Tag: Anna Nicole Smith

After 58 hours of deliberation, the jury in the trial of Howard K. Stern, boyfriend/manager of Anna Nicole Smith, acquitted him on 7 of the 9 counts he was facing, most of which charged him with providing drugs to "an addict."

He was convicted of two counts, for using a false name on a prescription and conspiring to obtain controlled substances by fraud. (His name instead of Anna's were on some of the prescriptions.)

Bottom line: The jury did not find anyone prescribed or delivered drugs to "an addict."

"The whole case here was based on the idea that Anna was some drug-seeking, drug-crazed addict ... for that part of the people's case, Howard was acquitted across the board," said Stern's attorney, Steve Sadow, who emphasized that his client was convicted only of using false names to obtain medication, which he contended was for Smith's privacy.

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This is not a good sign for our jury system. The judge in the upcoming Anna Nicole Smith trial of Drs. Sanjeep Kapoor and Khristine Eroshevich and boyfriend Howard K. Stern has ordered prospective jurors to disclose their medical histories, including listing the prescription drugs they have taken. The three are charged with conspiring to provide Smith with sedatives and opiates. (They are not charged with causing her death.)

While the judge has nixed cameras in the courtroom, he has ordered jurors names be kept secret from the lawyers in the case and is going to have his staff periodically check the jurors' Facebook and social media sites. [More...]

DNA has made it official. Larry Birkhead is the father of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter Dannielynn. Press conference is live on CNN.

Howard Stern says he won't fight for custody, he'll do what he can to make sure Larry gets full custody. Howard will stay in the Bahamas, he says he wouldn't leave Anna Nicole's late son Danny alone.

Virgie (Anna's mother) and her lawyer say she's looking forward to working with Larry to have Virgie involved in Dannielynn's life. She said she just wants to be a grandmother, so I assume there won't be a custody fight. But Bahamian law provides for two guardians, her lawyer said, and it looks like Vergie may vie for being one of them.

Ok, that's over. Congrats to Larry Birkhead. And now Howard Stern's new lawyer, Lin Wood (lawyer for Richard Jewell and Jonbenet Ramsey's parents) can go after the media who maligned him.

Great editorial today in the Miami Herald on how we've turned into the United States of Entertainment. It begins:

Jose Padilla is not a dead buxom blonde, which may help explain why a hearing to determine his fitness to stand trial was no contest for the animated proceedings taking place one county to the north.

Anna Nicole Smith, dead two weeks, drew the cameras, the curious and the commentators. Thursday, a weepy Broward judge ruled on the fate of Smith's corpse as thousands followed the show on national television.

Down in Miami, the still-living Jose Padilla attracted just a couple of earnest reporters, some legal geeks and two cameramen who were stranded outside the federal courthouse because filming was banned inside. So it goes in these United States of Entertainment. Four years into the war in Iraq, torture has become the stuff of TV dramas while justice serves the cause of celebrity.

After a discussion of Padilla's case, it concludes: