Paris Hilton Walks After Three Days In Jail

[las47032]

After serving only three full days behind bars, Paris Hilton was released from jail early Thursday, partly due to "medical" reasons — but she has been fitted with an ankle bracelet and must remain confined to her home for 40 days.

"I can't specifically talk about the medical situation other than to say that, yes, it played a part in this," sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said at a press conference Thursday morning, adding that her electronic monitoring device has a range of 3,000 feet to 4,000 feet.
Video: Watch the press conference

Hilton, 26, was originally sentenced to 45 days in jail for violating probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case, but had been expected to serve 23 days because of state rules allowing shorter sentences for good behavior.

Whitmore said under the new agreement, Hilton would be confined to her home for 40 days.

"Because she has agreed to this through her attorney, her sentence is now back up to the 45 days. She has served already five days so that's 40 days," he explained, including the time she served on Sunday night and Thursday as "days" spent at the Century Regional Detention Facility in suburban Los Angeles. Hilton left the jail at 2 a.m. on Thursday.

On the heels of reports that Hilton had been crying in jail and receiving visits from her psychiatrist, reporters at the press conference seemed to think that the heiress had manipulated her jailers.

Whitmore didn't fully deny this accusation. When one reporter asked him, “What’s your comment to people who say she played you like a puppet on a string — she came in here, didn’t like it, it was hard and she got out?” he replied, “Once again, I just think that’s a different way of saying it, only the language is a little more — liquid. I would simply say that I understand that."

The sheriff's spokesman would not elaborate on Hilton's medical issues, nor would he say if they were physical or psychological. He added that the decision to send Hilton home was based on dozens of consultations and discussions over a period of three or four days.

When she was sentenced May 4, Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer ruled that she would not be allowed any work release, furloughs or use of an alternative jail or electronic monitoring in lieu of jail.

FOX Facts: Other Celebrities Who've Served Shorter Punishments

Jared Shapiro, senior news and entertainment director of Life & Style Weekly magazine, said people aren't going to be happy about Hilton's early release.

"This is one of the most privileged, entitled people to ever walk the face of the earth, and no matter what she does — whether its a sex tape or whether she's driving drunk or whether she goes to jail — she comes out on top, she makes money off it, she profits from it and she comes out quite all right," he told FOX News.

The hotel heiress surrendered to authorities with little fanfare Sunday night after a surprise appearance earlier that day at the MTV Movie Awards, where she worked the red carpet in a strapless designer gown.
"I am trying to be strong right now," she told reporters at the time. "I'm ready to face my sentence. Even though this is a really hard time, I have my family, my friends and my fans to support me, and that's really helpful."

After she checked in, Whitmore said Hilton's demeanor was helpful.
"She was focused; she was cooperative," he said.
Hilton's lawyer, Richard Hutton, said Monday after his client's first night in jail that she was doing well under the circumstances.

"She's using this time to reflect on her life, to see what she can do to make the world better and hopefully, in my opinion, to change the attitudes that exist about her among many people," Hutton said after visiting Hilton.

Hilton was housed in the "special needs" unit of the 13-year-old jail, separate from most of its 2,200 inmates. The unit contains 12 two-person cells reserved for police officers, public officials, celebrities and other high-profile inmates. She didn't have a cellmate.

The 13-year-old jail, a two-story concrete building next to train tracks and beneath a bustling freeway, has been an all-female facility since March 2006. It's located in an industrial area about 12 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.

Hilton was spending 23 hours a day in her cell, her lawyer said.
Officers arrested Hilton, star of "The Simple Life" reality TV show, in Hollywood on Sept. 7. In January, she pleaded no contest to the reckless-driving charge and was sentenced to 36 months' probation, alcohol education and $1,500 in fines.

She was pulled over by California Highway Patrol on Jan. 15. Officers informed Hilton she was driving on a suspended license and she signed a document acknowledging she was not to drive. She then was pulled over by sheriff's deputies on Feb. 27, at which time she was charged with violating probation.

Kyle Richards, an aunt of Hilton's, said earlier that Hilton was doing well but was bored in jail.

"She's just sitting in there for 23 hours a day with nothing to do," she said. "She picked out a bunch of books to take with her, but at the last minute she found out they wouldn't let her take the books. They wouldn't let her take anything."

Source: FOXNews.com - Citing 'Medical' Reasons, Sheriff Sends Paris Hilton Home to Finish Sentence - Celebrity Gossip | Entertainment News | Arts And Entertainment

Medical reasons?! Money talks, she walks.

[leobold1]

According to CNN, the "medical" reason was that she refused to eat the food.

Ah, to be rich and famous. You can do no wrong.

[Betty Boop]

You know, USC/LAC Medical Center does house the JAIL ward. If she had a true medical emergency/concern, shouldn't she have been transferred there for evaluation and appropriate medical/psychiatric treatment (her psychiatrist did visit her in jail).

Guarantee I wouldn't get out of a sentence for refusing to eat - they'd just say I was a prisoner on a hunger strike and let me starve. This is a very bad message about the fairness/equity of Lady Justice in California.

[BrianK]

I wonder how long it will take for others to want released using the Paris Hilton get out of jail card.

It's been my opinion for awhile now that we have a justice business not a justice system. In business, a persons wealth and connections makes all the differance.

[Betty Boop]

Obviously City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo didn't like the "Get Out of Jail" card either - and is going to see if he can have "the book" thrown at Sheriff Baca for contempt of court for this one while returning Miss Hilton to jail before she passes "Go". One can't help but wonder, what part of "no home electronic monitoring" did Sheriff Baca not understand in the court order?

Paris Hilton ordered to return to court
By LINDA DEUTSCH, AP Special Correspondent 46 minutes ago


Hours after Paris Hilton was sent home under house arrest Thursday, the judge who put her in jail for violating her reckless-driving probation ordered her into court to determine whether she should be put back behind bars.
Hilton must report to court at 9 a.m. Friday, Superior Court spokesman Allan Parachini told The Associated Press.
"My understanding is she will be brought in in a sheriff's vehicle from her home," Parachini said.
Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer issued his order after the city attorney filed a petition late Thursday afternoon questioning whether Sheriff Lee Baca should be held in contempt of court for releasing Hilton on Thursday morning.
The celebrity inmate was sent home from the Los Angeles County jail's Lynwood lockup shortly after 2 a.m. for an unspecified medical condition in a stunning reduction to her original 45-day sentence.
She was ordered to finish her sentence under house arrest, meaning she could not leave her four-bedroom, three-bath home in the Hollywood Hills until next month.
"What transpired here is outrageous," county Supervisor Don Knabe told The Associated Press, adding that he received more than 400 angry e-mails and hundreds more phone calls from around the country.
Hilton's return home gives the impression of "celebrity justice being handed out," he said.
City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo complained that he learned of her release the same way as almost everyone else — through news reports.
"It is the city attorney's position that the decision on whether or not Ms. Hilton should be released early and placed on electronic monitoring should be made by Judge Sauer and not the Sheriff's Department," said Jeffrey Isaacs of the city attorney's office.
Sauer himself had expressed his unhappiness with Hilton's release before Delgadillo asked him to return her to court. When he sentenced Hilton to jail last month, he ruled specifically that she could not serve her sentence at home under electronic monitoring.
Parachini said Sauer reminded the Sheriff's Department of that when he learned Hilton was about to be released.
"He reiterated the terms of his sentencing order. He did not agree to the terms of release that the sheriff proposed," Parachini told the AP before Delgadillo asked that Hilton be returned to court.
But, Parachini said at the time, it is the sheriff and not the judge who decides when inmates are released from jail.
Delgadillo's office indicated that it would argue that the Sheriff's Department violated Sauer's May 4 sentencing order.
___
Associated Press Writer John Rogers contributed to this report.





Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Paris Hilton ordered to return to court - Yahoo! News

[BloodThirstyWench]

Oh South Park is going to have a field day with this one...can't wait!!!

[Betty Boop]

Lessons learned from the Paris affair:

1) NEVER piss off the judge - He is da' man - not the Sheriff (are you reading this and not just taking "notes", Sheriff Baca?).
2) Screaming and crying only work with mommy and daddy not the court bailiffs.
3) The Sheriff is not ABOVE the law nor the maker of it - his job is simply to see that it is enforced.

I do feel some empathy for Paris though. Instead of only having 18 days left of 23, she has been restored to full 45 so now has 40 left courtesy of the "well-meaning" Sheriff and his over-inflated ego that somehow he doesn't have to follow the judge's orders - right up to defiantly telling his Deputies NOT to pick Ms. Hilton up as ordered by the judge so that her court apperance then became two hours later than scheduled. She may indeed end up in the jail ward of USC/LAC with an IV in her arm if she dehydrates or otherwise deteriorates physically from refusing to eat. I bet that we will see an initiative over this one concerning the scope of the Sheriff's authority and setting parameters on the early release of nonviolent prisoners (since when has a car not been considered a deadly weapon when operated by a drunk?) before November here in California.

Sheriff Baca - Before today, did you know the meaning of the words, "Contempt of Court"? Hope you have a better lawyer than Paris has.