Anna Nicole Smith

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that former Playboy centerfold Anna Nicole Smith is not entitled to $88.5 million from the estate of her oil tycoon husband and that it belongs to her stepson instead. The ruling is the latest in a tale of sex and money that has wound through Texas and California courtrooms for nearly 10 years and been sensationalized in supermarket tabloids. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the California federal judge who awarded the judgment to Smith in 2002 did not have jurisdiction over the case.

The judge who oversaw the trial over prescription drugs provided to late model Anna Nicole Smith was biased, acted arbitrarily and capriciously, and carved out a "celebrity exception" to state law, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office alleged in papers filed with an appellate court Monday. The prosecution's appeal followed the extraordinary step taken by L.A. County Superior Court Judge Robert Perry in January to dismiss all but one misdemeanor conviction from a jury's decision finding two defendants guilty of conspiracy to obtain medications under a false name.

Methadone, a potent opiate once used almost exclusively to treat heroin addicts, is increasingly being prescribed by doctors as a pain medication and abused by drug users searching for a cheap, easy way to get high, physicians and federal drug officials say. The drug, which comes in pill or liquid form, recently has come under scrutiny in the death of former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith. A doctor in Studio City prescribed methadone to Smith for pain treatment before she was found dead Feb.

Former Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith's heir is not entitled to share in the $1.6-billion estate of her elderly Texas husband, the Supreme Court ruled, apparently ending a Dickensian legal struggle. Because the battle over oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II's wealth outlived most of the parties to the suits, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. compared it to "Bleak House," Charles Dickens' novel about a lawsuit that never ends. Vickie Lynn Marshall, who was better known as Anna Nicole Smith, married the 89-year-old billionaire a year before his death in 1995.

In the latest twist in a decade-long saga, a federal appeals court agreed Friday with a Texas jury's decision that billionaire J. Howard Marshall II never intended to leave his fortune to his wife, the late model and actress Anna Nicole Smith. The ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals dealt Smith's estate a setback in the convoluted inheritance battle that has outlived her as well as her adversary, Marshall's son and executor, E. Pierce Marshall. Before her death from a prescription medication overdose three years ago, Smith had been fighting in Texas and California courts for recognition of what she claimed was her late husband's promise to leave her half of his $1.6-billion estate.

More than 2 1/2 years after Anna Nicole Smith overdosed on a cocktail of powerful medications in a Florida hotel room, a judge Friday ordered two Los Angeles physicians and her boyfriend to stand trial for illegally providing her with prescription drugs. The ruling by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry came after a 13-day preliminary hearing that saw the final years of the Playboy playmate's life chronicled through the testimony of witnesses, including a former lover and a bodyguard, and in hundreds of pages of records from pharmacies, doctors' offices and hospitals.

A psychiatrist who treated a pregnant Anna Nicole Smith for drug withdrawal testified Monday that the model said she was willing to "do anything" for her unborn daughter but ultimately walked away from a plan to break her dependency on prescription medication. Ten months after the hospitalization described by Dr. Nathalie Maullin, the 39-year-old former Playboy playmate died from an overdose. Prosecutors are pursuing charges against her boyfriend, Howard K. Stern, and two physicians for conspiracy to illegally provide her with prescription medication and other charges.

Anna Nicole Smith spent the last days of her life drifting in and out of consciousness under the pale blue comforter of a king-sized hotel bed, too weak to walk, sit up or drink from anything other than a baby bottle, according to court testimony Tuesday. The description of the period preceding the supermodel's 2007 death from an overdose of a sedative and other drugs came on the opening day of a hearing to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to try two physicians and Smith's boyfriend for conspiring to illegally furnish the 39-year-old with prescription medications.

The 20-year-old son of Anna Nicole Smith died while visiting his mother in the Bahamas hospital where the reality TV star and former Playboy playmate had given birth last week, a police official said Monday. Daniel Wayne Smith died Sunday at Doctors' Hospital in Nassau, said Reginald Ferguson, assistant commissioner of the Royal Bahamian Police Force. He said an autopsy was under way. Anna Nicole Smith, 38, gave birth to a healthy 6-pound, 9-ounce girl at the hospital Thursday, her website said.

A court commissioner admitted Anna Nicole Smith's will to probate Tuesday, naming Larry Birkhead the estate's guardian and Howard K. Stern the will's executor. Smith gave birth to a daughter, Dannielynn, five months before her death at age 39. Her son and heir, Daniel, died just after the baby was born. Stern, her lawyer and companion, initially claimed to be Dannielynn's father. But a paternity claim by Birkhead, Smith's ex-boyfriend, eventually prevailed.

A judge Thursday threw out all guilty verdicts except one misdemeanor conviction in the drug trial surrounding the death of model Anna Nicole Smith ? criticizing a case authorities once heralded as a cautionary tale to doctors too liberal with their prescription pads. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert Perry cleared Smith's manager and companion Howard K. Stern of all convictions and dismissed two conspiracy counts for psychiatrist Khristine Eroshevich. Of the two remaining felony convictions for Eroshevich, involving obtaining medication under a false name, Perry tossed out one and reduced the other to a misdemeanor.

After highly publicized raids, dueling news conferences and a contentious two-month trial, prosecutors are asking that a psychiatrist and lawyer convicted in the drug trial surrounding the death of model Anna Nicole Smith be sentenced to probation and community service. Psychiatrist Khristine Eroshevich and Smith's manager and companion, Howard K. Stern, had faced a maximum of three years and eight months in prison for their October convictions on charges of conspiring to obtain controlled substances by fraud and by providing false names.

A Los Angeles County jury Thursday convicted Anna Nicole Smith's longtime companion and a psychiatrist of conspiring to provide powerful prescription drugs to the model for several years before her fatal overdose in 2007. The jury acquitted a third defendant ? one of Smith's doctors ? of all charges. The panel deliberated for more than two weeks before convicting Howard K. Stern and Dr. Khristine Eroshevich on two counts each of conspiring to obtain controlled substances by fraud and by providing false names.

In the end, the drug trial surrounding Anna Nicole Smith's death came to revolve around the fame that trailed the late model and Playboy Playmate throughout her life. The hope of landing in their famous patient's inner circle was powerful enough to motivate doctors to whip out their prescription pads and write out orders for huge quantities of highly addictive drugs, prosecutors said. Defense attorneys claimed that were it not for Smith's celebrity, their clients would never have been charged in the first place.

At first, the pills were a way to calm the nerves, washed down with expensive champagne before she emerged from behind the curtains and did what she did best: be Anna Nicole Smith, basking in camera flashes and adoration. But in her last months, the late model came to beg and demand the drugs, drinking a powerful sedative straight from the bottle, asking for her meds an hour after her last heaping dosage as she sought a semblance of relaxation while grieving the loss of her son. That was the downward spiral described by Smith's bodyguard in the first week of the criminal trial of the three people accused of illegally providing the model with dangerous quantities of prescription medication.

Two doctors and Anna Nicole Smith's boyfriend conspired for three years, even crossing international borders, to "funnel" massive amounts of powerful, highly dangerous medication to the late model, a prosecutor told jurors Wednesday during opening statements in their criminal trial. Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Renee Rose said the defendants' efforts included using fake names and different pharmacies, including one specializing in supplying large quantities to nursing homes and board-and-care facilities.

At first, the pills were a way to calm the nerves, washed down with expensive champagne before she emerged from behind the curtains and did what she did best: be Anna Nicole Smith, basking in camera flashes and adoration. But in her last months, the late model came to beg and demand the drugs, drinking a powerful sedative straight from the bottle, asking for her meds an hour after her last heaping dosage as she sought a semblance of relaxation while grieving the loss of her son. That was the downward spiral described by Smith's bodyguard in the first week of the criminal trial of the three people accused of illegally providing the model with dangerous quantities of prescription medication.

Attorneys for former Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith asked a federal judge Monday to add as much as $30 million to a judgment she won in a dispute over her late husband's estate. Attorney Philip W. Boesch said the money was interest Smith would have earned on the $88 million she was awarded last month from the estate of oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall.

In the latest twist in a decade-long saga, a federal appeals court agreed Friday with a Texas jury's decision that billionaire J. Howard Marshall II never intended to leave his fortune to his wife, the late model and actress Anna Nicole Smith. The ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals dealt Smith's estate a setback in the convoluted inheritance battle that has outlived her as well as her adversary, Marshall's son and executor, E. Pierce Marshall. Before her death from a prescription medication overdose three years ago, Smith had been fighting in Texas and California courts for recognition of what she claimed was her late husband's promise to leave her half of his $1.6-billion estate.

Back when VH1 launched its "Behind the Music" series of rock documentaries in 1997, there were still musicians missing in action, stories left to excavate. It was conceivable that even an episode of that show about an extremely popular act would cough up stories that had managed to keep their way out of magazine profiles and radio interviews for years. No more. Current celebrities have their every move documented on the Internet, either by their own choice or at the hands of fans and paparazzi.