Chris Kleponis/Reuters
Howard K. Stern, the former boyfriend and agent-manager of Anna Nicole Smith, can be retried on conspiracy charges involving using fake names to obtain the prescription drugs that caused the death of the actress-model, California's Supreme Court has ruled. Stern, a Los Angeles lawyer who represented Smith in an unsuccessful fight for the fortune of her deceased husband J. Howard Marshall, later became her companion and a co-star on her TV show. Smith died of a drug overdose in February 2007. A Los Angeles jury convicted Stern and Smith's psychiatrist of two counts of conspiracy, but the trial judge overturned the conviction in 2011. The Supreme Court's decision returns the case to a criminal judge, but does not guarantee that Stern will be retried.