No-show for deposition

Nassau, Bahamas – Anna Nicole Smith didn’t appear Monday for a meeting in the Bahamas requested by the lawyer for an ex-boyfriend who claims he is the father of her 6-week-old daughter.

Photographer Larry Birkhead has filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles seeking a court order to demand Smith bring the baby to California for a paternity test. Her attorneys have argued the court does not have appropriate jurisdiction.

Debra Opri, a lawyer for Birkhead who traveled from Los Angeles to take a deposition from Smith in the Bahamas, said she would use Smith’s nonappearance Monday to argue for dismissal of that challenge.

“We’re letting her know if she wants to make it this way, we’re not going to make it easy for her,” Opri said in a phone interview from Nassau.

Smith, 38, a reality TV star and former Playboy playmate, moved to the Bahamas while pregnant with Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern, who was born Sept. 7.

Smith has said that her companion, lawyer Howard K. Stern, is the baby’s father.

A Bahamian attorney for Smith said he believed Opri needed to work through local courts to demand a test from his client, who has obtained permanent residency in the islands.

In her own words

Chicago – Oprah Winfrey was scheduled to tape an interview with Madonna today about the pop singer’s planned adoption of a 13-month-old boy from the African country of Malawi.

The interview is scheduled to air Wednesday on Winfrey’s talk show, a spokeswoman for Harpo Productions Inc. said Monday. It will be Madonna’s first TV interview about the adoption.

Madonna traveled to Malawi on Oct. 4 with her husband, Guy Ritchie. They spent eight days visiting orphanages she is funding through her charity.

The child, David Banda, was taken to London last week after Malawi’s High Court granted Madonna and Ritchie an interim adoption order.

Madonna, 48, has said she acted according to the law, but the toddler’s father, Yohane Banda, said Sunday he didn’t realize he was signing away custody of his motherless son “for good.”

Madonna has two children – daughter Lourdes, 9, and son Rocco, 6.

Snipes staying put

Windhoek, Namibia – Wesley Snipes will continue filming as planned in Namibia despite the U.S. warrant for his arrest on tax fraud charges, said the producer of “Gallowwalker.”

Joanne Reay said Snipes, who is the lead actor in the movie, was on location in the desert near the town of Swakob. Reay said Snipes had traveled to Namibia to shoot the film and not to flee U.S. justice. She said the plan was to stay until the third week in December.

“As far as we understand, Wesley is not going to be arrested in Namibia,” she told The Associated Press.

“We are shooting and we are continuing to shoot,” Reay said Monday. “We are aware of the issue around the tax charges, but we are not discussing it.”

Snipes, 44, was indicted last week on eight counts of tax fraud, accused of trying to cheat the government out of nearly $12 million in false refund claims and not filing returns for six years. If convicted of all the charges, he could face 16 years in prison.

At the time, prosecutors said they couldn’t arrest Snipes because they didn’t know where he was.

Prosecutors said Snipes fraudulently claimed refunds totaling nearly $12 million in 1996 and 1997 on income taxes already paid.

Snoop Dogg faces charges over weapon at airport

Irvine, Calif. – Prosecutors are considering charges against Snoop Dogg after authorities discovered a 21-inch collapsible baton in his bags as he boarded a New York-bound flight, authorities said Monday.

The rapper, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, had the baton in his laptop case as he went through a security checkpoint at John Wayne International Airport on Sept. 27, sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino said.

Snoop Dogg, 35, told sheriff’s deputies that the baton was a prop for a movie he was filming in New York, Amormino said.

“He had a collapsible baton and it is classified as a dangerous weapon,” Amormino said, adding that the stick collapsed to eight inches.

District attorney spokeswoman Susan Kang Schroeder said her office received the sheriff’s report on Monday. She said prosecutors had not yet decided whether to charge Snoop Dogg, who was not arrested.