Judge Grants Anna Nicole a $450M Wish

September 28, 2000 -- A federal bankruptcy judge awarded former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith nearly $450 million in a court battle with the son of her late 90-year-old husband over his $1.6 billion estate.

That's quite a fairy-tale ending for a bankrupt ex-waitress from Jim's Krispy Fried Chicken Shack.

However, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Samuel Bufford said Wednesday that the amount Smith is due could change, depending on punitive damages that he would consider, and a separate court case over the fortune of the late oil baron J. Howard Marshall — the so-called "richest man in Texas" — is set to begin today in Houston.

"I'm so excited," Smith, 32, told KPRC-TV in Houston on Wednesday. "No one ever took care of me in my whole life, and this man did and I loved him for that. I hope it ends up like my husband wanted it to. I hope it ends up that I get everything that he wanted me to have," she added.

Wonder if she's going to (buy) Disneyland?

Pierce Marshall, 61, said in a statement that he would appeal. "This extraordinary decision is a miscarriage of justice that is not supported by the facts and will not stand up on appeal."

'He Loved Me and I Loved Him'The former Vicki Lynn Hogan met Marshall in 1991 at the Houston strip club where she worked and married him in 1994, when he was 89 and she was 26. Their marriage ended 14 months later with the billionaire's death in 1995.

Smith came forward to claim that her wheelchair-bound husband repeatedly vowed to leave her half of his estate. She sought that money in Houston probate court and in bankruptcy court in Los Angeles, arguing that Pierce Marshall interfered with her inheritance.

Smith filed for bankruptcy protection in 1996, after she lost an $850,000 judgement brought against her by a former female assistant who alleged sexual harassment.

Smith, a buxom former Guess? Jeans model, said Marshall was so anxious to wed that he offered up half his money. "This was one of the ways he wanted to hurry me up and marry him. He loved me and I loved him," Smith told the court.

Bufford, who conducted a five-day trial, agreed with her in a nine-page written ruling issued late Wednesday. "The court finds that Pierce Marshall … interfered with Vicki Marshall's expectancy of an inheritance, which she would otherwise have obtained … under Texas law," Bufford said.

Marshall's older son, Howard Marshall III, 63, is also suing for part of the estate in the case. His father cut him out of the will after a business dispute in 1980.

Reuters contributed to this story.