Docs 'fuelled Anna's addiction'
2010-10-05 16:07
Los Angeles - Two doctors helped supply troubled US starlet Anna Nicole Smith with powerful prescription drugs to feed her addiction ahead of her death in 2007, a US court was told on Monday.
Actress and Playboy model Smith died in February 2007 from an accidental prescription overdose in Florida, aged 39.
Dr Sandeep Kapoor and Dr Khristine Eroshevich are not charged over her death, but prescribed medication for her, in collaboration with her former companion Howard K Stern, which fuelled her addiction, prosecutors said.
"Her addiction started long before the crimes that we have charged," said Deputy District Attorney David Barkhurst, in closing arguments at a Los Angeles trial, adding: "She had an addiction problem.
"There is just prescription after prescription after prescription written" for Smith for the opiate Dilaudid, which only stopped after she appeared high in public at a US awards show, he added.
Kapoor, 42, and Eroshevich, 62 - charged with conspiring to supply drugs to an addict - "abandoned their responsibilities. They abused their power," the prosecutor said of the two doctors.
The larger-than-life Smith was once regarded as one of the world's most desirable women during the 1990s when she replaced supermodel Claudia Schiffer as Guess Jeans model.
However, Smith fell out of the spotlight over the next decade, with dramatic fluctuations in her weight, often appearing to be under the influence of drugs or drink in public.
- SAPA
