By Art Harris, (c) www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

While FOX News is promoting Howard K. Stern’s live Tuesday night interview with Greta Van Susteren as “shocking” before the first word has been uttered, perhaps the biggest shock of all is that Anna Nicole Smith’s lawyer and longtime companion accepted an invite to go on a talk show he’s declined until now.

Many of his critics have grown uncharacteristically silent, or at least subdued, since the Bahamas inquest jury into the death of Anna Nicole Smith’s son, Daniel, last week ruled the 20 year old with a history of depression and drug issues, died of an accidental drug overdose that Stern, nor anyone else, had anything to do with. Read the rest of this entry »

By Art Harris, (c) www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

As we close out the year, we came across one of the 2007 turning points in the ugly Anna Nicole wars: Rita Cosby popped with a $60 million libel suit that raises serious questions about journalistic standards in the era of 24/7 cable news and the reporting of an Emmy award winner.

It happened outside a New York restaurant hosting a book party for Blonde Ambition, a so called expose that lead to Howard K. Stern’s lawsuit after Cosby detailed a purported gay tryst on tape between the Anna Nicole Smith executor and Larry Birkhead both men deny…

…A third-hand sex story Cosby concedes, under oath, that came from Virgie Arthur’s private investigators, and that she never spoke directly to the purported eye witnesses, Anna Nicole’s Haitian nannies, who deny the yarn, or eyeballed the mystery tape that has yet to turn up. Read the rest of this entry »

A Video Is Worth A Thousand Words: Characters From The Inquest

By Art Harris, © www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

While a Bahamian police forensics expert appeared more certain than any pathologist so far that methadone alone killed Anna Nicole Smith’s son, Daniel, courtroom observers told me the real shocker at Tuesday’s inquest were medical records that showed he’d been hospitalized for depression and back pain two months before visiting his mother in Nassau.

According to Daniel’s medical records obtained by Bahamian police, Smith entered the intensive care unit of a California hospital in July of 2006, when he was treated for an “impaired mental status” that cited “the misuse of valium,” a powerful tranquilizer often prescribed for anxiety, as a factor.

While Wayne Munroe, attorney for Howard K. Stern, lawyer and boyfriend of his mother, said a physician had prescribed medication for his back pain, and his depression, as well as counseling or therapy sessions, the specific pain drug was not listed in the records.

Observers told me the records were introduced when most media were apparently out of the courtroom and also missed the magistrate’s announcement he would adjourn the inquest until January 28, citing scheduling conflicts with lawyers and witnesses. Read the rest of this entry »

Legendary Litigator John O’Quinn With Admirers At Firm’s Annual Xmas Party Saturday

By Art Harris, www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

We were blown away Saturday night to have snagged an invite to the annual Christmas soiree thrown by legendary Texas litigator John O’Quinn, who, even by Texas standards, knows how to throw a 10-gallon party.

It took a while for our sultry correspondent to meander through the maze of black ties, cowboy boots and bejeweled designer belles–all required to flash an elite invite and procure an armband that, gasp, covered up some blinding Texas bling flashed by what writer Tom Wolfe might have dubbed mighty fine lemon tartes.

We counted maybe 1,000 of the law firm’s best friends, clients and colleagues. all co-mingling, fantasizing about sugar plum bonus checks and lining up at the giant martini bar by the giant Star of Texas ice sculpture to slake powerful thrists…Then, it was on to partaaaaaay! Read the rest of this entry »

By Art Harris, (c)www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

In this video flashback–we’re serving up the first in a series of memory jogs to offer inquest-watchers clues to the characters in the sad and twisted tragedy of Hollywood dreams, sex, drugs, greed and lies.

Check out the “good friend” who said Anna asked him to grab all her private items from her home should anything happen to her, then answer our poll questions:

Do you buy it? Did Anna consider FS a friend when she died? Should investigators trust him? Do YOU believe him? Do you think Ford and father in law, G. Ben Thompson, will actually show up for the inquest they have been so vocal about?

Oh, and please help us understand another Ford conundrum video at the end of our piece–in one interview, he says he’s well aware of Anna’s drugs and how to administer them, including methadone, and later, with my old friend, Geraldo Rivera, appears totally dumbfounded about her medicine chest. Read the rest of this entry »

By Art Harris, ©www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

In a last ditch effort to turn suspicion spun in Texas into prison stripes for Howard K. Stern, The Bald Truth has learned Team Virgie suffered a major defeat when Florida prosecutors slammed the door on Don Clark’s desperate plea for a meeting to lay out a theory “supporting our claim of possible foul play” in the death of Anna Nicole Smith.

According to letters obtained exclusively by The Bald Truth, Clark invoked the full weight of his FBI career and status as a television “news analyst”— to pressure prosecutors to crank up a brand new “independent criminal investigation into the death of Anna Nicole Smith.”

That’s what Clark wrote July 23, billing himself as “investigative strategist and jury consultant” for legendary Texas litigator John 0’Quinn. Read the rest of this entry »

Mr. Credibility: Violent Criminal Mark Hatten’s Lawsuit Kicked to the Curb

By Bald Truth Staff, www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

The Bald Truth has learned a federal judge has dismissed the $100 million civil rights suit against Howard K. Stern filed from behind bars by an ex-Anna Nicole Smith boyfriend serving time in state prison for assault with a deadly weapon.

In a world wide web exclusive, The Bald Truth reports Mark Hatten, a California prison inmate serving six years for assault with a deadly weapon against Smith’s neighbor and for making threats against Smith, had no standing to sue Stern, judges or prosecutors, according to an Oct. 31 ruling in federal court and obtained exclusively by www.artharris.com.

(see judge’s ruling on next page)

Read the rest of this entry »

By Art Harris, (c) www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

It took a few months to unravel and a pattern to emerge, but Howard K. Stern says he’s now put it all together in a shocking new court document, obtained exclusively by The Bald Truth, that outlines a calculated crusade to defame and destroy him, and purports to show how and why all roads lead to Texas.

To hear Stern tell it, Virgie Arthur attorney and “legendary litigator” John O’Quinn, motivated by the Marshall estate pot of gold, has used the same playbook against him he’s used before to win major settlements from corporate evil-doers like Big Tobacco. Only in this case, he’s using a grandmother banished from her daughter’s life as a victim on a mission–to emote pain and suffering, and cast suspicion.

Meanwhile, JOQ dispatches his PIs to dig and dish to a writer who apparently takes their reports as gospel, and publishes a book in lockstep with The Message, at the same time, hawking his own anti-Stern spin on talk shows, newspapers, the web, churning a tsunami of hatred and suspicion, says Stern lawyer Lin Wood. Read the rest of this entry »

Rita Cosby Interviews Art Harris on MSNBC in Florida

By Art Harris, www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

The Bald Truth has learned Rita Cosby’s attorneys are asking a federal judge to seal a videotaped deposition the ex-MSNBC host gave in New York Thursday, Nov. 15 in connection with the $60 million libel suit filed against her by Howard K. Stern for smearing him in her book, Blonde Ambition.

U.S. District Judge D.J. Chin greenlit the speedy discovery request to take her testimony by Stern attorney Lin Wood –to get to the bottom of Cosby’s alleged attempt to pay Anna Nicole Smith’s ex-nannies for an affidavit confirming gay sex reports about Stern and Larry Birkhead she details in her book that both deny. The nannies are expected to be witnesses in the libel suit, and the inquest in the Bahamas next week.

After her book hit the stores, Cosby flew to the Bahamas to meet with the two Haitian immigrants she admits she’d never met or interviewed for Blonde Ambition, and wound up caught on secret audiotape in a “sting operation” by the nannies’ lawyer, a former high-level justice department minister, and PR man, Lincoln Bain, a 10 year veteran of the Royal Bahamian police turned popular TV host.

“At this moment, I can report the Bahamian people are not very happy with Rita Cosby,” Bain told me today. Read the rest of this entry »

Art Harris, (c)www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

The Bald Truth has learned Howard K. Stern’s pitbull lawyer is scheduled to take Rita Cosby’s deposition Thursday in New York City. AND, Lin Wood confirms, it will all be caught on court-approved videotape.

If anyone wonders why Wood got the green light from a federal judge to put the ex-MSNBCer under oath so quickly after filing a $60 million libel suit against her, all you have to do is read transcripts from the Oct. 18 hearing on Nannygate, obtained exclusively by The Bald Truth, and you will understand the concerns of U.S. District Judge D. J. Chin. Read the rest of this entry »