Dannielynn Birkhead paternity case

The Dannielynn Hope Marshall Birkhead (née Stern) paternity case, a.k.a Birkhead v. Marshall, centered around a child born September 7, 2006 to Vickie Lynn Marshall (better known as Anna Nicole Smith). Larry Birkhead, Smith's former love interest and entertainment photojournalist, steadfastly maintained his contention that he was the baby's father and filed a lawsuit to challenge paternity once he found out that Smith was pregnant..

Trying to avoid a case and potential paternity test, Smith moved to Nassau, Bahamas, where the child was born.

Besides Birkhead, former lawyer turned live-in handler/escort Howard K. Stern, Mark Hatten, Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt, among others claimed to be the father of Smith's daughter, Dannielynn. Although Stern was listed on her birth certificate, it was not certain that he was the father. At issue in a California court was who fathered the girl, who could potentially inherit millions of dollars from Smith's estate.

After much media attention, on April 10, 2007, Dr. Michael Baird, who analyzed the results of a March 21 DNA test, announced the results that confirmed Birkhead to be the father of the baby.

Name changes

A little over a month after the birth, a copy of the baby's disputed second birth certificate dated October 11, 2006 was made public showing she was renamed and registered as Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern on October 9, 2006. From September 7, 2006 to October 11, 2006 the baby was in the records as Hannibel (Hannah) Rose Hogan.

After the birth of her daughter, according to G. Ben Thompson, a former boyfriend of hers who is a real-estate developer in South Carolina, Smith wanted to put him down as the father on the birth certificate, but he refused knowing that she repeatedly told him Birkhead was the father. Thompson also was not convinced it was his since he had a vasectomy. Although Stern is named as the father on the earlier certificate, attorney Dion Smith Jr. signed his name where Stern's signature should have been. This discrepancy made the birth certificate invalid so that it could be possible for a new birth certificate to be asked for and a DNA test sought to determine the father's identity.

The name Dannielynn is a tribute to Smith's deceased son and supposedly the "Lynn" in the name came from son Daniel calling his mother "Mama Lynn". Smith was also said to be inspired for the name by Britney Spears who in September 2006 considered naming her child Jailynn which was Spears' parents' names, Jaime and Lynn, put together. Lynn was also the real birth middle name of Vicki Lynn Hogan who was known by the stage name Anna Nicole Smith. Stern announced the name change on September 26, 2006 just less than two weeks before the second birth certificate was issued.

In April 2007 following the official results of the paternity test, Birkhead changed his daughter's surname to his last name, renaming her Dannielynn Hope Marshall Birkhead.

Case

A United States judge ordered that DNA tests be performed to determine who the biological father of Dannielynn is. Following Smith's death, Debra Opri, the lawyer of Larry Birkhead, asked for an emergency DNA sample to be taken from the corpse. However, Smith's lawyer, Ron Rale, objected to this request, and Opri's request was denied by a judge, who instead, ordered Smith's body to be preserved until February 20.

Paternity challenges

In a Florida court to decide Smith's final resting place, the matter of paternity was also to be settled. Birkhead petitoned the court to ask Howard K. Stern to submit to a DNA test on February 20, 2007 but at the time Howard K. Stern stated he was not willing to do so in a closed conference with Judge Seidlin. The judge has put off the paternity question until after the issue of the location of Anna’s burial is decided.

At the request of Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur, a Bahamian judge issued a temporary injunction on February 13, 2007, preventing Stern from taking Smith's daughter out of The Bahamas.

On February 22, 2007 a Florida judge awarded custody of Smith's body to Miami lawyer Robert Millstein, the guardian ad litem for Dannielynn.

Paternity claims

Larry Birkhead

Birkhead was Smith's ex-boyfriend and is a freelance entertainment reporter/photographer in Los Angeles, California who has had work published in USA Today. By May 2006, however, following an argument over his commitment to his work Birkhead said Smith had ostracized him and had publicly anointed Howard K. Stern as the father. Two months later, Stern and Smith moved to The Bahamas to escape the paternity suit and the press. When the question came up, Birkhead denied receiving money for media interviews, though he has received royalties for archived pictures he took of Smith.

According to Birkhead on February 21, 2007 while on the stand, he and Smith lived together from August 2004 to April 2005 – and in January 2005 Smith told him she was pregnant, but a month later lost the baby. Smith's former friend Laurie Payne in sealed court documents filed November 2, 2006, said Smith was pregnant with another one of Birkhead's children before Dannielynn, but she miscarried. After the miscarriage, Birkhead testified that he and Smith separated, but reunited again on New Year's Eve 2005. Around Valentine's Day 2006, Smith informed him that she was pregnant with his child. Birkhead also described visiting a pregnant Smith in the hospital in April 2006, when, he says, "she was trying to get off medications," and he says he witnessed Stern taking pills out of a duffel bag and giving them to Smith. On another occasion during Smith's stay in the hospital, she had Birkhead put his thumbprint in a baby book that listed him as the father. Birkhead said he "felt sorry for Mr. Stern," so Smith added Stern's name to the baby book, as "Uncle Howard."

Howard K. Stern

Stern was Smith's attorney who was named executor of her will which was drafted in 2001 by Eric James Lund, Esq. He left his law firm to become her platonic live-in handler/escort and admitted on the stand that Smith became his sole source of income by paying his expenses, giving him spending money and allowing him to stay with her in the home in The Bahamas. During the case, Stern denied that he had received money from media interviews he has conducted since Smith's death, though he admitted that he gave an interview to Entertainment Tonight on a flight that the show chartered immediately after her death. As a lawyer of Smith's in the continuing litigation over the estate of her late husband, billionaire J. Howard Marshall, he would be entitled to a contingent fee of roughly $5 million, five percent of any money she was awarded.

He has claimed to be the biological father of baby Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern. Following the death of the baby's half-brother Daniel Wayne Smith, Smith put his name on the disputed second birth certificate issued for the baby then known as Hannibel Rose. Stern's sister, Bonnie, says Smith told her months before the birth that Birkhead could be the father. "When I spoke to (Smith) in March, when she found out she was pregnant, I took her shopping, and she told me the baby was due in mid-October, and that one other person could have been the father and that was Larry Birkhead, but nobody else." Stern sought to retain custody of the baby. He is also seeking to be confirmed co-executor of Smith's will in order to manage and distribute the estate which is expected to be worth millions. During the duration of legal proceedings Stern had temporary possession of the baby in The Bahamas.

Mark Hatten

Hatten was another of Smith's former live-in boyfriend of two years. He is serving a seven year eight month sentence in Pleasant Valley State Prison for making terrorist threats to Smith and is up for parole on December 24, 2007. Hatten's sister Jackie confirmed that Hatten gave Smith a sperm donation the time they dated prior to his incarceration. Hatten has also corresponded from prison about Smith with her mother, the entertainment news show Extra, and the online tabloid magazine TMZ.com signing his letters Mark "Hollywood" Hatten. In his November 2006 correspondence with Extra, Hatten vowed that he would officially drop the Marshall v. Marshall case because it had "ruined the lives" of Smith and her son. Hatten also claimed in his correspondence to Extra and TMZ.com that Smith miscarried two of his children in 2000 and 2001.

He has also came forward to claim paternity of the baby. Other sources: Hatten's sister also said that her brother cannot be believed because Smith "did tell me Larry Birkhead was the father." Hatten's attorney Paul Fegen told Extra they plan to file a paternity claim.

Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt

Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt is the husband of Zsa Zsa Gabor. He claimed that he had Smith as a mistress for 10 years. He has been quoted as saying that he could potentially be the father of Smith's daughter and said he would file a lawsuit if Dannielynn is turned over to Stern or Birkhead by the courts. According to the Associated Press, on February 12, 2007 Prinz von Anhalt announced that he will file a paternity claim and that his marriage likely will be over if his claims of parentage prevail. On February 15, 2007, he filed legal documents at a courthouse in Santa Monica, California seeking a DNA test to determine if he is the father of the baby.

On February 20, 2007, he took a lie detector test in his attorney's office in Los Angeles. Prinz von Anhalt passed three lie detector tests that week, according to his attorney. The tests included questions about whether he had an affair with Smith and whether he could possibly be the child's father. On March 23, 2007, he submitted a DNA sample to a Los Angeles clinic even though he is not involved in the current paternity suit between Stern and Birkhead. He does not have a sample of the baby's DNA to analyze against, nor does he have a court order to submit to testing, but has stated that he wants to be prepared if his paternity case continues. On April 10, 2007, after the paternity test results were made public representatives of Prinz von Anhalt released this statement wishing Birkhead well with raising the baby: "We never intended to take Dannielynn from anyone, we were just here in case Prinz Von Anhalt was the father. We wish Larry luck in raising Dannielynn and we wish him the best."

Potential paternity

Alexander Denk

Denk is an Austrian-American film actor and was the personal bodyguard of Anna Nicole Smith until her death February 8, 2007.

Denk, according to his Beverly Hills, California attorney Cyrus Nownejad, in a joint television interview, also said that he was Smith's confidant, worked for her as her personal trainer, and also was her bodyguard and chef. Denk is also friends with Stern. In the interview with Julie Banderas, Denk said he and Smith were in a relationship and that he knew her for five and a half years. He added that they were intimate on and off for five years, but was not there 24 hours a day.

He has reportedly told the entertainment news show Extra that he had an affair with his former employer, and that it's possible he could be the baby's father. On the show he claimed he and Smith had a passionate love affair that lasted for two years and that Smith suffered from life threatening seizures, for which she was on medication. When asked if Smith ever revealed to him the identity of her daughter's father, Denk responded, "She always told me she wanted to have her kids with me." Denk is not certain he is the baby's father and told Banderas that Smith "always told me I want you to be there and care for Dannielynn no matter what, no matter who is the father, because I took care of Anna with her health and everything, and she wanted to make sure her baby is healthy. And also this thing about the dieting and stuff, she doesn't want her baby to be overweight and obese. She wants to make sure she is healthy."

J. Howard Marshall

Marshall, also deceased, was Smith's second husband. According to Donna Hogan, Smith's younger half-sister, Smith froze the sperm of Marshall prior to his death. The newspaper says Hogan wrote in her book Train Wreck published in April 2007, that "To her family, she hinted that she had used the old man's frozen sperm, and would be giving birth to Marshall's child". However, the publisher of Hogan's book described the newspaper's claims as a hoax.

Paternity case results

On April 10, 2007, Dr. Michael Baird, who analyzed the results of a March 21 DNA test, announced the results outside the Bahamian courthouse that Birkhead is confirmed at 99.99% to be the father of the baby. Although DNA tests revealed Birkhead is the father, final custody of the baby remains unresolved. "I hate to be the one to say this but...I told you so," Birkhead crowed to the throng of reporters and tourists waiting outside the cupcake-pink courthouse in Nassau after a judge ruled behind closed doors that he was the biological father of Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern, who was born on the island Sept. 7. Larry Birkhead announced that he was the father of Dannielynn, Anna Nicole Smith's baby. Stern says he will not contest Birkhead for sole custody and wants a smooth transition for the baby.

See also

• Family law
• Paternity fraud