Celebrity News

Anna Nicole Smith’s daughter could win up to $49M in sanctions

The 6-year-old daughter of the late Anna Nicole Smith could amass a fortune in sanctions from the estate of E. Pierce Marshall, the son of Anna Nicole’s former husband J. Howard Marshall.

While the Supreme Court ordered years ago that Anna Nicole’s estate was not entitled to J. Howard Marshall’s wealth, a federal judge ruled this week that Anna Nicole’s daughter, Dannielynn, could see as much as $49 million.

According to Forbes, US District Judge David O. Carter ordered Marshall’s estate to “pay sanctions over ‘massive discovery abuse’ in the Koch Industries heir’s scorched-earth legal battle against his stepmother, the late ‘Playboy’ model Anna Nicole Smith.”

The judge made the decision based on allegations that Marshall’s estate attorneys used “delaying tactics like shipping crucial legal documents to a lawyer in Lake Charles, La. to try and keep them out of the hands of Smith’s lawyers,” Forbes writes.

The legal war has waged for more than a decade. Anna Nicole’s estate has been attempting to recover hundreds of millions of dollars from the massive estate of her husband – which is estimated to be between $500 million to $1 billion. He died in 1995 at the age of 90, a year after he married the then-26-year-old model, but made no mention of her in his will.

“This is a complete vindication of Anna Nicole’s rights, and a total condemnation of what was done to her,” Phil Boesch, lawyer of Smith’s estate, told Forbes. “We are confident that the amount Anna’s estate and daughter Dannielynn will finally be awarded will be fair and substantial.”

Anna Nicole died from a drug overdose in 2007 at age 39.