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Anna Nicole Smith: Hearing comes close to end
L.A. superior court judge Robert J. Perry is set to rule on friday, on whether to admit into evidence, a forty five minute video.
The said video purportedly shows Anna Nicole Smith under the influence of drugs provided by her lawyer-boyfriend.
Perry said he would take the video home on Thursday night to review it instead of watching it in open court.
Attorneys for Howard K. Stern, who shot the footage, objected to it being shown.
This is possibly one of the last pieces of evidence admitted during a preliminary hearing that may result with Stern and two of Smith's doctors going to trial on charges they conspired to illegally provided Smith with controlled substances.
But, Perry, who has earlier deemed other potential evidences salacious, could exclude this one's introduction as well.
Steve Sadow, the attorney for Stern, claimed the tape was stolen from Smith's home in the Bahamas and that it doesn't show Smith under the influence of drugs, but rather that she is acting. He said the tape prosecutors obtained may be edited.
According to Prosecutor Renee Rose, the video was shot in 2006 after a birthday party for a ten-year-old girl Smith and Stern befriended in the Bahamas. The girl is shown on the tape, imploring Stern to help Smith, Rose said.
In her testimony on Thursday, the girl stated that Smith's actions became strange after taking medicine from a bottle.
Her behaviour was back to normal after Stern gave her another pill, according to an account of an interview with the girl was read in open court.
While objecting over the tape Sadow said: "The only impression one gets is a misimpression." He said Smith "was just acting."
Perry said he wouldn't watch the video because it would bog down a preliminary hearing that is in its third week.
Perry said: "I'm in a preliminary hearing that's not ending, I'm not concerned whether this goes public or not."
Perry has limited the introduction of some salacious evidence in the case. |