New paternity challenge in Anna Nicole Smith baby case
Prince Frederic von Anhalt, the husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, said today he plans to file a paternity challenge to gain custody of Anna Nicole Smith's infant daughter.
"I'm going to make the DNA test," he said. "If the court rules in my favour, I will go to the Bahamas and pick up the child."
Von Anhalt will join two other men already claiming they fathered the child, Dannielynn.
Smith's companion, Howard Stern, is listed on the infant's birth certificate as the father, but former Smith boyfriend Larry Birkhead is waging a legal challenge.
Von Anhalt said last week he had a decade-long affair with Smith, who collapsed and died last week in Florida. He said he is more likely to be the father because he was with Smith during the period when the child was conceived.
Von Anhalt, 59, said he was meeting today with lawyer Gloria Allred to see if she will take his case. Allred did not comment.
Von Anhalt's royal credentials have been the cause of speculation. He was born Robert Lichtenberg, the son of a German policeman, and bought his title after being adopted as an adult by a bankrupt daughter-in-law of the last Kaiser, according to published reports.
Von Anhalt, who is Gabor's eighth husband, said he and Smith met in the 1990s when Smith was still married to elderly oil tycoon Howard Marshall II.
Von Anhalt and Smith began their affair after Marshall's death, he said.
Photographs of Anna Nicole Smith embracing Bahamian immigration minister Shane Gibson in bed revived a political scandal in her adopted home today, with one politician calling for Gibson's resignation.
Also today, Ford Shelley, the son-in-law of the American developer who claims ownership of Smith's Nassau residence, said he found methadone in her bedroom refrigerator when he went to secure the estate following her death last week in Florida.
A pathologist said methadone contributed to the death of Smith's 20-year-old son Daniel in the Bahamas in September. Daniel Smith died while visiting his mother and newborn half-sister in a Bahamas hospital.
Two photographs, published on the front page of The Tribune of Nassau, show Gibson and Smith, both fully clothed, embracing on a bed decorated with pink flowers and a white ribbon.
Gibson, an elected member of parliament, has already been accused of showing Smith preferential treatment last year by fast-tracking her residency application. With general elections due this spring, many said the photographs, taken in Smith's bedroom, could damage the ruling Progressive Liberal Party.
