Disputes In Smith Saga Move To Bahamas

After feuding over where to bury Anna Nicole Smith, the former Playboy Playmate's mother and boyfriend are preparing for another fight — this time in the Bahamas, for custody of Smith's 5-month-old daughter.

Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur, claims she could provide a more stable home for the infant, who stands to inherit a fortune. She wants to wrest guardianship from Howard K. Stern, who is listed as Dannielynn's father on the birth certificate but faces a three-way paternity dispute.

A hearing on Monday is not likely to resemble Thursday's bizarre courtroom scene in Florida, where a weeping judge announced before news cameras that he wanted Smith buried in the Bahamas.

The proceedings in Nassau are conducted in private, and a judge issued a gag order at the opening session Thursday to limit the information released publicly by attorneys from both sides. Arthur and Stern missed that session because they were in court in Florida, but are expected to appear on Monday.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Isaacs, the judge hearing the case, has barred Stern from taking the infant out of the island nation until a custody ruling. It was not clear when that might come.

An attorney for Larry Birkhead, an ex-boyfriend of Smith who claims he fathered the baby girl, filed a motion in the Supreme Court claiming paternity for his client. His attorneys in the United States said they plan to come to the Bahamas on Monday to seek custody.

On Friday, Birkhead attorney Debra Opri asked a Florida court to enforce a California judge's orders so he can get DNA samples from Smith's body and the baby, but the judge said the decision could belong to authorities in the Bahamas.

"This child is in the Bahamas. The jurisdiction is in the Bahamas," said Broward County Circuit Judge Lawrence Korda.

Birkhead's attorneys said they had sent doctors to the Bahamas to do DNA testing, and that the doctors were turned away because they did not have work permits.

Frederic von Anhalt, the husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, also says he may be the father.

Smith, who moved to the islands during her pregnancy last year, died Feb. 8 after she was found unconscious in a Florida hotel room. The cause of death is under investigation.

In another Nassau courtroom Monday, a hearing is scheduled with Supreme Court Justice Anita Allen in a dispute over the gated, waterfront mansion where Smith had been living with Stern, according to Godfrey Pinder, a Bahamian attorney for the South Carolina developer who says he owns the house.

The developer, G. Ben Thompson, who briefly dated Smith, says he advanced her money for the $900,000 house known as "Horizons," but that she did not honor an agreement to pay the mortgage. Smith had claimed the house was a gift.

Pinder said Stern would have to vacate the house immediately if his client wins the verdict. "He's occupying the house illegally," he said.

A nanny has been caring for Dannielynn at the mansion during Stern's time in Florida. A judge in Florida said Thursday that Smith should be buried at a Nassau cemetery beside her son Daniel, who died in September while visiting her days after she gave birth to her daughter.

Arthur, who wants to bury Smith in her native Texas, filed an emergency motion Friday to stay that decision.

An inquest in the Bahamas into the death of Daniel Smith, 20, is scheduled to begin March 26 in Nassau. A private pathologist concluded he died from a combination of antidepressants and methadone, a drug used to treat morphine and heroin addicts.

Anna Nicole Smith is the widow of Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II. The couple married in 1994 when he was 89 and she was 26. The former reality TV star had been fighting his family over his estimated $500 million fortune since his death in 1995.