Playboy Playmate of the Year Anna Nicole Smith is involved in a legal battle over her late husband’s estate, and she’s getting legal help from the Bush administration.
Smith married oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II in 1994, when he was 89 and she was 26 and working as a topless dancer in Houston. She’s since gone on to do reality TV shows, among other things. Marshall died in 1995, and while a federal bankruptcy judge awarded her $474 million in a fight with Marshall’s family over the estate, an appeals court reversed the ruling.
The case will go in front of the Supreme Court, and the U.S. solicitor general wants to help Smith.
The issue before the high court is one only lawyers would love: when may federal courts hear claims that involve state probate proceedings. Smith lost in Texas state courts, which found that E. Pierce Marshall was the sole heir to his father’s estate.
The Bush administration’s filings in the case are technical. Without getting into the details of the family squabble, Solicitor General Paul Clement said that the justices should protect federal court jurisdiction in disputes. — Associated Press
I’m not familiar with the case, but I can say that a 26 year old marrying an 89 year old is suspicious, at the least.
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bruce
Dec 27, 2005
Anna Nicole Smith was the recipient of an old man’s will. She obviously made him happy. Undue influence? I don’t know.
She deserves something, maybe not everything.
She advertised her wares, provided a service, sold itm and expects to be paid. A good businessperson aqnd Republican in my book. Did she lie about her assets? Did she commit fraud? What is her crime? She made an old man happy in his last few days. She obviously gave good value for her services.
If this man would have left his money to a church (a GOOD Christian one at that) then who would have bitched?
I am rooting for Anna Nicole Smith.
cameron aka desk003
Dec 27, 2005
She would have bitched. She would not have gotten her money that she planned out to get. And as for the GOOD Christian one at that comment, wtf?
Amber
Dec 28, 2005
I think if she was married to him then she should get the money he left her. And really people, please… I mean… the only reason there is any fight over it is because his family doesn’t want a pornstar having the money, and is that really fair to judge her by her proffesion. There are so many people out here that haven’t even heard her voice let alone been around her long enough to know her, so fucking cut her a break
Lenny Zimmermann
Dec 28, 2005
Guys, the point of this whole thing (at least as far as the story above is concerned), isn’t which party did or didn’t deserve justice here, but that the Bush Administration wants to effectively bring what is normally a judicial matter for the States into Federal jusrisdiction. The Texas court may very well have ruled the wrong way, but is this the kind of case Federal Law should be involved with?
Michaels
Jan 03, 2006
I find it very hard to believe that the bush administration is going to help out Anna Nicole Smith where he refused to listen to my 15 year old daughters’ pleas, in a letter she addressed to him, to interfere with her visits with her father. Her father who had molested her. President Bush has also refused to help with the child support and the 50% change in circumstances warranting an increase in child support. Yet he is going to help Anna Nicole Smith, a much better opportunity and I’m sure probably a better feeling afterwards than helping a child. President Bush never ceases to amaze me.
kkm
Blue Springs, MO
Betty
Jan 10, 2006
Hey ya’ll Anna is so great I think that she should get the money seems like she really loved that old man I think that his bratty jealous son should get squat. I hope she wins HER money back. I wish I could be like her one day forgo the nudity and old people, and she has it pretty good. Luck and hardwork and determination gets you far in this life.