Saturday, March 14, 2009

Stern Was Anna Nicole's 'Enabler,' AG Says

Brown called Smith's longtime partner and attorney Howard K. Stern the "principal enabler" in a conspiracy with two doctors for giving the "known addict" thousands of prescription pills.

Stern and a doctor were jailed on charges of conspiring to furnish drugs before her death in 2007, authorities said.

"Stern and Dr. Sandeep Kapoor were arrested and later released from a Los Angeles County jail Thursday night after each posted a $20,000 bond, a police spokesman said.

Dr. Khristine Eroshevich also faces charges and is expected to turn herself in Monday, authorities said.

The doctors and Stern devised a plan to use fake names so Smith could be prescribed "thousands of pills," Brown said.

Her doctors knew she was addicted and gave her drugs "excessively," Brown said.

"The quantity of the drugs, the variety of the drugs, the combination at any given point and her continuing to use that; that, to a professional, is clear evidence of addiction," Brown said.

"These cocktails of methadone and antidepressants and sleeping pills and Xanax, you put all that into a cocktail, it explodes and can cause death, injury and permanent morbidity and disability," he said.

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