Anna Nicole Smith's Psychiatrist Surrenders

LOS ANGELES — Psychiatrist Khristine Eroshevich surrendered Monday to face charges of excessively prescribing drugs to Anna Nicole Smith before the former model's overdose death at 39.

Eroshevich turned herself in at the Van Nuys police station, said police spokeswoman Rosario Herrera.

She was released several hours later after posting $20,000 bail, according to a statement from her attorney Adam Braun's office.

After a lengthy investigation by the attorney general and other state and federal agencies, Los Angeles County prosecutors charged Eroshevich last week with conspiring with another doctor, Sandeep Kapoor, and Smith's lawyer-turned-boyfriend Howard K. Stern to provide Smith with thousands of prescription pills.

Attorney General Jerry Brown said Friday that the doctors wrote prescriptions in fictitious names and prescribed unwarranted amounts of highly addictive medications to Smith, knowing that she was an addict.

Brown described Stern as the "principal enabler" in the alleged conspiracy.

Stern and Kapoor turned themselves in last week and were each freed on $20,000 bond.

Braun has said Eroshevich was only protecting Smith's privacy by writing prescriptions in false names and did not intend to commit fraud.

The psychiatrist, who had treated Smith since 2006, traveled several times over six months to the Bahamas, where the former Playboy playmate was living with Stern and wrote the prescriptions.

Smith died Feb. 8, 2007, in Florida after collapsing at a hotel. At the time, she was embroiled in a battle to inherit millions of dollars from her late billionaire husband's estate; her 20-year-old son Daniel had died of an overdose in the Bahamas just five months earlier in Smith's hospital room a few days after Smith gave birth to a girl, Dannielynn.

Comments

[JStew12]

04:04 PM on 03/17/2009

Canuckgirl - "Psychiatry is the biggest medical fraud out there today."

I can certainly understand your cynicism; however, we must remember that corruption and greed plague the human race. Psychiatry as a profession is not immune nor is any other profession or title. For crying out loud, priests are out there molesting children, but we do not cast out the whole bunch for the sins of the few. In fact, it was a forensic psychiatrist, in his death investigation Q & A with ABC, who pointed out the potential culpability of Stern and encouraged an inquiry into the role of the treating psychiatrist. In the wake of Ms. Smith’s death, forensic psychiatrist, Michael Welner, M.D made these interesting comments consulting (http://a.abcnews.com/US/Story?id=2861902&page=3); http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2982406&page=1.

[D-MI]

03:28 PM on 03/17/2009

Christ. If I were here psychiatrist, I would have surrendered years ago...

[belicoso]

03:02 PM on 03/17/2009

I don't think the issue here is the viability of psychiatry, in this instance the real issue is whether or not there was an ongoing conspiracy being perpetrated by Howard K. Stern and Anna's doctors to keep her in a daze at all times via insane amounts of prescription drugs. The facts of the matter are that Anna was taking way too many pills for one person and they were being prescribed not only to her but also to made up aliases as well as some under Howard K. Stern's name. The fact that Howard allowed his name to be used would point to the assumption that he was a consenting party to her excessive medication. From there the most reasonable conclusion is that he was trying to keep Anna under his control in case her claim against the estate of her husband resulted in a significant award. However, Anna was never in line to receive any sort of award from the Marshall estate, J.Howard Marshall specifically wrote into his will a provision which stated that he intended to take care of Anna with the ample and extravagant gifts that he gave her during his lifetime (cars, multiple residences, jewelry etc.). It was overwhelmingly unlikely that Anna would ever receive any further assets from the Marshall estate and if that was Howard and friends' motivation in allegedly drugging Anna then they have seen their entire plan backfire.

[pollyannacowgirl]

09:52 PM on 03/17/2009

I agree that they enabled her to death, but I don't think Anna Nicole was terribly unwilling to take all those drugs. If they hadn't been there to feed her drugs, she would have found someone else to.

Sick sad situation. And I doubt Larry Birkhead had such noble intentions, either.

[NoSillyName]

10:54 AM on 03/17/2009

Fraud and endangering a patient, leading to death. SICK.

[brandnewstuff]

07:34 AM on 03/17/2009

This lady was to inheriet how many MILLIONS__ and yes that lead to one of the worse violence scams- Kil her son- cause - her pain- then prey on that emotion- and kill her by pills-

HKS and that wrecking crew is not her family- they where FRAUDSTERS-- amazing what corrupt organization premeditate

I hope all thos people go to prison -- where they belong

[truthartbeauty]

10:12 PM on 03/16/2009

some areas of it are in grief counselling, like to students after a gun freak kid shoots up a school.....some areas of this are usefull. and yes, would anyone in his right mind get his information from a scientologist???

[canuckgirl]

06:32 PM on 03/16/2009

Psychiatry is the biggest medical fraud out there today.

To this day there is no blood test, no scientific proof that mental illness exists but most psychiatrists will use the DSM IV the psychiatrists' so called bible - the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in order to diagnose their patients.

Paula Caplan wrote a book called "They Say You're Crazy, how the world's most powerful psychiatrists decide who is normal". Caplan was on the committee that wrote the DSM book and quit. She saw how the American Psychiatric Association (APA) makes up these so called mental disorders for their new edition of the DSM book and did not like the process.

Dr. Peter R. Breggin a psychiatrist in New York State wrote a book called
"Toxic Psychiatry" and "Talking Back to Prozac" See Breggin.com

Last year, Breggin wrote an article called "Disturbing News for Patients and Shock Doctors Alike". In his article he discusses the Harold Sackeim study on electroshock that determined that electroshock causes brain damage 100% of the time. See Breggin.com and go to the
Blog and News section for more info on this article.

Leonard Roy Frank, a psychiatric survivor and electroshock *(ECT) survivor has written a powerful "Electroshock Quotationary" at the URL:
endofshock.com

Other websites exposing psychiatry are:

ect.org
antipsychiatry.org
stopshrinks.org
capa.oise.utoronto.ca
endofshock.com
intcamp.wordpress.com
sueclarkstory.wordpress.com
mindfreedom.org
breggin.com
psychrights.org
szasz.com

[Secularist]

08:40 PM on 03/16/2009

Save your ignorant bullcrap for the next Scientology meeting.

[ZellaBee]

12:51 AM on 03/17/2009

I'm NOT a Scientologist, but have to agree that the majority of individuals popping antidepressants and prescription do not need them. Orthomolecular psychiatry offers many help without dangerous substances. Yes some benefit from certain medications but many MD's and therapists push these drugs without a full medical exam or physical diagnosis and use the population all as guinea pigs while messing with brain chemistry. We need to begin looking at our diets and individual body chemistry instead of the one size fits all approach.

[NoSillyName]

10:55 AM on 03/17/2009

I detest scientology, but they do have a partial point regarding the overuse of psychiatric drugs.