Federal Judge Sides With Anna Nicole

September 26, 2001 -- Anna Nicole Smith gets to keep her millions, a federal bankruptcy judge ruled Tuesday in Los Angeles. The decision was just the latest installment of the ongoing battle between the former Playboy Playmate and her litigious former stepson over the estate of Smith's late, nonagenarian, oil tycoon husband J. Howard Marshall II

On Tuesday, Judge Samuel Bufford voided a Texas court's decision that had declared her ineligible for a $474 million inheritance, agreeing with Smith's claim that the Texas judgment violated federal laws, said Philip Boesch, an attorney representing the bosomy star.

Smith has been battling in the courts for the right to claim an inheritance from her late husband, whom she married when she was 26 and he was 89. His son, E. Pierce Marshall, has argued that Smith, now 33, has no claim to his father's estate.

However, that's not quite the end of the legal entanglements in this case that's already stretched on for ages. U.S. District Judge David O. Carter has scheduled a hearing for December in which Smith and Marshall must testify before a final decision is made on the award.

Last year, Bufford finalized a previous ruling awarding Smith $474 million from the estate. Marshall then filed new claims in Texas, and a jury found that Smith had no claim to the estate. Tuesday's ruling voided that decision, according to The Associated Press.