $1,000 at the auction, run by Julien’s Auctions and held at Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

He was awarded custody of Danielynn after Smith died from an overdose of prescription drugs in February 2007. She was 39.

Birkhead said he hoped the items would help his daughter learn her mother’s life story — when she’s old enough.

“You know, it’s not something I can show today, but something down the road,” Birkhead said. “It’s not going to be in any bedtime stories anytime soon.”

Anna Nicole Smith’s son Daniel stole some of her Methadone months before his death, Larry Birkhead testified at an inquest into the boy’s death in the Bahamas today.

Birkhead said he reviewed surveillance tapes after some of Anna Nicole’s Methadone went missing in April 2006. Footage showed Daniel and his friends stealing it, he testified, according to TMZ.com.

Birkhead claimed he noticed a drastic change in Daniel’s personality between January and May 2006. On one occasion, Birkhead testified, Daniel threw a television set through a window.

He also claimed that Daniel was hospitalized for taking too much Valium in July 2006.

Daniel died at the age of 20 in September 2006 from an accidental overdose of Methadone and the anti-depressants Zoloft and Lexapro.

Anna Nicole died of an accidental overdose about five months later.

(source)

Willa Ford looks just like Anna – I’m sure this movie will be very interesting.