Toxicologist says Anna Nicole Smith illness could have made her sensitive to drugs

Toxicologist: Smith was ill before death

LOS ANGELES — Anna Nicole Smith’s poor health in her final weeks may have complicated her reaction to drugs allegedly prescribed by doctors now charged with conspiring to illegally provide her with controlled substances, a toxicologist who investigated the case testified Wednesday.

The former Playboy model was suffering from a bacterial infection before she died in a Florida hotel room in 2007, said Harold Schueler, chief toxicologist for the coroner’s office in Broward County, Fla.

That could have affected her sensitivity to drugs she received for pain, anxiety and sleeplessness, he said.

“Her respiratory system could also have been compromised,” Schueler testified during the second day of a preliminary hearing to determine if Smith’s boyfriend and two doctors should stand trial.

Howard K. Stern, Dr. Sandeep Kapoor and Dr. Khristina Eroshevich have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Their lawyers maintain Smith was a strong willed woman who directed her own course of medical treatment.

The defendants are not charged with Smith’s death, which was ruled an accidental overdose.

Larry Birkhead, a photographer who proved through DNA testing he was the father of Smith’s daughter, was expected to testify later Wednesday. Birkhead has been raising now 3-year-old Dannielynn.

It was unknown what information Birkhead could add to the case. Defense attorney Adam Braun, who represents Eroshevich, said an audio recording of authorities interviewing Birkhead was turned over to him recently. He said he had not had time to study it and would ask to delay Birkhead’s testimony.

Also on the witness list are a bodyguard who tried unsuccessfully to revive Smith when she was found unresponsive in her bed on Feb. 8, 2007 at age 39.

Tuesday’s single witness, California Department of Justice investigator Danny Santiago, painted a portrait of Smith in her final days as ill, confused and isolated in the hotel room with a cornucopia of prescription drugs.

He offered accounts collected from Florida authorities and others about the drugs she was given and the fake names used to procure them. He said some were in the name of Stern.

However, when Deputy District Attorney Renee Rose suggested Tuesday the drugs might have caused Smith’s death, Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry stopped her line of questioning.

“There is not a murder charge,” Perry said. “The cause of death is not an issue.”

Smith’s autopsy concluded she died of “acute combined drug intoxication,” and the drugs involved were chloral hydrate combined with Benadryl, clonazepam, diazepam and lorazepam. Clonazepam and Soma, both muscle relaxants, and the sedative diazepam were among medications found in her hotel suite.

Stern is named in all 11 counts of the complaint. The doctors each face six counts, including conspiracy, and if convicted could be sentenced to as much as five years, eight months in prison. It was not clear what sentence Stern might face if convicted.