LOS ANGELES (AP) — Anna Nicole Smith’s lawyer-turned-boyfriend and a doctor surrendered to face charges that they conspired to provide the Playboy Playmate with thousands of prescription pills before her 2007 fatal overdose. A second doctor also is accused.
Howard K. Stern charged.
Howard K. Stern and Dr. Sandeep Kapoor were released late Thursday after posting $20,000 bond. Charges include conspiracy, unlawfully prescribing a controlled substance and prescribing, administering or dispensing a controlled substance to an addict, authorities said.
Dr. Khristine Eroshevich was expected to surrender Monday. Her attorney, Adam Braun, acknowledged Eroshevich wrote some of the prescriptions using fictitious names for Smith, but it wasn’t intended to commit fraud.
“It was done for privacy reasons,” Braun told The Associated Press. “She did the best she could under difficult circumstances in the best interest of the patient.”
Prosecutors see it differently.
“These individuals repeatedly and excessively furnished thousands of prescription pills to Anna Nicole Smith, often for no legitimate medical purpose,” California Attorney General Jerry Brown said in a statement Thursday. His office was expected to release more details about the case at a news conference Friday.
Prosecutors said the doctors gave thousands of prescription drugs – including opiates and sedatives – to Stern, who then gave them to Smith.
Messages left with attorneys for Stern and Kapoor were not returned.
The prescriptions were issued between June 2004 and January 2007, just weeks before her death on Feb. 8, 2007.
Medical examiners have said Eroshevich, a Los Angeles psychiatrist and friend of Smith’s, authorized all 11 of the prescription medications found in the Hollywood, Fla., hotel room where the 39-year-old model was found unresponsive shortly before her death.
An arraignment date was not immediately set and prosecutors were unsure how much prison time the three would face if convicted. Stern faces six felony counts and the doctors face seven each.
Braun said Eroshevich began treating Smith in September 2006 when she suffered a nervous breakdown stemming from the death of her 20-year-old son, Daniel Smith, who died of an accidental drug overdose three days after his mother gave birth to a girl.
Some of the drugs prescribed to Anna Nicole Smith, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court:
– hydromorphone, also known under the trade name Dilaudid, an opioid analgesic.
– Xanax, used to treat anxiety and panic attacks.
– Valium, used to treat anxiety, insomnia, alcohol withdrawal and addiction.
– Vicodin, a narcotic analgesic and cough suppressant.
– Ambien, a short term sleep aid.
– promethazine with codeine, an antihistamine and sedative.
– clonazepam, an anticonvulsant, muscle relaxant.
– chloral hydrate, a hypnotic sedative used to treat insomnia.
– carisoprodol, a muscle relaxant.
– methadone, a synthetic opioid used to treat addiction.
– opiates, drugs derived from the narcotic alkaloids found in opium.
– benzodiazepines, a class of psychoactive drugs used for their hypnotic, sedative and anti-anxiety properties to slow down the central nervous system.
Eroshevich traveled several times over six months to the Bahamas, where Smith was living with Stern and wrote the prescriptions. (Read more.)
B.S. Report–Things sure didn’t work out for Howard K. Stern. He weasled his way into Anna Nicole Smith’s life and tried to piggy-back on her wealth and fame. It worked for awhile but he was never able to fully cash in.
He still has hopes that someday he can get his hands on some of Herbert Marshall’s oil money if some of that money eventually finds its way to Anna Nicole’s estate. Don’t bet on it Howard…you seem like a person who’s not only destined to fail; but deserves to fail.
THE B.S. REPORT 