Howard K. Stern is looking to plug the leak at its source.
Blaming them for the alleged fountain of lies contained in journalist Rita Cosby's so-called tell-all book about the late Anna Nicole Smith, the bombshell's former companion has filed a defamation lawsuit against Mark Speer, a man who was once employed as a bodyguard for Larry Birkhead, and Elizabeth "Jackie" Hatten, the sister of one of Smith's ex-boyfriends. (View the lawsuit.)
Stern also has a $60 million libel suit pending against Cosby and Hachette Book Group, which published Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death, in U.S. District Court in New York. Birkhead has threatened legal action, but hasn't filed a formal complaint.
Per documents filed Tuesday in L.A. Superior Court, Stern contends that Speer fed Cosby false information about, among other vile things, a made-up scam that had him funneling $15,000 every other week from Smith's bank into offshore accounts set up in his parents' names.
Birkhead's one-time family attorney, Deborah Opri, assigned Speer to protect him and, according to Stern, Opri blames Stern for "the breakdown of her relationship" with Birkhead. (She and Birkhead are now tied up in bitter finance-related civil litigation in Los Angeles.)
The lawsuit further alleges that Speer told Cosby that Birkhead and Stern conspired to grease each other's palms while appearing to be adversaries in court. Cosby's book suggests that Stern agreed to quit fighting Birkhead for custody of Smith's baby daughter, Dannielynn, if the Kentucky-born photographer agreed to let Stern remain executor of Smith's estate and in control of her name and likeness.
In return, Stern would give Birkhead a few thousand dollars a month and let him and the baby live in Smith's Studio City, Calif., house.
Speer also supposedly said, according to the suit, that he was "skeptical" of Birkhead and Stern's bonhomie and that the only way the two could be civil would be if they had some sort of an understanding.
All are details that ended up in Cosby's book, which hit shelves Sept. 4, 2007.
Meanwhile, per Stern's complaint, Hatten didn't even have contact with Smith or her son after 2002, when her brother Mark Hatten was sent to prison for making criminal threats against the former Playboy Playmate and attacking her neighbor with a deadly weapon.
The incarcerated catch has already filed a $100 million suit against Stern, blaming him for Anna Nicole's and Daniel Smith's deaths, and entered a claim for a cut of Smith's estate.
Hatten is accused of telling Cosby that she witnessed Stern plying Smith with drugs, that Daniel Smith had told her he was afraid to go to the Bahamas with Stern but wanted to "save" his mother, and that Stern wouldn't let Hatten see Smith when she flew to the island to keep an eye on her in October 2006.
Stern also alleges that Hatten is the so-called eyewitness who told Cosby about seeing Birkhead and Stern, pants down, "being intimate with each other."
The complaint maintains that each and every statement listed that was given to Cosby either verbally or in writing was "false, defamatory, outrageous and published with willful or callous disregard for Stern's rights, with malice and oppression, and with the intent to injure Stern's reputation, his character and his business as an attorney."
He is asking for unspecified damages to ease the pain wrought by stress, emotional distress, mental anguish and mental pain and suffering.
UPDATE: A Los Angeles judge ruled on March 27, 2009, that Stern could pursue a defamation case against Speer and he set a trial date of Jan. 25, 2010. Both sides have agreed to try to settle their differences through mediation, though Speer's attorney, Mark Kane, said he may try to appeal the judge's ruling.
"We believe we are going to prevail because there are many facts that were not brought before the court at this preliminary stage," Kame said.