Anna Nicole’s Legal Battles to Continue

A federal appeals court has decided that J. Howard Marshall never intended to leave former stripper and Guess Jeans model, Anna Nicole Smith, a dime. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling is the latest in a long and convoluted legal battle that has been going on ever since the death of the elderly Texas billionaire in 1995.

Anna Nicole Smith challenged the will, which left the bulk of Marshall’s fortune to his son, E. Pierce Marshall, in a Houston probate court. She claimed that Pierce coerced his father to exclude her from the estate. Her husband, she said, had told her he was leaving her more than $300 million. She had already been showered with cash and gifts during their marriage totaling more than $7 million.

But even before the contest in Houston, a California bankruptcy court awarded Smith $474.75 million in 2000, which a federal district court judge later reduced to $89.5 million in 2002.

In between, the jury in the Houston probate court hearing ruled in 2001 that J. Howard Marshall was mentally fit and under no duress when he signed a willing leaving everything to Pierce. The struggle then centered over which court ruling was valid.

Then E. Pierce Marshall died on June 20, 2006 from infection complications at the age of 67. Shockingly, 39 year old Anna Nicole Smith died less than 8 months later on February 8, 2007 in notorious circumstances, just as she had lived her life. She left not only her legal problems behind, but a baby named Dannielynne, and a whole slew of men, including Zsa Zsa Gabor’s husband, Prince Frederick Von Anhalt, claiming to be the baby’s father.

Paternity tests proved that out of the two main contenders, Larry Birkhead was the child’s father, and not Smith’s attorney, Howard K. Stern. The two men were placed in charge of Smith’s estate. Neither Birkhead nor Stern returned calls on the decision. Kent Richland, a lawyer for Smith’s estate vowed to appeal the latest ruling, possibly to the Supreme Court on different issues than those it first considered. “It really is a unique decision,” Richland said. “We have to take it farther.”

Pierce’s widow and two sons said they hoped the legal battle was close to ending. “Our only wish would be that Pierce were here to see his vindication,” the family said in a prepared statement.

Howard K. Stern is in no position to be talking to the press. He was indicted last year, along with Drs. Sandeep Kapoor and Khristine Eroshevich, in an 11-count felony complaint, including conspiracy, unlawfully prescribing a controlled substance and prescribing, administering or dispensing a controlled substance to an addict (Anna Nicole). Stern pleaded not guilty. A preliminary trial date has been set for August 4, 2010.

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