A doctor charged with illegally funneling drugs to
Anna Nicole Smith wrote in a personal diary that he had to get off drugs himself and wondered if he was wrong to kiss Smith at a party four years ago.
Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry read the explosive entries from a diary of Dr. Sandeep Kapoor on Wednesday at a preliminary hearing to determine whether Kapoor and two co-defendants should stand trial.
Kapoor’s lawyer previously said he was gay and objected to prosecutors’ allegations that he had a sexual relationship with the former Playboy model that could have contributed to him prescribing drugs for her.
However, Kapoor ’s diary entry on June 13, 2005, seemed to confirm what prosecutors said they saw in video and photographs taken at a party around that time. The judge has ruled against showing the video in court.
"I was making out with Anna, my patient, blurring the lines," the judge read from Kapoor’s diary. "I gave her methadone, Valium. Can she ruin me?"
The entry also recounted his ride with Smith in a gay pride parade before the party, with six police officers keeping back the paparazzi. "It was mesmerizing. ... Anna and me up there all buffed out on the car," the entry said.
In an excerpt from Nov. 17, 2002, Kapoor wrote, "I also need to get off the drugs. The Buspar, Wellbutrin have to go. But first the Ambien has got to go. Oh God, it’s so addicting. I have to get off that (expletive)."
Kapoor later prescribed Ambien for Smith, according to testimony.
Kapoor, Dr. Kristine Eroshevich and Smith’s boyfriend-lawyer Howard K. Stern are charged with conspiring to illegally provide controlled substances to Smith, who died of an accidental drug overdose in 2007. The allegations include giving drugs to an addict.
All three have pleaded not guilty.
Kapoor’s lawyer, Ellyn Garofalo, displayed the journal in court and elicited testimony from an investigator that it ended in 2005 and that the comment read in court was the only mention of Smith.
Earlier in the day, a medical board investigator testified that Kapoor kept a hidden stash of Smith’s medical records in his home that included references to possible drug addictions.
Investigators found files containing Smith’s medical records hidden in the kitchen and on the floor of a closet in the doctor’s home after Smith died, investigator Jon Genens said.
Authorities later seized another set of records at the office of Kapoor’s attorney. All the records were either in the name of Smith or Michelle Chase, a pseudonym she used, Genens said.
The two sets of files were for the same dates but included slightly different information, he said.
Perry said the secreting of information at the house could be interpreted as "guilty knowledge." He did not elaborate.
Genens said medical files found in the closet contained a note saying, "benzo addicted? To avoid." The apparent reference to addiction to sedatives known as benzodiazopines was missing from the second set of files for the same day, he said.
The files in the closet also referred to "opioid dependence on methadone," but the language was omitted from the records at the attorney’s office, Genens said.
In an earlier interview, Kapoor had said he did not usually keep medical records at this house, the investigator said.
Deputy District Attorney Renee Rose tried to elicit testimony from Genens that investigators also found a file at Kapoor’s home on his treatment of Smith’s son, Daniel, who died of a drug overdose in 2006.
But Judge Perry said he would not allow any testimony about Daniel’s death.
"I’m trying to keep the content of this report out of the hearing because we are going down what I call the sensationalism road," Perry said. "I don’t think we have to get into Daniel Smith."
Defense attorney Steve Sadow accused Rose of raising the matter to get it into the newspapers.
Expert witness Dr. James Gagne withdrew a piece of his testimony criticizing the dosages of methadone prescribed by Kapoor for Smith.
Gagne said he misunderstood records kept by Kapoor and now believes the methadone prescriptions were not a major issue in the case.
However, Gagne stood by earlier testimony that Kapoor gave Smith excessive dosages of opiates and sedatives.
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