Testimony tells of last days

LOS ANGELES (AP) – The final days of celebrity model Anna Nicole Smith were described in court Tuesday as being marked by illness and confusion.

California Department of Justice investigator Danny Santiago testified that witnesses said Smith was unable to walk unassisted into a Florida hotel and was being kept in seclusion.

The testimony was presented in a preliminary hearing involving charges that Smith’s former lawyer-boyfriend Howard K. Stern and two California doctors conspired to illegally provide Smith with controlled substances before her drug-overdose death in Florida at age 39.

Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry, who will decide whether there is enough evidence to send the case to trial, noted that the defendants have not been accused of killing Smith.

Perry also questioned the relevance when prosecutor Renee Rose asked Santiago about Smith’s cause of death.

“There is not a murder charge,” Perry said. “The cause of death is not an issue.”

Stern, Dr. Sandeep Kapoor and Dr. Khristina Eroshevich have pleaded not guilty. Their attorneys have said they are undecided or unlikely to call defense witnesses during the preliminary hearing. Santiago’s testimony was a summary

of what law enforcement investigators had learned after Smith’s fatal collapse in the hotel room Feb. 8, 2007.