Anna Nicole Judge Won't Reconsider Ruling
A judge on Monday declined to reconsider his ruling over who controls where Anna Nicole Smith should be buried, as her estranged mother turned to an appeals court for help getting custody of the starlet's body.
Lawyers for Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur, want the 4th District Court of Appeal to reconsider Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin's tearful ruling that gave the attorney for the centerfold's infant daughter the right to decide the burial plans. That attorney said Smith should be laid to rest next to her son in the Bahamas.
Arthur wants Smith buried in her native Texas. She filed an emergency motion Friday asking Seidlin to reconsider his decision, but he declined Monday morning, saying he wanted to preserve Smith's dignity by having the funeral occur as quickly as possible.
Seidlin, who gained national attention with his one-liners and weeping decision on the burial, left his Fort Lauderdale chambers Monday and declined to speak to reporters about the case.
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In the court filing, Arthur's lawyer, Roberta G. Mandel, said Seidlin's ruling was an inconvenience because the mother "will have to have a passport and roundtrip airplane tickets and several thousand dollars to even visit or put flowers on (Smith's) grave."
Outside court, Mandel said Arthur was willing to take the fight to the state Supreme Court, if necessary.
"This mother is a mother who deserves the right to bury her child," Mandel said. "The trial court treated her as though she was nothing."
Smith's boyfriend, Howard K. Stern, testified last week that Smith wanted to be buried in the Bahamas. Stern attorney Ron Rale said that Smith's mother should let her daughter's wish be granted.
"We were hoping that she would do the right thing," Rale said. "I believe the testimony was clear where Anna Nicole wanted to be buried, and anything that obstructs that, to complete her wishes as soon as possible, is sad."
Smith died in a Florida hotel on Feb. 8, sparking legal disputes in Florida, California and the Bahamas.
Her funeral will not take place before Tuesday, said the court-appointed attorney for Smith's 5-month-old daughter, Dannielynn. In a news release Saturday, Richard C. Milstein said he was working as quickly as possible to complete the details.
Neither Milstein nor the public relations firm representing him returned calls seeking comment Monday.
A private hearing in the Bahamas to determine Dannielynn's guardianship was expected to resume Monday between Arthur and Stern, who is listed as the father on the birth certificate. The judge has barred Stern from taking the girl out of the Bahamas until a custody ruling.
Stern and two other men claim they are Dannielynn's father. Los Angeles-based photographer Larry Birkhead wants a Fort Lauderdale court to enforce a California judge's orders so he can get DNA samples from Smith's body and the baby. Frederic von Anhalt, the husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, also says he may be the father.
A medical examiner has yet to decide on the cause of death for the 39-year-old Smith. Toxicology reports could take up to two more weeks, according to Broward County's medical examiner.
The voluptuous blonde married Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II in 1994 when he was 89 and she was 26. She had been fighting his family over his estimated $500 million fortune since his death in 1995.
By Brian Skoloff