New court battle over Anna Nicole's remains
A Florida appeals court today issued a stay in the dispute over Anna Nicole Smith’s body, ruling that her remains cannot be moved to the Bahamas until the court hears a challenge from the starlet’s estranged mother.
The Florida 4th District Court of Appeal agreed to hear Virgie Arthur’s request to overturn a judge’s decision giving control of Ms Smith’s body to the attorney for the centrefold’s infant daughter. That attorney decided she should be buried next to her son in the Bahamas.
Ms Arthur has been seeking to bury her daughter in her native Texas.
The court gave attorneys in the case until 2pm (7pm Irish time) tomorrow to respond to the challenge.
Earlier a US photographer who claims to be the father of Ms Smith’s daughter appeared in a Bahamas court for a three-way custody battle today, saying he hopes to see the baby soon.
“I hope to get to see her and have her soon,” Larry Birkhead told reporters outside the court.
At the private session, Mr Birkhead was expected to square up to Ms Arthur, and Smith’s boyfriend, Howard Stern, who is named as the baby’s father on her birth certificate.
Ms Arthur arrived after Mr Birkhead, in a white limousine. Asked why she deserved custody, her lawyer Deborah Rose said simply: “She’s the grandmother.”
Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern, who was born in the Bahamas on September 7 this last year, is staying at the waterfront mansion in Nassau where Ms Smith lived with Mr Stern until the former Playboy Playmate died of unknown causes in Florida on February 8.
Ms Arthur has said she could provide a more stable home than Stern and should therefore be awarded custody of the baby, who could inherit a fortune. Ms Smith had been fighting for a share of the estimated £250m (€370m) estate of her husband, Texas oil tycoon Howard Marshall, since his death in 1995.
Thomas Evans, a prominent Bahamas lawyer, said there is no specific provision in Bahamian law for a paternity claim based on DNA. The court could determine that any of those seeking to be the guardian of Dannielynn – or even another party, including the country’s social services – should have custody, based on the best interests of the child, he said.
Judge Stephen Isaacs then dealt only with procedural matters and scheduled the next hearing for next month, Wayne Munroe, a lawyer for Ms Smith’s estate in the Bahamas said later.
In another Nassau court today, a separate hearing was scheduled on a dispute over the waterfront mansion, known as Horizons.
Ben Thompson, a South Carolina developer who briefly dated Smith, says he advanced her money for the £450,000 (€670,000) house but she did not honour an agreement to pay the mortgage. She had claimed the house was a gift.
A lawyer for Mr Thompson, Godrey Pinder, said regardless of any court decision, he would not try to immediately evict Mr Stern out of concern for Dannielynn.
“We want to be concerned about the baby,” he said. “We don’t want to hurt her, so whatever is reasonable.”
