DA: Anna Nicole Smith's boyfriend was 'enabler'
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Anna Nicole Smith's lawyer-turned-boyfriend was the principal enabler in a conspiracy with two doctors to provide the "known addict" thousands of prescription pills in the months before she died of an overdose, California Attorney General Jerry Brown said Friday.
Howard K. Stern and Drs. Khristine Eroshevich and Sandeep Kapoor were charged by Los Angeles County prosecutors after a two-year probe by the attorney general, state medical and insurance officials and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
"What we have in this case is a conspiracy among three individuals," Brown told a news conference. "Howard K Stern is the principal enabler, and Dr. Erosevich and Dr. Kapoor are prescribing drugs excessively to a known addict and using false and fictitious names, all in violation of the law and all in furtherance of a conspiracy."
In addition to conspiracy, the charges filed Thursday include unlawfully prescribing a controlled substance and prescribing, administering or dispensing a controlled substance to an addict. Stern faces six felony counts and the doctors face seven each. Each count carries a potential sentence of three years, Brown said.
Smith's life had become a tabloid fixture by the time she died Feb. 8, 2007, in Florida. Embroiled in a battle to inherit millions of dollars from her late billionaire husband's estate, her own son had died shortly after she gave birth to a girl.
Asked what may have been the motive for the alleged conspiracy, Brown suggested the potent allure of wealth and glamour.
"There's a certain psychic gain here, part of the glitz and the celebrity and the power. There's a lot of money floating around," he said. "Is it self-indulgence? Is it some power trip? Is it just getting some contact high off of celebrity? That remains to be seen."
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