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Though it was Larry Birkhead who openly swore he'd sue Rita Cosby, to use the legal parlance, "back into the MSNBC rat-hole from which she first produced her twitching rodent snout," it is Howard K. Stern, the second half of the all-male coupling she licentiously described in Blonde Ambition, who's first to file suit:

Anna Nicole Smith's lawyer and companion, Howard K. Stern, filed a $60 million libel lawsuit Tuesday against Rita Cosby and her publisher over a book she wrote that claims Stern and Smith's ex-boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, had a sexual encounter.

The suit, filed in federal court in New York, seeks $10 million in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages from Cosby—who wrote "Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death"—and Hachette Book Group USA Inc.

With the gauntlet thrown down, Cosby's best hope at this point is to finally locate the rumored and elusive video capturing the "compromising, intimate position" enacted by the two Smith hangers-on; otherwise, the $60 million sex-act will remain relegated to the category of myth, despite being the most satisfying make-believe blow job Stern has ever not received.