A testimony presented in the Anna Nicole Smith hearing gave information on what transpired before the celebrity model’s fatal collapse in a hotel room due to drug overdose on Feb. 8, 2007.
The hearing involved charges against Smith’s former lawyer-boyfriend Howard K. Stern, Dr. Khristina Eroshevich and Dr. Sandeep Kapoor for illegally providing prescription drugs to Smith.
Sending the case to trial will depend on the evidence at hand and the decision of Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry. However, the Judge ruled out the question on murder. “There is not a murder charge,” Perry said. “The cause of death is not an issue.”
California Department of Justice investigator Danny Santiago said that Smith was ill in a hotel room with hundreds of prescription pills, which were under Stern’s name and prescribed by Eroshevich.
Witnesses said, as Santiago testified, that Smith needed assistance to walk because she was too weak. According to the investigator, a detective present during the arrival of Smith at the hotel on Feb 5 said that “she was being supported by Mr. Stern”.
“He was holding her as they walked through the lobby. He said she wasn’t her usual vivacious self. She seemed down and was possibly ill,” Santiago added.
Santiago also said that Stern had been giving Pedialyte to Smith and when the model complained of flu symptoms, she was given Tamiflu by Eroshevich, who, at one point, asked a hotel employee’s assistance to call a doctor for prescription but Stern cancelled the request due to a possible leak.
Moreover, Santiago said that Tasma Brighthaupt, a registered nurse and wife of Smith’s bodyguard, was at Smith’s bedside but did not see that her body was discolouring. When a hotel personnel checked on Smith, “she was laying on the ground and Maurice Brighthaupt was giving her CPR,” according to Santiago.
If convicted, Stern, who is named in all 11 counts, and the doctors, each with 6 counts including conspiracy, will spend five years and eight months in prison.
Smith’s autopsy revealed that she died of “acute combined drug intoxication”.
