Bodyguard testifies that Anna Nicole Smith’s boyfriend, doctor supplied her with drugs

Bodyguard: Anna Nicole’s boyfriend supplied drugs

LOS ANGELES — Anna Nicole Smith was “obsessed” with pills and was assisted in taking drugs by her lawyer-boyfriend in the weeks before her death, the celebrity model’s bodyguard testified Friday.

Maurice Brighthaupt depicted a chaotic situation at the home where Smith was staying in the Bahamas after the birth of her daughter and the death of her son, Daniel, from a drug overdose.

Brighthaupt said he saw defendant Howard K. Stern holding Smith’s head and giving her pills when she was too weak to take them on her own.

Meanwhile, Dr. Khristine Eroshevich, another defendant who was Smith’s psychiatrist, was trying to hide medications from Smith after shipping the drugs to the model from Los Angeles, he said.

“She was demanding them like an addict,” Brighthaupt said, but the comment was stricken by the judge because an issue in the case is whether Smith was addicted or merely dependent on drugs to ease pain.

In one confrontation with Smith, Eroshevich “started crying and threatening to leave if she mixed alcohol and prescription drugs,” Brighthaupt said.

“And what was Mr. Stern saying?” Deputy District Attorney Renee Rose asked.

“Oh, he said she can handle it. Anna can handle it,” the bodyguard recalled.

Across the courtroom, Stern shook his head and appeared incredulous.

Stern and Eroshevich have pleaded not guilty along with Dr. Sandeep Kapoor to conspiring to supply the Playboy model and reality TV star with massive amounts of opiates and sleep medications. They are not charged with causing her 2007 overdose death in a Florida hotel room.

Brighthaupt has said in the past that he liked Eroshevich but had a falling out with Stern. The bodyguard said he and Eroshevich tried to convince Stern that Smith should go into rehab.

“She was out of control with this,” he said. “She was obsessed.”

Asked about Stern’s reaction to the rehab suggestion, Brighthaupt said: “He explained she was in rehab before and that it almost killed her and she vowed not to go into rehab again.”

The witness said he and Eroshevich suggested Smith should be put on placebos and Stern agreed, but it was never done.

As Smith drifted further into a drug haze, she once fell off a raft in the middle of the swimming pool and sank to the bottom before Brighthaupt dove in and rescued her, he testified.

Brighthaupt, who was one of the last people to see Smith alive, testified that both Eroshevich and Stern injected Smith with substances, but he didn’t know if she was given B-12 shots or drugs.

He also identified shipping receipts for packages of drugs sent to him by Eroshevich for Smith.

Smith would take 20 pills at a time, including Valium, from a dish she kept at her bedside, Brighthaupt testified, and her obsession with the drugs increased after her son’s death.

“She was a hurt lady,” Brighthaupt said.

Brighthaupt, a Miami firefighter and paramedic, unsuccessfully tried to revive the 39-year-old Smith as she lay lifeless in the Hollywood, Fla., hotel room.

Brighthaupt said the model used drugs almost from the day he was hired in 2003.

“Anna had a bag of meds she would take with her,” he said.

After she took medication, he said, “she was tired a lot. She would sleep a lot. But when she was up, she was a happy, fun-loving young lady who liked the attention and enjoyed her fans.”

Brighthaupt tried to discourage her from taking so much medicine.

“That was my job — to protect her from herself,” he said.

Despite her drug use, Smith remained intelligent and “you couldn’t put nothing over on her,” he added. “She wasn’t just sitting there popping pills.”