Howard Kevin Stern (born November
29, 1968, Los Angeles, California) is an American attorney. He is the former domestic
partner and agent of model and actress Anna Nicole Smith.
He became known as a co-star on Smith's 2002 - 2004 reality television series The Anna Nicole Show.
Stern
was born to a Jewish
family and raised in Los Angeles, California. He graduated with a B.A. degree
from the University of California, Berkeley. in 1990 and
received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.
He was admitted to the State Bar of California on February 25, 1994.
Stern's
law firm first handled Anna Nicole Smith's modeling contracts in the mid 1990s.
Stern met Anna Nicole Smith in 1997, two years after the death of her husband J.
Howard Marshall. When she fought for the Marshall's fortune, Stern presented
her direct examination at the trial. Stern's law firm was dissolved around the
time he became a co-star on The Anna
Nicole Show (2002 - 2004).
Stern maintained an apartment in Santa Monica, California, from which he
operated a business called Hot Smoochie Lips, Inc., a
talent agency that had Anna Nicole Smith as a client.
On
September 10, 2006, Stern was with Smith when her son, Daniel Wayne Smith, died
in Nassau, Bahamas, while visiting his mother and newborn half-sister. Bahamian
Police and the Inquest declared Daniel's death as an accidental overdose on
antidepressants and methadone. No foul play was involved.
On
September 28, 2006, Stern and Smith exchanged wedding vows in a legally
nonbinding ceremony in Nassau, Bahamas. The ceremony was officiated by a
Baptist minister.
Smith
died on February 8, 2007, less than five months after Daniel. According to the
Florida court overseeing her estate, Smith left everything to Daniel in a
16-page will that named Stern as executor of the Estate.
On
February 21, 2007, hearings commenced before the Hon. Larry Seidlin in
Florida's Broward County Circuit Court over the disposition of Smith's remains.
The proceedings were televised live, and broadcast on the internet. Denying
motions by Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur, and Stern, Seidlin awarded custody of
Smith's body to her infant daughter, Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern via
attorney Richard Milstein, whom Seidlin appointed the baby's guardian ad litem.
Smith was buried next to Daniel in the Bahamas.
L.
Lin Wood was the lead attorney for Howard K. Stern in the Rita Cosby libel suit.
The Defamation suit against Texas lawyer John O'Quinn, and defended Howard K.
Stern in defamation case brought by Smith's estranged mother Virgie Arthur.
Mrs. Arthur's lawsuit was dismissed before the trial in 2010 after TMZ, CBS and
other defendants won summary judgment. Lin Wood also represented Howard K.
Stern as the Executor of Smith's Estate in federal action against developer G.
Ben Thompson of South Carolina, his son-in-law Ford Shelley Jr., Susan M.
Brown, Esq. for misappropriation and theft of estate property.
Journalist
Rita Cosby alleged in the book Blonde
Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death, released on
September 4, 2007, that Smith's nannies revealed that a sex tape existed of
Howard K. Stern and former rival Larry Birkhead engaged in a homosexual
relationship. However, a lawyer for the nannies threatened to file suit,
claiming that the nannies never spoke about such an encounter between Stern and
Birkhead.
After Stern filed a $60-million libel suit against Cosby and her publisher in
October 2007, a spokesperson for the nannies claimed that Cosby offered bribes
in an unsuccessful attempt to contact the nannies.
In
July 2009, in a court hearing on whether to dismiss the lawsuit, Stern's
attorney claimed that in deposition of the suits, Cosby admitted there was no
videotape and could not prove other allegations. Cosby replied to the Stern
lawsuit by saying "…we are solid
on our facts more than ever…we are sure of what we have. I think it's pretty
surprising that these guys would launch some frivolous lawsuit to deflect and
to smear and to intimidate and it's not going to work."
The book was a New York Times
bestseller. In August 2009, federal judge Denny Chin ruled that "Cosby's actions are extremely
troubling, and suggest that she was attempting to obstruct justice by tampering
with witnesses" and allowed most of Stern's US$60-million lawsuit
against Cosby and her publisher, Hachette, to proceed. Three months later, the
lawsuit was withdrawn as settled, but no information has been released on the
terms of this out-of-court settlement.
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