March 14, 2009
Anna Nicole: "Piggybank" For 3 Suspects?
Ex-Manager Says Money Motivated Those Charged With Supplying Late Ex-Playmate With Drugs On Which She O-D'd
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Oct.2000 file photo shows Anna Nicole Smith smiling as she walks to courthouse with her attorney, Howard K. Stern, in Houston. (AP Photo)
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Timeline The Life Of Anna Nicole Key dates in the life of the former model and reality TV star.
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Interactive Substance Abuse In America Get the facts on a national problem. Find out where to get help, learn how drugs affect the body and compare state drunk-driving laws.
Eric Redding, In an exclusive interview with The Early Show Saturday Edition co-anchor Chris Wragge, said Howard K. Stern and the two physicians saw Smith as a "piggybank."
California Attorney General Jerry Brown says Stern was her "principal enabler" and supplied Smith with thousands of prescription pills before her death.
Redding, author of "Great Big Beautiful Doll: The Anna Nicole Smith Story" and co-author of "Sex Bomb: The Life and Death of Anna Nicole Smith," says he "wasn't surprised at all" when he heard about the three arrests.
"I had heard an investigation was under way immediately after Anna's death," Redding told Wragge, "so I'm not shocked. Howard was not a good friend of mine. I loved Anna dearly, 18 years ago, I discovered Anna, and it's sad to see her gone."
Stern, Redding asserts, had "100 percent" control over Smith's life, adding, "Anna couldn't do anything without Howard telling her what to do."
As a close friend of Smith's, Wragge wondered, did Redding try to intervene at any point to help Smith?
"When you're under as much medication as Anna was ... she really didn't know what she was doing half the time," Redding replied. "Howard would say, 'Here, take this, do this,' and I had talked to Anna about it, but she just couldn't get off the medications, unfortunately."
Why would Stern and the doctors seek to keep Smith, who seemed to be under the influence of drugs during numerous public appearances, in that state?
"Money," Redding quickly told Wragge. "In my eyes, money. I mean, definitely. They knew she was their piggybank, so to speak, and they just controlled her. They said,'Here, do this, look pretty, and do what we tell you to do,' and Annna, being the good soul that she was, did what they said."
Redding says the prospect of the three spending years in prison makes him happy. "Of course," he said. "I mean, you know, I don't want anyone to do bad to someone else, especially someone you care for, and the family's happy, as well. I'm very close to the family; Anna's mom is great. She's very saddened by her daughter's death, of course, and hopes justice will get done here."
CBS News legal analyst Lisa Bloom says Stern and his co-defendants fave "four-to-five years in prison. Keep in mind: They're not accused of homicide, they’re not not accused of killing her. What they're accused of is giving her excessive amounts of prescription drugs when they knew she was already an addict -- that's the legal violation.
"(The legal compliant against them is) extraordinarily detailed: dates, times, which specific drug was given to her. I think they've done a very lengthy, careful investigation over the last two years to make sure they know what they’re doing."
To read an excerpt of "Great Big Beautiful Doll, click here.
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Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
With the recent suspicion and arrest of Smith?s boyfriend, the insights provided by Dr. Welner about Sterns culpability are very intriguing http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2982406&page=1.
of folks week after week who couldn't get enough "dirty laundry tv", so you could say, we
all "chipped in". Gee, let's take this inebriated, drugged up celebrity and follow her around with
a camera all day. Our curiosity and appetite for the intimate details of others' personal
disasters and misfortune have emerged as a most user friendly antidote for this "endless
hangover" that is our own lives.
Like most people, I didn't believe her feelings for the old guy were true. But now that we have all seen what Howard and company had done to her, maybe she did love the old fart after all. If for nothing else, he may have been the one person in the world that didn't want anything from her. Not even sex. Maybe he just wanted her to be her trailer park self and he was ok with that. And maybe that was something she had never felt in her entire life.
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Probably because Howard kept her in a fog all the time.
He never made any money of his own and wanted to use hers, in my book....
Posted by jacksteen2 at 12:20 PM : Mar 14, 2009
Let's not forget that one of those doctors was female. This isn't about sexism per se. It's about bald-faced greed.
His brief liason with A-N will keep him in rhinestones and eyeliner for the rest of his fruity life.
Posted by jacksteen2 at 12:20 PM : Mar 14, 2009
Looks like your comments have nothing to do with the article and you're just a bigot looking to vent your hatred against ga.y people. Pathetic.
It really undermines your credibility when you write like an illiterate child.
He was in the way of their piggy bank!!!
- by credibility2 March 14, 2009 1:35 PM EDT
- To think that she trusted especially Stern. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's later revealed that this threesome also had something to do with the death of her son.
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