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Judge Gives Smith's Body to Baby's Guardian
Judge Gives Smith Body to Baby's Guardian
By MATT SEDENSKY, AP
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Feb. 22) -- Blubbering as he announced his ruling, a judge said Thursday he hopes Anna Nicole Smith will be buried in the Bahamas, but he left the decision up to the guardian of her baby daughter.
Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin steered a surprise middle course in the dispute, which became more urgent by the day when the medical examiner warned that the centerfold's body was rapidly decomposing from her death two weeks ago.
Smith's estranged mother wanted her buried in her native Texas, while Smith's boyfriend wanted her laid to rest in the Bahamas.
The judge compromised and gave custody to attorney Richard Milstein, the guardian for Smith's 5-month-old daughter, Dannielynn.
It wasn't immediately clear what Milstein would do, but the judge expressed his own preference: "I want her to be buried with her son in the Bahamas. I want them to be together."
The judge choked up frequently and wept as he explained his decision.
Smith died Feb. 8 in a Florida hotel of unknown causes. The dispute over the burial was one of many surrounding Smith. Her boyfriend, Howard K. Stern, is listed as Dannielynn's father on the child's birth certificate, but Smith's ex-boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, said the girl was his. A California judge is handling the paternity case.
Stern had been hunched over a table with his hands folded as he awaited Seidlin's ruling. He wiped away tears after the decision. Arthur covered her eyes.
Milstein works for the Miami office of the Akerman Senterfitt law firm. He has 30 years of experience and specializes in guardianship, probate and mediation, according to the firm's Web site.
He did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment from The Associated Press.
The judge had set a self-imposed deadline to rule by Friday, so Smith's embalmed body won't decompose too much for a public viewing. Arthur wants to bring Smith home to her native Texas, and attorney-turned-boyfriend Stern wants a burial in the Bahamas, where her son, Daniel, died of apparent drug-related causes last year.
Birkhead testified that when he visited the Bahamas home Smith and Stern shared last year, he became increasingly concerned about her drug use.
"They kept bringing more and more drugs in the house," he said, adding that Stern told him that Smith needed the prescriptions to live.
Birkhead said he suggested she enter drug rehabilitation, but that she told him: "I'm not a drug addict and quit calling me one."
Birkhead also testified that Stern repeatedly asked him to deny he was the father of Smith's 5-month-old daughter, Dannielynn. Stern and Birkhead both claim to be the father, although Stern is listed on the birth certificate. Barth submitted e-mails Birkhead sent to Smith in which he called her "sick," "psycho" and "devil."
Birkhead's attorneys again sought to force the DNA tests that could finally determine who is Dannielynn's father, but Seidlin declined, siding with attorney Richard Milstein, who has been appointed to represent the child in court.
"We're muddying the waters and we're wasting time," Milstein said.
So far, the testimony has been peppered with details of Smith's her sexual liaisons and the deals allegedly being pursued to profit from the deaths of the starlet and her son.
Also Thursday, celebrity news Web site TMZ.com posted a video of Smith hugging and being kissed by a shirtless doctor, who is under investigation by the California state medical board for unspecified possible misconduct related to Smith. In the video from a nightclub, Stern and Birkhead watch as Dr. Sandeep Kapoor nuzzles Smith.
Messages left for Kapoor's Los Angeles publicist Mark Saylor, on his cell phone and at his office, were not returned. A message was also left for Kapoor's Los Angeles attorney, Ellyn Garofalo.
Smith married Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II in 1994 when he was 89 and she was 26 and she had been fighting his family over his estimated $500 million fortune since his death in 1995.
FROM AOL NEWS.
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