Paris Hilton Is Ordered Back to Jail
By SHARON WAXMAN
Published: June 8, 2007
LOS ANGELES, June 8 — The national obsession with celebrity collided head-on with the more serious issue of the equal application of justice on Friday, as a judge sent the socialite Paris Hilton back to jail some 36 hours after she was released for an unspecified medical problem.
Nick Ut/Associated Press
Paris Hilton on her way to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department on Friday.
Judge Michael T. Sauer ordered Ms. Hilton to serve out the remainder of her sentence in a county lock-up after the city attorney, whose office had prosecuted the heiress, filed a petition asking that the sheriff’s department be held in contempt or explain why it had released her with an ankle monitor on Thursday, after she had served just five days.
Ms. Hilton had been sentenced to 45 days in jail for violating the terms of her probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case. With time off for good behavior, she had been expected to serve 23.
Ms. Hilton, 26, wearing no makeup and with her hair disheveled, sobbed and screamed, “Mom, this isn’t right,” as she was taken from the packed courtroom by deputies.
It was a rare moment in this star-filled city, where badly behaving celebrities can seemingly get away with anything — or at least D.U.I. But Ms. Hilton, for all her money and celebrity, seems to have been caught between battling arms of the legal justice system here, with prosecutors and Judge Sauer determined to make a point by incarcerating her, only to have the sheriff’s office let her go.
“She’s a pawn in a turf fight right now,” said Laurie Levenson, a law professor at Loyola Law School Los Angeles. “It backfired against her because she’s a celebrity. She got a harsher sentence because she was a celebrity. And then when her lawyer found a way out of jail, there was too much public attention for it to sit well with the court.”
The struggle between the judge and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, which runs the jail, incited indignation far beyond the attention normally paid to a minor criminal matter.
Judicial and police officials here said they were inundated with calls from outraged citizens and curious media outlets from around the country and beyond. The Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights activist and media fixture, decried Ms. Hilton’s release as an example of “double standards,” where consideration was given to a pampered rich girl that would never be accorded an average inmate.
Even the presidential candidate John Edwards found himself drawn into the debate. When asked about Ms. Hilton’s release on Thursday he said, “Without regard to Paris Hilton, we have two Americas and I think what’s important is, it’s obvious that the problem exists.”
California has been struggling to comply with a federal order to ease overcrowding in its jails and prisons, and Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca has for the past year implemented a program of early release. But that has frustrated prosecutors who believe that early release undermines their efforts to punish those found to have broken the law.
At a news conference on Friday, Mr. Baca said, “The special treatment appears to be her celebrity status. She got more time in jail.” Under the normal terms of the early release program, he said, Ms. Hilton would not have served “any time in our jail.”
The city attorney whose office prosecuted Ms. Hilton’s case, Rocky Delgadillo, said preferential treatment had led to her being sent home with an ankle bracelet. In the original order sentencing Ms. Hilton to jail, the judge had specifically stated that Ms. Hilton would not be allowed a work furlough, work release or an electronic monitoring device in lieu of jail time.
“We cannot tolerate a two-tiered jail system where the rich and powerful receive special treatment,” Mr. Delgadillo said after learning of the release.
In a news conference on Friday afternoon, Mr. Baca said that Ms. Hilton “had a serious medical condition,” though he declined to say what it was. He said, “This is evidence that this lady has severe problems.” But, he added, “The criminal justice system should not make a football out of Miss Hilton’s status.”
In a scene that seemed a strange parody of O. J. Simpson’s low-speed chase more than a decade ago, news cameras from across the country followed a police cruiser containing Ms. Hilton as it drove slowly down from her home to Superior Court Friday .
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