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October 31, 2009

Judge orders 3 to trial in Anna Nicole drug case

The Associated Press Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — Three key players in the troubled world of Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith have been ordered to stand trial after a hearing that plumbed the drug-fueled depths of her final years and the alleged roles of her boyfriend and two doctors in feeding her addiction to prescription drugs.

A judge who heard sometimes shocking testimony about the flood of drugs provided to Smith ruled Friday there was sufficient evidence to try the defendants on charges of conspiring to give Smith sedatives and opiates.

Defense lawyers had argued that lawyer Howard K. Stern, Dr. Sandeep Kapoor and psychiatrist Dr. Khristine Eroshevich tried desperately to save the doomed model in her waning years, including a period when she gave birth to a daughter and lost her grown son to a drug overdose.

One of the last pieces of prosecution evidence introduced was a transcript of an investigator's interview of a Smith friend who said she saw Stern placing pills in her mouth.

"He poured them in her mouth like you would a bird," Gina Shelley said in the interview.

Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry stressed that his ruling required only minimal proof that would cause a reasonable person to suspect the defendants committed the crimes. He dropped one charge that Eroshevich gave Smith placebos, finding there was not sufficient evidence.

With attorneys battling over whether Smith was addicted, the judge proclaimed, "I think you've proven (Smith is) an addict."

All three defendants pleaded not guilty, If convicted they each could face more than five years in prison. A Dec. 11 arraignment was set.

Eroshevich was the only defendant to comment after the hearing.

"I understand that I have to go through this process," she said.

Smith died of an accidental overdose of at least nine medications in February 2007 at a Florida hotel. The defendants were not charged with causing her death but were accused of conspiring to illegally provide her with controlled substances and supplying drugs to an addict.

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