Whats Up With The Anna Nicole Smith Lawsuits?

Well, it’s been awhile and I’m behind. I hope no one cares if I get myself caught up out loud here.

When I left, I believe it was toward the end of May. In Virgie Arthur vs Howard K. Stern et al, in Houston Texas 280th District Court, one of the defendants Lyndal Harrington ending up being sent to jail for not complying with the courts order to turn over her computer. Harrington claimed that her home was burglarized and her computer was stolen. The policeman who took the report testified he believed the robbery was staged. Presiding Honorable Judge Tony Lindsay apparently did not believe Ms. Harrington’s story either and ordered Harrington to jail for contempt.

Judge Lindsay released Harrington after spending four days incarcerated and in a subsequent hearing, Harrington agreed to give access to her email accounts to the appointed Special Master Forensic Expert Craig Ball. He would then make a privilege log for Harrington to examine before anything is submitted, as I understand things.  I also believe that Harrington is still expected to produce her computer and case followers wonder why Harrington did not make the effort before to produce her email accounts.

In California, Los Angeles Superior court, case #BC397417, there is Howard K. Stern vs Mark Speer and Jackie Hatten. Although I have not seen the paperwork, it appears that Stern has dropped his case against Speer who was providing body guard services for Larry Birkhead. I remember being shocked when Stern filed this suit as sources said Mr. Speer was to give a deposition in Stern’s defamation case against Rita Cosby and her publisher possibly the next day.  Two words would cover my personal opinion on this. Witness intimidation?  It appears the part of the case against former friend of Anna Nicole Smith, Jackie Hatten is still active.

In another interrelated California case, Howard K. Stern’s sister Bonnie Stern filed bankruptcy just prior to the deadline in which she was supposed to turn her computer over to the Special Master in the late Anna Nicole Smith’s mother, Mrs. Virgie Arthur’s defamation, libel and conspiracy to defame case. The defendants in that case are Howard K. Stern, journalist Art Harris, TMZ and its managing editor Harvey Levin,  Larry Birkhead, Sterns sister Bonnie and two bloggers Lyndal Harrington, Teresa Stephens and a blog owner Nelda Turner of rosepeaks.com.

The bankruptcy stayed the case until Neil McCabe, attorney for Mrs. Arthur got the stay lifted so the case could at least proceed against the other defendants. Ms. Stern’s bankruptcy was finally discharged and the case continued against her with the main issue being Ms. Stern’s refusal to turn over her computer and electronic media to the Special Master. Later on, when Ms. Harrington was sent to jail, somehow Ms. Stern got the notion that there was an arrest warrant out for her so she made arrangements to ship her computers to Mr. Ball. She like others was told not to tamper with her computer but she did not comply.  Forensic Expert Mr. Ball to whom she finally sent her computers to because she thought she was going to be arrested examined her media and using very strong language said that deliberate deleting of material had taken place. Judge Lindsay agreed and granted Mr. McCabe’s request for a default judgment against Bonnie Stern as to liability which will be decided after the trial which is scheduled for the summer of 2010.

While Mr. McCabe was in California taking care of business concerning Bonnie Stern’s bankruptcy, he was in the neighborhood to see Howard K. Stern, Dr’s Sandeep Kapoor and Khristine Eroshevich’s arraignment on felony drug charges in connection with the death of Anna Nicole Smith.

It was also reported that Mr. McCabe and Don Clark were in the neighborhood to hear oral arguments for summary judgment for Cosby in Howard K. Stern vs Rita Cosby and Hatchette Books in New York. Only one rag mag covered the hearing and it was the New York Post. If you will remember their scurrilous article, “Now That’s Not Nice Granny”, they took a quote from Lin Wood who is the attorney for Howard K. Stern in the Cosby case. Apparently the writer took something out of context that Judge Chin, who was presiding on this case said, with Stern’s attorney Wood embellishing upon it.  The line from The Post said, “One point that I find troubling is that Anna Nicole Smith would entertain herself by watching this videotape, said Chin.”

A more accurate depiction I am told, would be Judge Denny Chin was confounded as to why a woman would want to repeatedly watch two people she supposedly had been intimate with “getting it on”.

As people who follow these inter-related Anna Nicole Smith cases know, there has been some pretty creative lawyering on both sides of the fence. One of them was when Attorney Lin Wood for Howard K. Stern was filing a sworn statement he elicited from Nelda Turner a defendant in the Texas State case with almost all the courts where Stern had cases. Well oops, apparently Wood did not keep up with the facts in what is called the “blogger case” because he ended up withdrawing what he filed.

I have not been following Stern’s case against Ford Shelley and G. Ben Thompson closely but did have an opportunity to read some of the latest and will reserve my thoughts for when more information is available because it appears to me that the two men may be doing some back peddling. When only snippets are presented in the legal documents, it’s hard to see what is really going on.  I do know this though. Thompson and Shelley have apparently turned over what they had which belongs to the estate of Anna Nicole Smith. I suppose the question now will be if the estate been damaged or not. Again, case followers have seen items that are purported to have belonged to Anna Nicole Smith for sale on Ebay with the seller being out of California, not South Carolina where Shelley and Thompson reside. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

Finally, in the Harris County “blogger case”, Arthur vs Stern et al, another defendant is trying to circumvent the system and not obey a court order and this is even after Harrington did jail time and Bonnie Stern had a default judgment declared against her in the same case.

Teresa Stephens was ordered in early May of this year to turn over her “electronic media” aka computer, any exterior drives etc…  and it still has not happened. She informed the court that she would be present at a hearing that she scheduled on July 17th along with other motions in the same case that were to be heard that day. According to published reports, Judge Lindsay was ready to issue a warrant when Stephens did not show up but Mrs. Arthur’s attorney said he was informed that Stephens had filed an appeal that may have stayed any proceedings against her so he opted to give Stephens a break to “wait and see”. However, when Mr. McCabe contacted the clerk for the appellate court, he was informed they have received no such document.

McCabe filed a motion denying statements Stephens had made to the court and requested a Capias order. An order for the arrest of Theresa Stephens has now been issued with Arthur being charged a $3000 bond for the cost of bringing Ms. Stephens from where she lives around Dallas Texas to Houston.

Also in Harris County, there was a July 31st hearing scheduled for Larry Birkhead’s Special Appearance but that will be rescheduled for a later time.

While I have been offline, I was sad to see the news about the death of Michael Jackson. I grew up with his music and along with my children thought he was an exceptional entertainer. Another troubling aspect of his death is the similarity to what happened to Anna Nicole Smith and her son Daniel. In fact, the last person to see Michael alive was a Houston Texas doctor and as more facts come to light, I’m hearing the term, “death by entourage” used over and over again. It has been interesting and gratifying to see the state of California and other agencies aggressively pursuing this tragic case. It will be interesting to see how this case affects the felony drug charges brought against Howard K. Stern and Dr’s Kapoor and Eroshevich.

Also notable is the fact that Mrs. Virgie Arthur was declared next of kin in the California criminal case due to Proposition 9 which is also called Marsey’s Law. I’ll save writing about that for another day.

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Tagged as: Anna Nicole Smith, Art Harris, Bonnie Stern, Harvey Levin, Howard K Stern, Judge Tony Lindsay, Khristine Eroshevich, Larry Birkhead, Lin Wood, Lyndal Harrington, Mark Speer, Neil McCabe, Nelda Turner, Rose Turner, Sandeep Kapoor, Teresa Stephens, Virgie Arthur