Fortune Hunters Claim To Be Daddy To Anna Nicole Smith's Baby.

Men are lining up to claim they are the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby, Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern. But they could be mistaken if they think paternity will automatically mean a pot of gold.

Instead, they could be stepping into a monumentally complex, multinational legal fight over the child. Moreover, it is not at all clear whether the little girl is a million-dollar baby, as some seem to think.

For all anyone knows, the voluptuous former centerfold, who died at age 39 last week under mysterious circumstances, may have set up a trust or employed some other means of keeping the father of her baby from getting his hands on her fortune.

Wayne Munroe, an attorney representing Smith's estate in the Bahamas, hinted at just that, suggesting there may be provisions in her will that could undermine any great expectations among potential fathers. "They may think that you get a finding and a court order and you get to live on the child's money,'' said Munroe, who has access to Smith's will. "But they are in for a rude awakening. They're going to find out this woman was much smarter than they thought,'' he said. “They will only have the responsibility for maintaining this child.''

The question of how much money the child might stand to inherit remains murky. Smith was involved in a decade-long legal battle over the estate of her late husband, oil tycoon J Howard Marshall II. "It's a very, very confused case,'' said Beverly Hills family law attorney Alexandra Leichter. “Whoever is going to claim to be the father had better get a good lawyer in the Bahamas.''

A Bahamian judge has issued an injunction preventing the baby from being taken out of the country until the custody case is resolved. Smith's mother, Vergie Arthur, is also vying to be appointed guardian of the girl. With two states, California and Florida, and two countries involved in the legal fray, jurisdictional questions could overwhelm the central issue of paternity.

Many men who father children do not want to be found after they are born. But in this case, there are motives to come forward. "One is they actually want to raise the child because they love her,'' said Leichter, who has practiced family law for 34 years and handled her share of celebrity cases. "The other motive is money."

Munroe sounded weary of the conflicting paternity claims and predicted there will be "a lot of bad behavior'' before the matter is resolved.

"Some German chap came into my office and claimed he is the father,'' he said.

In the end, however, Bahamian law will apply as long as the baby is living in the territory, he said. Any action in California or Florida courts would have no effect in that nation. (The Times Of India)
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