Judge to issue ruling in Smith paternity case

A judge is to rule on a request by an ex-boyfriend of Anna Nicole Smith to order the former Playboy Playmate and her baby daughter to come to California to paternity test the child.

Debra Opri, lawyer for Smith’s ex-boyfriend Larry Birkhead, said outside court in Los Angeles today that based on her understanding of the closed-door family court hearing, she expected Superior Court Judge Robert Schnider to rule in her client’s favour.

“We are 99 and nine tenths certain that the judge’s intent to grant the test will be in the ruling,” Opri said.

Smith’s lawyer, Ron Rale, refused to comment on what happened in court but confirmed that the judge was expected to issue a written ruling. Smith, who has been living in the Bahamas, was not present.

Rale denies Birkhead’s claim and has repeatedly stated that paternity proceedings are confidential under California law.

“There are other parts of the case that the public doesn’t know about,” he said. “(Opri) is spinning what is going on.”

Birkhead, a Los Angeles photographer, filed a lawsuit in October claiming he was the father of Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern, who was born in September in the Bahamas.

The birth certificate lists Dannielynn’s father as lawyer Howard Stern, Smith’s current companion.

The lawsuit demands that Smith and the baby come to California for genetic testing.

Opri said she told the judge that if the test was ordered, a travelling lab was willing to go to the Bahamas to take a saliva swab.

Scott Altman, a University of Southern California professor who specialises in family law, said in an interview he suspected the judge would order DNA tests.

But he said that issuing an order and having it enforced in another country were “two very different things”.

“It will be difficult for a judge to get a court in the Bahamas or police officers or anyone to force someone to come here,” he said.