Anna Nicole Smith Fighting Paternity Suit, Now Eviction
Oct. 24, 2006 — -- You just can't make this stuff up.
Anna Nicole Smith, already under heavy fire from a Los Angeles lawyer representing her ex-boyfriend Larry Birkhead, who is demanding a paternity test to prove he fathered the former Playboy pinup's new baby, is now reportedly being evicted from her home in the Bahamas.
The situation is significant because it could potentially threaten her Bahamian permanent resident status.
Home ownership is reportedly a requirement of her current status on the island nation, and could become a cornerstone of her paternity battle defense.
Bahamian legal experts have told ABC News that it's far more difficult to compel a paternity test with a child who was born in the Bahamas than it is in the United States.
Birkhead has alleged that Smith and her personal attorney, Howard K. Stern, who also says he is the newborn's father, moved to the Bahamas at least in part to place the child outside the reach of the U.S. court system.
In the same hospital room where the ex-model gave birth to her new daughter, her 20-year-old son, Daniel, died Sept. 10 from a combination of methadone and two antidepressants.
Autopsy results showed the young man had ingested methadone, Zoloft and Lexapro, which had a lethal "cumulative effect on the central nervous system," according to Cyril Wecht, a U.S. pathologist who conducted a private autopsy.
On Friday, the day after Daniel's funeral, Smith was reportedly handed an eviction, and ordered off the property by Oct. 31.
The letter was delivered at the behest of South Carolina developer G. Ben Thompson, who told People magazine he had purchased the house in August as a favor to Smith, whom he apparently met through neighbors in 2005.
Thompson told the magazine that Smith was supposed to sign a mortgage and buy the home from him. He said that she alleged the house was a "gift."
"I never said that," Thompson told People. "I don't have that kind of money."
He went on to say that he didn't want to "embarrass her or humiliate Anna."