Government prosecutors say Smith's boyfriend and lawyer Howard K. Stern (pictured) funneled the model prescription drugs, as has been suspected at least since the time Stern arranged a creepy video of an apparently drugged-out Smith, in clown makeup, entertaining a frightened child.

Stern has been charged with eight felonies, as have two of Smith's doctors. One of them, psychiatrist Khristine Eroshevich, wrote prescriptions for Smith under false names, but claims that was only "done for privacy reasons."

When Smith died, there were 11 bottles of medication in her hotel room. Some 600 pills were missing from prescriptions issued over the prior five weeks, most in Stern's name, according to AP.

As irresistible as the case is to voyeurs and the news media, it's likely got some political upside as well: California attorney general Jerry Brown, likely running for governor soon, is pressing the case.

Estate executor Howard K. Stern, meanwhile—whom you may or may not remember ignoring a child's pleas not to exploit a drug-addled Smith for a zombie-clown video—tells ET he's established the Anna Nicole and Daniel Wayne Smith Charitable Foundation: "It will benefit charitable causes that Anna Nicole supported during her life: children, the elderly, and the treatment and cure of AIDS. Hopefully it will grow, help more people each year, and eventually be headed by her daughter Dannielynn," an exciting possibility we're sure will come to pass just as soon as Birkhead figures out how to take a fair cut of whatever Stern's pulling off the bottom line.

• Foundation Pays Tribute to Anna Nicole [ETOnline]

Today, ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT spoke to Howard K. Stern and Larry Birkhead as they shared their continued grief for Anna Nicole Smith on what would have been her 40th birthday.

Stern, whose own birthday is tomorrow, told ET, "My only wish is that Anna is celebrating her 40th birthday with Daniel and Howard (Marshall) in heaven and that they are able to experience the beautiful development of Dannielynn from above. Then I know that she would truly be at peace. She was more extraordinary than words can describe. I will never stop loving her."

Birkhead reveals that he plans to commemorate Anna's birthday with Dannielynn, "We will have a private family celebration to remember Anna. Time still hasn't healed the wound of her untimely passing, as she truly was one of a kind. We miss her dearly."

If we know Birkhead, this "private celebration" is sure to be no less spectacular than the one he threw for Dannielynn's first birthday—a three ring circus swarming with clowns, magicians, and ET cameramen, with more little-girl pearls than you can shake a pink ballerina tutu at. Stern's commemoration, however, promises to be much more subdued, involving two individual cupcakes sitting at opposite ends of a dining table at her empty Bahamian estate, with her clown video looping in the background as the wistful lawyer savors the carefree, Anna-drugging days of yesteryear.

• Remembering Anna Nicole Smith's Birthday [ETOnline]

Mark Schey, the president and CEO of creative agency 22Digital, which created the "TRIMSPA, Baby!" slogan, tells Us that through his "good, professional relationship" with Smith he often helped her post fan videos on her personal website "as a courtesy kind of thing." He claims he was not paid, however, and that he wasn't present at the Bahamas video shoot.

"It could have been something [Stern] intended to put on [her website]. He would give me instructions, 'edit this, don't do this,'" Schey tells Us [...]

Robin Bonnema, a spokeswoman for TRIMSPA, tells Us: "Mark Schey is not an employee of TRIMSPA. He owns his own company and TRIMSPA has contracted Mark on occasion for TRIMSPA-related events. The video is not a TRIMSPA event, nor is it related to TRIMSPA in any way."

Whatever Stern had in mind for the tape—perhaps a pay-premium AnnaNicole.com feature allowing fans to indulge in their naughtiest catatonic-Bozo fantasies?—we're at least relieved to know it wasn't a Trimspa-sanctioned production. We shudder to think of the vomited-up diet shake images that would have emerged if it was.

• Anna Nicole's Producer Found, Explains Disturbing Clown Tape [Us Weekly]

Smith then quickly descends into incoherency, mistaking the toy doll in her arms for her own baby, and her real pregnancy as "just gas." Stern, meanwhile, rattles off instructions about background noise, white levels, and unusable boob-slip footage to a cameraman named Mark, ignoring the nine-year-old as she pleads with him to, "Cut the tape off and help...I think we need the hospital...Howard, seriously—please help." Now, if you'll excuse us, we're going to curl into a fetal ball on the floor of a scalding shower and lie there unblinking for several hours.

• Geraldo at Large [FoxNews via RedLasso]

A full transcript of Larry's penetrating interview is at CNN.com ("KING: Is the book in the main lies? STERN: The book? KING: Yeah. [...] STERN: Totally false. Totally false. [...] KING: You have to say, then, you were whacked out, totally shocked by this? STERN: Absolutely, absolutely..."). But to fully grasp the scope of the injustices and tragedies suffered over the past year by the deceased starlet's creepy, ever-present lawyer-companion, we suggest you watch the clip above, asking yourself all along, "Is this the face of a guy who would engage in compromising, intimate relations for the cameras with his own babydaddy-in-law?"

• CNN LARRY KING LIVE [transcripts.cnn.com]

Cosby, meanwhile, faces a $60 million lawsuit from Howard K. Stern, the man she accuses of having engaged in videotaped intimate relations with Larry Birkhead. Now two of the sources she cites—Haitian nannies employed at Smith's Bahamian home at the time—are denying having said anything of the kind. The author has flown down to the Bahamas to see if she can't jog their memories; in Cosby's defense, however, the French term for "oral sex between men" is just one consonant off from another word that means, "to come to fisticuffs over the honor of a shared woman," which could go a long way towards explaining the nannies' confusion over the matter.

• Smith's nannies didn't speak to author [Yahoo/AP]
• Blonde Ambition [Amazon.com]

• Video: Rita Cosby Served with Papers [InsiderOnline]

Anna Nicole Smith's lawyer and companion, Howard K. Stern, filed a $60 million libel lawsuit Tuesday against Rita Cosby and her publisher over a book she wrote that claims Stern and Smith's ex-boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, had a sexual encounter.

The suit, filed in federal court in New York, seeks $10 million in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages from Cosby—who wrote "Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death"—and Hachette Book Group USA Inc.

With the gauntlet thrown down, Cosby's best hope at this point is to finally locate the rumored and elusive video capturing the "compromising, intimate position" enacted by the two Smith hangers-on; otherwise, the $60 million sex-act will remain relegated to the category of myth, despite being the most satisfying make-believe blow job Stern has ever not received.

• Anna Nicole Smith Book Prompts $60M Suit [AP/Breitbart.com]

The long-awaited inquest in the Bahamas into the death of the son of former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith will begin on October 30, and could last two months, a senior judge in the Bahamas said on Monday.

Bahamas Chief Magistrate Roger Gomez said at least 35 witnesses were expected to give evidence, including Smith's longtime lawyer and companion, Howard K. Stern. The inquest would be conducted by Magistrate William Campbell, he added.

Just what the inquest hopes to uncover regarding Daniel's mysterious and tragic death—whose one-year anniversary was marked by a number of paparazzi-documented visits to his distant grave—is uncertain. We only hope none of those 35 witnesses is Dannielynn, however, as the much-exploited one-year-old is probably not yet equipped to handle a Bahamian prosecutor's pointed questions about what incriminating behavior she recalls witnessing in a hospital room just hours after her birth.

• Bahamas to hold inquest in death of Daniel Smith [news.yahoo.com]

Now, a lot of people are understandably skeptical about this; for one thing, if there really was a sex tape, don't you think it would have come out by now? (Also: Gah!) We're going to come down on the side of there not only definitely being a deal between Larry and Howard—and also the side of Larry being much more of a slime than his carefully edited image would have us believe—but also the side of Howard and Larry totally doing it. Hear us out.

For one thing, there's the simple fact of, which other women have you ever seen either of them with? Also, Anna Nicole was notoriously distrustful of men, and in the last few years had surrounded herself solely with gays. OK! alleges that she chose Larry to be the father of her daughter because he was blond and blue-eyed (like her!)—and gay. Remember all that stuff in her diaries about hating sex? Mmmhmm. It's all coming together now, isn't it? (There was also her totally dykey assistant. Remember her?)

Then there's also the fact that neither Howard nor Larry has actually come out and denied being gay. There's been a lot of mumbling about "these allegations" being unfounded and so on, but if they don't like dudes, it seems a little odd that they've never been just like, "What? No."

· Both Birkhead and Stern are vowing to sue the cheap dye jobs off Cosby and her sources, in what Birkhead vowed would be "one of the most expensive lawsuit settlements in book-publishing history," making Dannielynn profitable in ways he didn't even anticipate. [AP]
· "But what about that time Larry, Howard, and Anna Nicole partied the night away at WeHo's 2005 Gay Pride Festival?" you're likely asking yourselves (or not, depending on how closely you follow this story and/or lead fulfilling lives). Larry tells Us: "I was a photographer. My camera is around my neck in every picture." We don't see a camera around his neck in this shot, but we do see some drunken, proud good times. [Us]
· Larry has yet to update his website. Get on it, Larry! These clarifications are months old. [larrybirkhead.net]

Sordid passages in the soon-to-be released book by former MSNBC journalist Rita Cosby describe how Anna Nicole and her friend allegedly caught Stern and Birkhead with their shirts off and their pants around their ankles in a Los Angeles home.

Jackie Hatten, described in the book as one of Anna Nicole's closest friends, said the men were engaged in oral sex.

The shocking book accuses Birkhead and Stern of cutting a secret deal after Anna Nicole was buried in March, with Birkhead getting custody of Dannielynn in return for Stern being named executor of the star's estate.

The former stripper knew both Birkhead and Stern were gay, the book alleges.

The tell-all claims Anna Nicole would spread out on her bed and watch a video allegedly showing Birkhead and Stern having oral sex "over and over" while Stern worked on his computer in their Bahamas home. [...]

The book claims Birkhead gave Smith cocktails of drugs and watched as Stern allegedly gave medication to Anna Nicole while she was attached to an IV drip in the hospital during her pregnancy.

Birkhead and Stern have since denied the allegations and threatened to sue, saying Hatten is an emotionally unbalanced stalker whose own brother, Mark "Hollywood" Hatten, is currently serving time for also obsessively targeting Anna Nicole. Cosby, meanwhile, is standing firmly behind her claims, saying she hasn't seen the Birkhead-on-Stern visual evidence, but has spoken to people who have. One thing is certain: Beyond appealing to a tiny subgroup of slashfic-penning scandal fetishists, this video will likely be the least-demanded Smith A/V material since her tit-job tape made the plastic surgery convention rounds.

• Anna Nicole Smith book claims Birkhead & Stern were lovers; cut deal on baby, estate [NY Daily News]
• Larry Birkhead fuming over lies, gay sex talk in Anna Nicole Smith book [NY Daily News]

Rumors are swirling about the book, Blond Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death, due out next week. TMZ has heard Cosby will say she has documents that prove Larry Birkhead essentially bought the baby from Howard K. Stern. The publisher is mum until next Tuesday.

OK! magazine will preview the tome next week. Birkhead says, "OK! is on notice those allegations are false, and if they print them as truth, they will be sued as well." Birkhead adds, "I'll go after any media outlet that prints those lies from that book."

For the sake of Birkhead, so far the least skeezy-seeming party in this whole sordid epic, we hope it's not true — or, that he got a receipt with an exchange policy, because imagine the buyer's remorse from finding out you illegally paid for a baby that DNA tests claim should've been yours from the get-go for free.

• Birkhead to Rita — Say That And I'll Sue You [TMZ]

American magazine OK! has made the shock decision to drop Anna Nicole's ex Larry Birkhead from a $US1.7 million deal, alleging he has "tricked us all".

The magazine has not revealed the exact reason for the decision, however it is reported to be based on rumours Birkhead struck a "backroom deal" with Howard K Stern, his supposed long-standing rival.

The magazine's publicist said: "OK! Magazine has uncovered explosive allegations regarding Larry Birkhead, Howard K. Stern and baby Danielynn [...] The newly obtained allegations are detailed, shocking and potentially incriminating. It makes it impossible for OK!, in good conscience, to promote this family's highly questionable relationship in our pages." [...]

OK's American editor Sarah Ivens said: "My biggest fear is that Larry and Howard may have tricked us all."

We didn't realize that "backroom deal" is what the kids are calling it these days. But listen, whether or not they've lied about their daily sausage intake, these guys have had a rough year. If the only place they can find solace and peace is in each other's rippling arms, then we say, nibble away. It's only giving Dannielynn a rosier future, living rich off the residual fat of a Lifetime movie entitled, Lust Triangle: Love My Mother, Love Each Other: The Dannielynn Hope Marshall Birkhead née Stern Story. We're getting misty already.

• Magazine cancels $1.7 million deal with Larry Birkhead [Daily Mail]

The documents were submitted by her companion and attorney Howard K. Stern, 38, who is also named as the will's executor. According to the papers, her total assets are worth $710,000.

The will, drawn up in April 2001, leaves all of Smith's assets to her son Daniel, who died on Sept. 10 from an accidental overdose in the Bahamas. [...]

While the original text of the will is outdated, the valuation of Smith's assets was added by Stern, written on May 7.

For Larry Birkhead, this of course means the moment he finally pried baby Dannielynn out of Stern's tenacious embrace would therefore not be his last face-to-face interaction with his former love triangle nemesis. But just as they cooperated in the custody hearings, an L.A. probate lawyer claims they now too appear to have formed a united front in pursuing the real prize: the J. Howard Marshall inheritance, valued at approximately $1.6 billion, a beautiful reminder that even sworn, bimbo-coveting enemies can lay down litigious arms and offer "great help" to one another, merely in the knowledge that a brighter, 10-figure-settlement tomorrow lies ahead.

• Anna Nicole Smith's Will Is Filed [People]