Stern Testifies In Smith Inquest

Text in red italics are my personal comments, just my own opinion...Prairie Chicken

March 19th, 2008
By TOSHEENA ROBINSON-BLAIR

A close friend of the former US reality TV star the late Anna Nicole Smith not only recounted the final hours of the celebrity’s 20-year-old son’s life while on the witness stand Tuesday, but also refuted previous testimony that he possibly got rid of evidence.

California attorney Howard K. Stern was the last witness to take the stand in the Coroner’s Inquest that began in November, but was delayed while the court tried to secure testimony from American witnesses – who are not compelled to come to The Bahamas to give evidence in the matter.

On the witness stand Tuesday, Mr. Stern described the young man as a good person, even though his mother sent him to live with caretaker Raymond Martino after friction between the two reportedly developed in May 2006. There has been speculation that Stern orchestrated the friction between Anna and Daniel, and that Daniel went to live with Martino so he didn't have to watch Stern manipulate her. It was during this time that Daniel spoke with a private investigator, concerned about the control Stern had over Anna.

"I had a lot of love for Daniel," said the attorney, who told the court that he knew the young man since 1997. Words are cheap. Once Daniel became a young man and could see through Sterns manipulative ways, he became a liability to Stern.

"I thought he was looking for freedom, a little more independence. I myself went through the same thing with my parents."

Mr. Stern told the court that he had never seen Daniel use any type of illicit drugs. Wasn't it Stern who installed all the video cameras in Anna's house? He knew what everyone did in the house, because he taped it all. creepy.

"I did not believe Daniel had died of a drug overdose at all. Even after the toxicology report came back I thought that it was some kind of set-up…He was not that kind of kid." No, he wasn't.

An autopsy concluded that Daniel Smith died on September 10, 2006 from a lethal combination of drugs – the most lethal being the powerful pain killer methadone. Which Daniel had no connection to. No prescription, none found on him. Only quarts of liquid and bottles of pills ordered by Stern in one of Anna's alias'.

Mr. Stern said when he picked Daniel up from the airport the night of September 9 he appeared to be in a good mood.

"He kept saying, ‘I can’t believe I have a baby sister. I can’t believe it’," the Stern recalled.
However, he noted that the young man was paler and thinner than usual having spent a week in July in the Intensive Care Unit at a hospital in Burbank, California for severe back pain and depression over his break-up with his girlfriend, Maya. In two years this is the first I've seen an actual NAME of a girlfriend, and still, is this a real person, or another set up story? Anyone ever seen or talked to her? Has anyone checked the supposed hospital records? How does Daniel spend a week in the hospital in California, and Anna is not by his side? I don't buy it. They were glued at the hip, and she wasn't there when he was in severe pain, hospitalized?

Mr. Stern also told the court that it was Daniel who first occupied the hospital room bed where nurse Nadine Carey previously testified that she found two, small, white pills. He is the ONLY person to say Daniel was lying in that bed. Every other person said no, only Stern lay there.

Smith died at Doctors Hospital three days after his mother gave birth to her second child, Dannielynn.

Mr. Stern told the court Tuesday that even after doctors called off their resuscitation efforts on Daniel, his mother still attempted to do chest compressions and asked Mr. Stern for assistance with ventilation.

"Anna screamed, ‘No. No.’ She did not accept that Daniel had died. She was screaming (that) she did not want to trade out children," the Stern recounted.

"She was just devastated. There is no way I could describe how I felt…Anna was inconsolable. She was wearing a cross necklace. She actually pulled it off her neck and threw it against the wall."

He admitted to taking one picture of Ms. Smith cradling her dead son. Mr. Stern said he took the photograph because Anna asked him to do it. I'm pretty sure when a person's child dies, getting a photograph package is way down on the to-do list.

On the witness stand last month, South Carolina real estate developer G. Ben Thompson said he witnessed Mr. Stern take three to four pictures of the deceased because "they might be worth some money one day."

However, Mr. Stern disputed testimony given by South Carolina developer Ford Shelley that he flushed pills allegedly found in Daniel’s jeans pocket after he had died.

Mr. Thompson’s son, Ben, testified that he and his brother-in-law, Mr. Shelley, witnessed Mr. Stern get rid of the two pills. The younger Thompson said Mr. Stern told them in getting rid of the pills he "took care of a problem."

Mr. Stern said that entire incident simply never happened. Stern was just trying to cover his ass. Once the nurses found the 2 pills in the bed, he put 2 in Daniels pants pocket ("dropping" a couple in front of witnesses, so it might look like he was trying to protect Daniels reputation by flushing them) and threw a handful (26) in Daniels bag. Usually if you take medication on an airplane, the pills are in the bottle, or at least contained in some manner--(a baggie, even?)--but not just loose in a suitcase with your clothes. But Stern couldn't leave the container, so just tossed them in there, trying to divert attention to Daniel. More important though; those drugs were not in Daniels system. Soma, not at all and methadone, a sudden 20X overdose from liquid. NOTE: there was no methadone in his bile duct, which would indicate past usage.

The Thompson's, once close friends of Ms. Smith, are embroiled in a legal dispute with her estate over the ownership of the Eastern Road Horizons house where the Anna Nicole lived while in The Bahamas. Anna talked Ben into signing a quit-claim deed on the property even though she had not secured a mortgage or signed a note. She told Ben she had to have it to get her Bahamian residency. He signed it over. He had paid 900K for the property, then spent 50K on landscaping for her. It all went south when he presented her with an agreement that she would pay 1.4 mil for it, instead of 950K. She accused Ben and Ford of trying to make money off of her and Stern told her that with the quit-claim deed signed, she didn't have to pay. So she said it was a gift. The rest is history.

Mr. Stern said he never saw Ms. Smith give her son drugs and he knew nothing about Daniel taking a bottle of methadone from his mother as alleged by Dannielynn’s father Larry Birkhead in court Monday.

He also denied Mr. Birkhead’s testimony that Ms. Smith was hospitalized in April 2006 in order to kick her methadone addiction. Mr. Stern said he took her to the hospital because she suffered from migraines. There are hospital records, no? Why doesn't anyone get them? It would be easy to see who is lying and who is not.

The attorney said the only thing Mr. Smith had in her duffel bag were clothes and personal items and not a bottle of methadone as alleged by Mr. Birkhead. And Ben Thompson and Ford Shelley and the nannies who were suddenly deported back to Haiti so they couldn't testify, and Big Moe, his wife, the Broward County law enforcement. Did anyone else notice that at the beginning of the proceedings it was reported several times that Elizabeth Thompson, Esq., was representing the nannies, but then they disappeared?

The inquest resumes Thursday with brief final submissions from the attorneys involved and the summing up of the case by Magistrate William Campbell before the case is handed over to the jury for a decision.
………………………………….

Jury To Get Smith Case
By TOSHEENA ROBINSON-BLAIR

Daniel Smith, right, and his celebrity mother Anna Nicole Smith both died of drug overdoses under suspicious circumstances.

In less than a week, the coroner’s court probe into the death of a former Playboy playmate’s son is expected to go to the jury.

On Thursday, the inquest into the death of Daniel Smith – the deceased son of late TV actress/model Anna Nicole Smith – reached a crucial stage when the attorneys involved made their final summation before Magistrate William Campbell, who is sitting as the coroner in this matter.

During their submissions, the media and jury were kept outside the courtroom.

With all the evidence in, the seven-member jury must formally decide the legal cause of the death of Daniel Smith, 20.

Before that can happen, though, Magistrate Campbell must first sum up the main points of the case.

Last Tuesday, he had hinted that he was likely to do just that Thursday, but that did not happen.

Rather, he told the jury that evidence in the matter appears to be simple but "it requires further time for review."

The coroner’s jury has the power to recommend criminal charges if it finds evidence of wrongdoing.

Daniel died at Doctors Hospital almost two years ago while visiting his mother who had just given birth to a baby girl.

Magistrate Campbell advised the court last week that the matter would be adjourned to March 31 at 10am. He told jurors that the case is to be decided only on the evidence heard in court.

Police have said there is no evidence of homicide in Daniel’s death. No broken bones, bruises, bullet holes, lacerations or stabbings.

About six months after Daniel’s death, his mother suffered a fatal prescription drug overdose in Florida.

An autopsy found the likely cause of Daniel’s death was a combination of eight different drugs – a mixture of stimulants and depressants.

The court previously heard that the most lethal of the eight would have been the deadly painkiller methadone.

More than 30 witnesses have been called in this matter since it began last November, including a number of medical professionals, police officers, and friends of the late reality T.V. star and her son.

The court has heard that Daniel’s drug overdose was likely intentional because it was such a large volume ingested in a short space of time. Intentional could mean self-ingestion or ingested without his knowledge. So this is an interesting sentence.

During testimony, it was also indicated that about 26 tablets were found in Daniel’s suitcase and two pills were found in a hospital bed that nurses claimed was occupied by Anna Nicole’s attorney-turned-boyfriend Howard K. Stern.

However, earlier this week, Mr. Stern told the court that Daniel first occupied the bed where a methadone pill and a muscle relaxant pill were found.

According to Mr. Stern, Daniel was hospitalized for back pains and was depressed over a break-up with his girlfriend. Again, I'm asking for doctor or hospital records, or some verification from "Maya" the girlfriend.