Dannielynn scoops Anna Nicole pot

WestWords March 5, 2008
Dannielynn scoops Anna Nicole pot
By Liz Hodgson
The baby daughter of tragic model Anna Nicole Smith has been named
her sole heir – with the two men who fought to be named her father
appointed as trustees.
Lawyer Howard K Stern, who was living with Smith when baby Dannielynn
was born in September 2006 and was executor of her estate, filed a
petition to clarify her intentions.
Her will, drawn up in 2001, left all her assets to her son Daniel,
who died three days after Dannielynn's birth, from an accidental
overdose, in his mother's hospital room in the Bahamas, aged 20.
Smith herself died, also of an accidental overdose of prescription
drugs, in Florida in February 2007, aged 39.
Her estate was estimated at about US$710,000 (£360,000
pounds/€470,000 euros), but Dannielynn also stands to inherit millions
from Smith's late husband, oil billionaire J Howard Marshall, if the
nearly 10-year legal battle over his assets goes in her favour.
Voluptuous Playboy model Smith married the Texan tycoon in 1994 when
she was 26 and he was nearly 90, and he died 14 months later, leaving
her half his US$1.6 million fortune.
His son, E Howard Marshall, contested the will and the case has bene
going through probate and bankruptcy courts since 1999, with interim
judgments going both ways.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff named Dannielynn
the sole heir after considering Smith's will, which said that assets
in Daniel's trust should be divided equally among any brothers or
sisters if Smith had any more children.
"As a matter of law, Dannielyn is a pretermitted (pretermitted)
heir," Stern said in his legal papers.
His lawyer, Bruce Ross, welcomed the ruling and said: "We and Mr
Stern always believed that Anna Nicole never intended to disinherit
her daughter. I'm please to say this chapter in the saga is closed."
Stern and photographer Larry Birkhead, who was confirmed as
Dannielynn's father by DNA testing two months after Smith's death,
will administer the estate for the girl.
Birkhead and Stern are due to testify in the ongoing inquest into
Daniel's death, due to resume in the Bahamas on March 17 and are
expected to give evidence about his close relationship with his
mother.