Showing posts with label Anna Nicole Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anna Nicole Smith. Show all posts

Psychiatrist details Anna Nicole's drug addiction

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A psychiatrist who treated Anna Nicole Smith for drug dependency during her pregnancy said she tried to set up a program to wean her off prescription painkillers but found the celebrity model uncooperative and hostile during her stay in the hospital.

Dr. Nathalie Maullin was to continue her testimony Tuesday as prosecutors sought to show that the celebrity model was addicted to painkillers supplied by defendants in a drug case.

Maullin took the stand Monday after a disruption in the testimony of star witness Larry Birkhead resulted in the disappearance from the courtroom of a member of the prosecution team.

District attorney's spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said the future role of Deputy District Attorney Sarah Slice was under discussion after Birkhead, the father of Smith's daughter, testified that she tried to influence his testimony. He said the young prosecutor suggested he was "taking the side" of Smith's former boyfriend, lawyer Howard K. Stern.

Birkhead said Slice also warned him his daughter might have future problems because of her mother's drug use.

"I felt I personally did my best and I was being chastised," Birkhead said under questioning by defense attorney Ellyn Garofalo.

Birkhead said Slice told him prosecutors were "frustrated" with his testimony in the preliminary hearing, which will decide whether Stern and two doctors stand trial. They are charged wit

American actreess Anna Nicole Smith in the red...Image via Wikipedia

h conspiracy to illegally give controlled substances to the former Playboy Playmate, who died of an accidental overdose in 2007.

When court resumed after lunch, Slice was absent. An after-hours call to her office was not answered.

After the upheaval, Deputy District attorney Renee Rose kept Birkhead on the stand talking about Smith's drug use and tried to get him to say she was an addict.

He said he thought she took too many medications but that she told him:

"I'm not a drug addict."

Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry asked if he ever had a conversation with Stern in which he used the word "addiction."

"No," said the witness.

Rose continued to press Birkhead on multiple issues, including the fact that he made $2 million from TV interviews after Smith's death, until the judge told her he had heard enough.

"I think you're done," he said as she continued to raise new issues.

In her testimony Monday, Maullin described her contact with Smith when she checked into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in April 2006, pregnant and in apparent withdrawal from pain and anti-anxiety medications. She said Smith had decided to "go cold turkey" and stop all drugs when she became pregnant, resulting in withdrawal.

She said Smith came to the hospital in distress, sweating, having spasms in her arms and legs and with her eyes dilated.

Maullin said she contacted Smith's physician, Dr. Sandeep Kapoor, one of those now charged in the case, and learned he had prescribed seven different drugs to Smith during the time she was seeking relief from pain.

Maullin said she suggested a new regimen including hypnosis and acupuncture but Smith wasn't interested.

"She wouldn't engage. She didn't make eye contact. She was very hostile," Maullin recalled. "It was, 'Give me my medication and leave me alone.'"

Maullin said that when Smith was asked questions, she would reply: "Ask Howard."

She said she told Stern that Smith should be in a structured rehab ! program and discussed with him and Kapoor her belief that Smith was addicted. Maullin said that during Smith's hospital stay, she tried to regulate the former model's use of methadone for pain and remove her from a number of drugs known as benzodiazepans.

Rose suggested that after Smith's release, Kapoor continued to prescribe one of those medications.

Kapoor's attorney, Ellyn Garofalo, has said the doctor gave Smith "sound and appropri

ate" treatment. Attorney Steve Sadow, representing Stern, has said his client shouldn't be blamed for Smith's death because he was relying on the doctors to treat her.

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Birkhead: Prosecutors chastised testimony

LOS ANGELES, CA - MAY 13:   Howard K. Stern, (...Image by Getty Images via Daylife

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The father of Anna Nicole Smith's babe said Monday a prosecutor suggested that the adolescent was developmentally damaged by Smith's narcotics use and that he should "ramp it up" in his affidavit at a preliminary hearing on biologic accuse adjoin Smith's above boyfriend and two doctors.

Larry Birkhead said the prosecutor's remarks outside cloister afore his affidavit resumed fabricated him upset, but the judge acceptable him to booty the stand anyway. Smith's above boyfriend, Howard K. Stern, and two doctors are charged with conspiracy to illegally give controlled substances to the above Playboy Playmate, who died of an accidental overdose in 2007.

Birkhead said Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Sarah Slice contacted him afterwards he testified Friday and suggested he was demography Stern's side in the case.

"I acquainted the district attorney was frustrated," Birkhead said under questioning by Ellyn Garofalo, the defense lawyer for Dr. Sandeep Kapoor. "She said I should chaw my tongue. She then went into a continued speech about my daughter, and how there was activity to be something wrong with her," Birkhead said.

"She said my babe is activity to be frustrated in acquirements and I should find something she excels in. She said she had studied the way the brain was fabricated up."

Birkhead said that afterwards he larboard court, Slice text-messaged him, suggesting he should apprehend to his babe to help her in her development. Birkhead said he had not noticed any signs of physical or mental disability in the child, 3-year-old Dannielynn Hope.

Garofalo asked Birkhead how he acquainted about the prosecutor! 's remar ks.

"I didn't banter about it because I acquainted she had crossed the line about my daughter's health," Birkhead said. "It upset me."

Superior Court Judge Robert Perry asked if Birkhead took this as a abrogating comment on his testimony. Birkhead replied that he did.

On Monday, as the same prosecutor was escorting him up in the elevator afore the hearing resumed, "it was suggested to me it appeared I was demography up for Mr. Stern and Anna couldn't allege for herself," Birkhead said.

He added that Slice said "she apparently shouldn't accept this conversation" but then remarked that "Anna could not allege for herself and the doctors had exploited her."

Birkhead said he disputed her account regarding Stern and tried to correct her but then he had to appear into court. Birkhead said he tried to talk to the chief prosecutor on the case, Renee Rose, but "she said she would altercate it with me later."

"I said, 'I don't know if these belief were told to get me upset,'" he said.

Birkhead said he acquainted that he was actuality encouraged to "ramp it up" back he alternate to the stand. The judge asked whether Birkhead was activity to be slanting his affidavit because of what had been said to him. Birkhead said he would not.

Slice was unavailable for comment outside court. District attorney's backer Sandi Gibbons said, "Because of the pending preliminary hearing we will not be authoritative a staement at this time." Outside court, Garofalo said, "We're afflicted to apprentice of this attempt at witness intimidation."

In subsequent examination by Rose, Birkhead accustomed that shortly afterwards Smith gave bearing to their daughter, he filed a ancestors suit and included a declaration allurement that the adolescent be activated for drugs because of Smith's prescription biologic usa! ge.

Birkhead additionally said that he acquainted Smith was grief-stricken at the time because of the death of her son, Daniel, and might not be able of caring for the baby. Birkhead beforehand said that Smith took added drugs than he had anytime seen anyone take. But he additionally said she suffered from a wide array of ailments.

Rose later got Birkhead to call media deals he fabricated afterwards Smith's death. He said he was paid a total of added than $2 million for interviews.

The next witness, Dr. Nathalie Maullin, a pscyhiatrist who advised Smith at Cedars Sinai Medical Center while she was pregnant, described her as a difficult patient who was obviously activity through withdrawal from multiple medications back she was admitted.

"When I asked her what she had been taking, she blew me off," said Maullin, who recalled that Smith referred all questions to Stern who was in the hospital allowance with her.

She said she telephoned Kapoor, and he gave her a continued list of drugs he had tried on Smith including Dilaudid, which she said surprised her because it is a able biologic used in cancer patients and has addictive potential. She said Kapoor additionally said Smith had problems with alcohol.

Among the allegations adjoin the defendants are dispensing controlled substances to an addict and dispensing them by artifice by using false names.


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