RIP Anna Nicole Smith.
He was once Anna Nicole Smith’s lawyer, confidant, lover and reality show costar.
Now Howard K. Stern has another label: convicted felon.
A Los Angeles Superior Court jury on Thursday found Stern guilty of two counts of conspiracy for allegedly fueling the starlet’s raging prescription drug problem that ultimately killed her.
One of her doctors, Khristine Eroshevich, was also convicted of four charges; a second doctor, Sandeep Kapoor, was cleared of all counts.
The six-man, six-woman jury heard two months of testimony in the case of Stern, 41, and doctors Kapoor, 42, and Eroshevich, 62, who were charged with multiple felonies for allegedly conspiring to furnish prescription drugs to an addict.
The three were not charged with Smith’s 2007, death from a prescription overdose in Florida at age 39.
Deputy District Attorney Renee Rose had said the defendants “knew what they were doing was wrong” and that “their conduct was unlawful.”
Defense attorneys argued that the charges were arbitrary and there were no warnings to heed. Smith’s daughter was not born drug addicted, they said, and Smith didn’t have “any Lindsay Lohan incidents.”
Stern faced nine felony charges, including conspiracy, unlawfully prescribing a controlled substance, obtaining a prescription for opiates by fraud, deceit or misrepresentation, obtaining a prescription for opiates by giving a false name or address and prescribing, administering or dispensing a controlled substance to an addict.
Kapoor and Eroshevich were each charged with six felony counts including unlawfully prescribing a controlled substance, prescribing, administering or dispensing a controlled substance to an addict and conspiracy to commit a crime.