Stern Works Double Stall in Smith Inquest, Paternity Suit
Thursday, March 29th, 2007
Court of World Opinion Waits on Bahamas to Catch Up
By Jeffrey Jolson
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 3/29/07 — Day 3 dawns in the inquest into how Anna Nicole Smith’s son died in her hospital room as Howard K. Stern works a double stall in both inquest and paternity suit.
After his influential Bahamas attorney pulled off an unprecedented motion that halted witness testimony in the inquest into the death of Smith’s son Daniel, Stern has filed an appeal in his ongoing paternity battle over Smith’s daughter Dannielynn that will delay the DNA results, likely past the April 3 hearing.
Why he wants to appeal the results before they are revealed may indicate he knows who the father is, and it’s not him. “Entertainment Tonight” notes that Stern followed court orders and drove Dannielynn to a lab for a DNA swab. Larry Birkhead also gave a sample.
His inquest stall tactic will likely run out today, as 40 witnesses are waiting to testify in a court case that also has election-year political implications in the Bahamas. Stern’s attorney managed to have the courtroom cleared for two days while he argued to buck 300 years of Common Law Tradition and have the case heard without a jury – or at least one without bias against Stern.
That may be hard to find. Inquiring minds want to know if the inquest will finally shed light into Stern’s perceived complicity as a poll shows 9 out of 10 people do not agree with the recent Florida finding that her death was accidental.
“The court of public opinion is just as important, or more important, than the court of law for the long term in high profile cases like this. In my expert opinion, Howard K. Stern is the next O.J.,” said “Reputation Doctor” Mike Paul. “However, I personally think Stern may get away with murder- twice. The evidence may not be there to actually prove it in the court of law, but many believe he is already guilty in the court of public opinion.”
From courtroom to living rooms, from water coolers to our pages here, people are saying the same thing. They basically relate enabling and complicity to criminal activity in the eerily similar double deaths, even if the letter of the law doesn’t. No wonder, with comments from the media circus Peanut Gallery appearing all over TV, such as the ones from private dick Jack Harding, who says Daniel came to him before going on his fateful trip to the Bahamas.
Hammering home on Showbiz Tonight what he did earlier on Nancy Grace, Harding P.I. said “In my opinion it is foul play. The police from the Bahamas came to visit me and said they found my business card on his body. Danny may have said (when he went to the Bahamas hospital to meet his mother and Stern) ‘I’m having a private investigator look into this’ and that may have sparked a bit of a problem for (Stern). He hated Stern and said that Stern hated him. (Stern) tried to get him out of the picture. He wanted complete control over Anna Nicole.”
Forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden reviewing a witness list for the inquest pointed out some hotly-anticipated testimony. “The two nannies are interesting because they talk about Anna accusing Howard Stern of causing the death of Daniel, that they heard Anna say these things, according to this list,” he told Fox News. The list indicates there will also be testimony that puts methadone in the room, important as a big question will be how exactly did Daniel get the methadone that helped overdose him when he had just been picked up by Stern at an international airport?
Stern also released a press statement to help turn world opinion in his favor, or at least stop accusing him of doing nothing when she was deathly ill. Stern insists she would still be alive today if she hadn’t refused medical help before her death. In a statement released late on Monday, Stern revealed he and other friends and aides had urged Smith to check into a Florida hospital after her temperature spiked, but, fearing a “media frenzy,” she insisted on sleeping off her fever.
Stern attorney Lilly Ann Sanchez said “Howard will always wish that he had not left when he did that morning to go get the boat that he was picking up and they were going to sail back to the Bahamas later that day. You always, in any kind of situation, are going to think about what you could have done, should have done, maybe might have done.”
But Howard, on that morning, he — he was up with Anna, he helped Anna to the bathroom. She came back into the bed. She was feeling much better than she was before. She was alert. They conversed. She decided to go back to sleep,” she told Larry King recently.
He checked on her before he left at about noon. He wasn’t the only one that was with her. (Bodyguard) King Eric and his wife were with him. They decided not to wake her at that point. And he went on to do exactly what she had requested — to go get the boat ready so that they could go back to the Bahamas.”
Add Ron Rale, another attorney acquaintance of Stern’s “Howard’s just trying to get to a space where he can grieve. And I’ll give you an example. Just like, you know, before Anna had passed away, with this inquest stuff pending, Howard was never concerned about himself. He was always worried about Anna. And as an example, when I was there in the Bahamas talking to Howard, with all of this — the funeral preparations and all of the bad press out there and all of the witch-hunt type stuff I’m talking about, Howard’s concern was for his parents — always putting somebody else first.”
If Stern were in my family, I’d be concerned too.