LOS ANGELES (AP) - A jury reached verdicts Thursday in the Anna Nicole Smith drug conspiracy trial in which the boyfriend-lawyer and two doctors of the former Playboy model were accused of providing her with excessive amounts of prescription drugs.
The verdicts _ scheduled to be read at 1:30 p.m. PDT _ came after about 58 hours of deliberations.
On Wednesday, the jury submitted two questions to the judge indicating it was struggling to reach a decision on at least one of the counts.
Jurors asked what they should do if unable to reach a verdict on “a count or an object crime.” They also asked whether it would be correct to conclude that if prescriptions to Smith were written in excessive amounts, “Does it follow that the prescriptions also have no legitimate medical purpose?”
After reading the written notes from the jurors, Superior Court Judge Robert Perry told them they should not hesitate to declare a hung jury if they can’t agree on verdicts.
Smith’s longtime boyfriend-lawyer Howard K. Stern and Drs. Sandeep Kapoor and Khristine Eroshevich have pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, excessive prescribing of opiates and sedatives to an addict, and fraudulently obtaining drugs by using false names.
They are not charged in Smith’s 2007 overdose death.
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