Originally published May 2 2009
Psychiatrists Charged with Conspiracy in Death of Anna Nicole Smith
by David Gutierrez, staff writer
(NaturalNews) California attorney general Jerry Brown has filed criminal charges against Anna Nicole Smith's personal psychiatrist, accusing the doctor and two others with illegally supplying the celebrity with the prescription drugs that led to her death.
"My hope is that the message will go out that doctors do not have a license to pump innocent and often vulnerable people full of dangerous chemicals," Brown said. He announced that this case would be only the first of several in an effort to crack down on illegal prescribing by doctors.
Smith, a television actress and former Playboy model, died of an accidental drug overdose in February 2007, shortly after giving birth to a daughter. Her 20-year-old son had also died not long before, after overdosing on methadone and prescription drugs.
Named in the criminal complaint are Smith's psychiatrist, Khristine Eroshevich, her doctor, Sandeep Kapoor, and her lawyer and boyfriend, Howard K. Stern. The prosecution accuses Kapoor and Smith of violating their ethical duties as doctors by knowingly writing fake prescriptions for the sleeping pills Ambien; the opioid painkillers hydromorphone (trade name Dilaudid) and methadone; the anti-anxiety drug Xanax; and others.
"These cocktails, methadone and anti-depressants and sleeping pills and Xanax, it explodes," Brown said.
Stern is accused of assisting in the conspiracy by sometimes picking up the prescriptions under his own or a fake name.
"This was done knowingly and it was done with tragic consequences," Brown said. "[Smith] was a very famous person. But the abuse in this case was serious. Unfortunately, it was not that unusual. It goes on."
Each defendant is charged with six criminal counts, including conspiracy and prescribing controlled substances. Each count carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison. The prosecutions are the culmination of an investigation that began in March 2007 and included a review of more than 100,000 computer images and files.
Sources for this story include: www.reuters.com.
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