Anna Nicole: "Piggybank" For 3 Suspects?

With Anna Nicole Smith's former lawyer-turned-boyfriend and two doctors facing felony charges of conspiring to get addictive drugs to the former Playboy Playmate in the years before her fatal overdose in 2007, Smith's ex-manager and close friend is accusing them of doing it for the money.

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."