(April 22, 2008)--Anna Nicole Smith's mother Virgie Arthur has filed a second lawsuit related to accusations that her daughter's former lawyer tried to defame her.
Arthur's attorneys filed the suit Monday in Harris County district court.
It alleges that media outlets, bloggers and others spread a false story that she had a child with her stepbrother when she was a teenager.
The suit focuses on a story titled "Virgie Has Son with Her Stepbrother" that was posted last April on the celebrity gossip Web site TMZ.com.
Defendants include TMZ and its managing editor, Harvey Levin; Smith's longtime companion and lawyer, Howard K. Stern, and his sister, Bonnie Stern, and Television journalist Art Harris, who runs The Bald Truth blog.
The lawsuit also accuses a trio of Texas bloggers of helping spread false rumors about Arthur.
Attorneys for Stern, TMZ and Harris did not immediately return telephone calls or e-mails Tuesday seeking comment.
Smith is the one-time Mexia chicken restaurant waitress who went on to sometimes dubious fame as a Playboy model and reality TV star.
She died at 39 of a drug overdose on Feb. 8, 2007 after she was found unresponsive in her room at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel in Florida.
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