Howard K. Stern was charged with 5 more felony counts, in addition to 6 already filed, and more charges possibly coming. The charges so far have stopped short of accusing Stern, and his alleged accomplices, of homicide, aka murder.

Stern has pled innocent to all the charges. Stern is an attorney, he is trained to lie.

Like O.J. Simpson, justice will be served eventually. We are pleased to see Stern might answer for what he has done sooner rather than later.

Howard K. Stern and Khristine Eroshevich did not enter pleas today in Los Angeles County Criminal Court, their arraignment in the Anna Nicole Smith drug case was continued until May 13.

After court Stern’s attorney, Steve Sadow, told reporters:

"Howard is innocent. Let me repeat that, he is innocent."

Sadow also said California Attorney General Jerry Brown should be "ashamed of himself" for using Anna Nicole to further his career."

Stern is probably hoping to get off like Michael Jackson did.

Howard K. Stern says he won’t make a plea deal with the Los Angeles District Attorney, because he did nothing wrong in the Anna Nicole Smith death by drugs.

Stern will be arraigned in court this morning, but the hearing is likely to be continued. Stern says he will plead not guilty, "because there’s no such thing as a plea of innocent."

We’ll see what a jury says about Stern’s guilty or innocence.

Officials in Florida are now in Los Angeles looking over evidence following the arrest of Howard K. Stern and Drs. Sandeep Kapoor and Khristine Eroshevich, who are all accused of supplying Anna Nicole Smith with drugs illegally. Ron Ishoy, the spokesman for Ft. Lauderdale State Attorney Mike Satz said:

"Our prosecutors have met with representatives of the Los Angeles district attorney’s office and the California Department of Justice and discussed the evidence they have turned up in their investigation."

"We are now investigating that evidence to see where it might lead in relation to Ms. Smith’s death here in Broward County in 2007."

Legal experts, and I, say that Sunshine State prosecutors may reopen the case if they find evidence that the defendants illegally administered drugs to Smith, which ultimately caused her death. A Los Angeles criminal defense attorney Alec Rose, who is not directly involved in the case, said:

"If what they know is criminal felony conduct lead to the death, then they could be considering whether or not they can bring a secondary murder charge or an involuntary manslaughter charge against any or all of these people."

"It does not matter how much time has gone by since the case closed."

"In most jurisdictions the statute of limitation for murder is unlimited. There’s never a time limit to investigate a charge of murder. A criminal charge can usually be brought in any location where any part of the crime took place."

As I speculated before, it’s possible that Stern and the gang could face murder charges if they are convicted on illegally supplying drugs to Smith, and evidence is found that points to circumstances that Smith died when her death could have been avoided. Stern has proclaimed his innocence all along, but we’ll see what a court says when this is all done.

Howard K. Stern, through his attorney, Krista Bath, is denying the 8 felony drug charges by the state of California related to the death of Anna Nicole Smith. Bath says:

"For over two years, I have represented Howard K. Stern in connection with civil litigation arising out his relationship with Anna Nicole Smith and false accusations published about him, including representing Mr. Stern in the body custody proceedings. In the course of that litigation, I have spent hundreds of hours reviewing depositions under oath or interviews of almost every principal witness claiming to possess first hand knowledge of Mr. Stern’s relationship with Anna Nicole [Smith]. His accusers have been shown to have no credibility due to their conflicting stories, to have a bias based on their own personal agendas or to have no factual basis to support their accusations. Given the knowledge obtained from these various cases, I am confident that the criminal charges brought against Mr. Stern last evening by the State of California will likewise be shown to have no factual basis and that Mr. Stern will ultimately be exonerated with respect to his conduct.

"I would remind the public that the fundamental principle of our criminal justice system is that an individual is presumed innocent. Publicity efforts by the State of California last night and today in connection with the filing of the charges against Mr. Stern are inconsistent with that principle and jeopardize Mr. Stern’s constitutional right to a fair trial. With formal charges having been filed, this case should not be tried in the court of public opinion and Mr. Stern has no intention of doing so. However, Mr. Stern and I are mindful of the reality that he has for the past several years found himself on trial in the media. The media trial of Mr. Stern has been based on constant shouts of guilty from a barrage of uninformed commentators based on totally inaccurate and often manufactured ’facts.’ The television, tabloid and Internet trial of Mr. Stern in the court of public opinion has been based on sensational lies, speculation, rumor and gossip. Unfortunately, it appears that criminal charges have now been brought by the State of California based on this same type of misinformation."

"Mr. Stern will continue efforts to have the evidence in his civil cases unsealed and made available for public inspection and review so that hopefully any future media discussions will be informed ones, based on the actual facts and not sensationalized accusations that have no factual or legal merit. If this occurs, future discussions will focus on Mr. Stern’s innocence."

We await the decision of the jury. We’d believe a jury over Howard K. Stern any day.