Anna Nicole judge drops paternity demand
A judge trying to decide where former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith should be buried, tonight backed off his suggestion that he also needed to determine who fathered the her baby daughter.
Twelve days after Ms Smith died in Florida, the long-distance battles over what to do with her body – and the paternity of the child – were taking place today in courtrooms in Florida and California.
In Florida, Ms Smith’s estranged mother, Virgie Arthur, and boyfriend, Howard Stern, appeared in court on the issue of the burial.
In Los Angeles, lawyers for Mr Stern were also set to argue with those for Smith’s former companion over who is the father of her daughter, Dannielynn. Judge Larry Seidlin, presiding over the burial question asked lawyers: “Don’t I need to know who the father is?”
But after adjourning proceedings to hold a brief private conference with all sides, he said he would try to answer the burial question without knowing.
“It would help the court if I knew who the natural father is to speak on behalf of Dannielynn,” Mr Seidlin said, but adding: “Right now, the moment’s not right.”
Judge Larry Seidlin had ordered Mr Stern to appear in court today. Mr Stern closed his eyes and rested his forehead on his hand as Smith’s embalming was discussed.
“This is very important to me – to carry out what Anna Nicole wanted,” he said.
Without written proof of Smith’s own wishes, the judge will be forced to hear testimony from those who claim to know what the reality TV star wanted.
“We’re trying to balance the rights and respect of a body that wants peace and tranquility,” Mr Seidlin said last week.
Mr Stern wants Ms Smith buried in the Bahamas in a plot that was purchased next to her son, Daniel, who died in September. Arthur wants her brought home to her native Texas.
The mother has a perhaps unlikely ally in Larry Birkhead, Ms Smith’s ex-boyfriend, who delayed a decision on the star’s burial by fighting for another DNA sample he hopes will prove he is the baby’s father. He was expected to testify for Arthur.
Ms Smith died in Florida on February 8, aged 39. The cause of death is under investigation.
She was the widow of Texas oil tycoon J Howard Marshall, whom she married in 1994 when he was 89 and she was 26
