Howard K. Stern Claims Service Fees
Howard K. Stern was just Anna Nicole Smith’s lawyer once upon a time.
The late model’s companion filed a creditor’s claim in Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday, requesting 6 percent of any money Smith’s estate recovers from that of her husband of 13 months, J. Howard Marshall II, whose estate was worth a reported $500 million when he died in 1995.
Stern, who was appointed executor of Smith’s will in June, cited a contingent fee (payment for services rendered) agreement on file in bankruptcy court that states he’s entitled to a portion of proceeds from the battle he helped Smith wage against Marshall’s family, which has contested Smith’s spousal inheritance since day one.
The 6 percent fee is “conditioned upon recovery in the Marshall litigation,” says state court documents obtained by celebtv.com.
When Smith died in February of an accidental drug overdose, her personal assets were totaled at about $710,000; but her daughter, 13-month-old Dannielynn Hope Marshall Birkhead, figures to inherit millions if and when the Marshall matter is ever sorted out.
Smith declared bankruptcy in 2001 and was awarded $474 million due to misconduct on the Marshalls’ part; that judgment was later reduced to $88 million and then was overturned by a California appellate court. In May 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Smith could again pursue her claim in federal court.
Stern, meanwhile, also filed court papers last week in which he requested that Dannielynn be officially established as the sole heir to Smith’s fortune, stating that although Smith’s will was drawn up in 2001—five years before she had Dannielynn—she would have wanted her second child “to share equally in the trust created for Daniel.”
As it stands, the will names Daniel Smith, who died at 20 just days after his half-sister was born, as his mother’s sole beneficiary.
Larry Birkhead was appointed guardian of his former lover’s estate and has been said to be on good terms with Stern since it was determined he was Dannielynn’s biological father.
Very good terms, according to former MSNBC anchor Rita Cosby, who has authored an Anna Nicole exposé in which she claims Stern and Birkhead were lovers and in cahoots to get control of Smith’s estate and custody of Dannielynn.
Stern has since filed a $60 million defamation suit against Cosby, and Birkhead has also threatened legal action.
Meanwhile, a hearing scheduled for last Friday regarding items seized during a raid on the homes and offices of two of Smith’s doctors has been postponed until Dec. 5.
Psychiatrists Khristine Eroshevich and Sandeep Kapoor are under investigation in connection with prescriptions found at Smith’s home in the Bahamas and in her room at the Hollywood, Florida, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, where she died on Feb. 8.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler (late of the Phil Spector murder trial) ordered Deputy District Attorney Renee Rose and Kapoor’s attorney to arrange for copies to be made of various documents, including some patient records.
Those papers, as well as three computers seized from his home and office, will be returned to the doctor after they’ve been examined, Rose said.