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LA city attorney blasts Paris Hilton jail release
Jun 8, 2007, 0:52 GMT
Paris Hilton in seen in this undated booking photo released by Los Angeles County Sheriff\'s Department. REUTERS/Los Angeles County Sheriff\'s Department/Handout
Los Angeles - Sparking accusations of celebrity favouritism, socialite heiress Paris Hilton was freed from jail for unspecified medical reasons Thursday, just three days into her 45-day sentence for violating probation.
Hilton, 26, will now swap her spartan, 4-metre-by-2.5-metre cell for house arrest in her luxurious Hollywood Hills home for the remainder of her sentence, with her compliance monitored by an electronic ankle bracelet.
The decision to free the gossip-column bad girl provoked widespread criticism that the heiress to the Hilton hotel fortune was receiving preferential treatment.
Heading the complaints was Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, who said he was 'extremely troubled' over the incident and would have 'have opposed the decision on legal grounds' had he been informed in advance.
Delgadillo said he was concerned that the 'judicial process may have been improperly circumvented' because jails are 'well-equipped' to deal with inmate medical problems.
'We cannot tolerate a two-tiered jail system where the rich and powerful receive special treatment,' Delgadillo said.
Earlier Hilton, thanked authorities for treating her 'fairly and professionally.'
'I am going to serve the remaining 40 days of my sentence. I have learned a great deal from this ordeal and hope that others have learned from my mistakes,' she said.
African-American social activist Reverend Al Sharpton also blasted the release.
'This early release gives all of the appearances of economic and racial favouritism,' he said. 'There are any number of cases of people who handle being incarcerated badly and even have health conditions (who) are not released.'
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said that privacy rules prevented him from discussing the medical reasons for Hilton's release.
Citing sources close to Hilton's family, the syndicated TV show Entertainment Tonight reported on its Web site that the health problem was a rash that she developed on her body.
'After extensive consultations with medical personnel, it was determined that Paris Hilton will be reassigned to our community- based ... electronic monitoring programme,' he said.
'She has been fitted with an ankle bracelet and will be confined to her home for the next 40 days.'
Whitmore said that Hilton, 26, was released shortly after midnight Thursday from the jail in Lynwood, California.
'This is certainly not unprecedented,' Whitmore said. 'This happens from time to time, absolutely.'
Hilton checked into the all-female jail Sunday night, just hours after she walked the red carpet at the MTV Movie Awards.
The reality TV star of The Simple Life was originally sentenced to a 45-day jail term for violating probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case. The traffic court judge specifically ruled on May 4 that Hilton should not receive special treatment or be released early or allowed to serve her time under house arrest.
The sentence was reduced to 23 days for good behaviour. Whitmore said that due to her 'reassignment,' the sentence reverted to 45 days, with Hilton being credited for 5 days spent behind bars.
Although she only spent three full days in jail, she was credited with five days because she reported for sentencing right before midnight on Sunday and was released right after midnight Wednesday, in the wee morning hours of Thursday, officials said.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
page: 1
the judge owes her an apolige for doing this in the first place.
as with people like oj and so on .you do not send them to jail that is a no-no.
Paris Hilton has got to be like the sexiest thing. So glad she got off and if it's double standards well as they say money talks. Can't wait for more red carpet action - bring it on.
Her release is about as patently offensive to decent Americans as OJ's acquital, Robert Blake's acquital, and Ken Lay's staged death. No wonder there is no trust in the law. The wealthy are exempt from justice as long as they grease the right wheels.
it just shows what kind of society we live in. where people that are famous and that have money get special treatment. its pretty rediculous that if that was any average living american they would still be sitting in that jail cell. but, letting paris out just shows that they are 'better' then everyone else.
Paris Hilton singlehandedly set the cause of MADD back a few years.
Ah! What can we do with these great artists, these extremely talented people, ever marching to the beat of a different drum? What to do, what to do?
Maybe she should be forced to do a public service ad aimed at young drivers telling them that if they drive drunk, they can expect to serve their full sentences and that the only reason she got away with it was because her dad blah, blah, blah...
Naah... That wouldn't work.
Hey! She could drive drunk again and get very badly maimed and disfigured for life. Like, a two hour operation just to remove her Blackberry from her gluteus maximus and yeaaaaars of facial reconstructive surgery. With LOTS of stark, blood spattered pics taken by pappa ratz going round to gross everyone out!
THAT might undo the damage. Hopefully, that would set an example!
She reportedly wanted to make the world a better place : short of retroactively disappearing in a puff of smoke, that would be it!
Today : Paris! Tomorrow : Scooter!
What a life, huh?
We laugh @ you Americans... Your country legal system is a joke. If she was an African american she would be in prison for at least 6 months.There is a lady just 4 cells down from Hilton for the same crime and she has servered 4 months all ready ...! Well it seems that in the United states that if you have a fist full of dollars... 'your above the law'.. Disgusting imo.
What hurts most is the fact that so many innocent people are in jailor even put to death .THe execution rate in the STates is appaling ,there is a recurrent scenarion.black people acvcused of murder,receiving a state appointed lawyer which does no research,bo investigations,no interviews,no checking on police work,absdolutely nothing .In fact death penalties are handed out if the accused person 's profile meets a few characterisitics .Being black is certainly one of them .
I just it didnt only take the Paris Hilton example to demonstrate that justice is not the same for all .Remember Ollie North,the Watergate burglers,what was their effective punishment?
Put her ugly arse back in jail
She did the crime, let her do the time
THE AMERICAN LEGAL SYSTEM IS A JOKE
there goes any sympathy i had for her.
I just realized that the popular blowhard 'Sniveling' Al Sharpton has chosen to make political fodder out of Paris's release.
That bloated, self important lump of a crook is about as relevant to civil rights as Paris is relevant to Marx's theoretical analysis of a coal mine worker's hourly production in the Ukraine in the eighteen hundreds.
So I'm afraid I'll have to reverse my position on Paris.
Hooray for Paris! Live free forever! You can do whatever you want because you're rich and you bring a bit of your beauty and glamor into our ho hum lives.
PLEASE get drunk again and kill me with your Bentley and then use a battalion of lawyers to avoid paying any compensation to my wife and children!
It's at times like this I miss Captain Kangaroo. He, at least, had integrity...
Tonny could you at least 1 time read your drivel before you post it??
tonny from belgiumJun 8th, 2007 - 07:39:59
What hurts most is the fact that so many innocent people are in jailor even put to death .THe execution rate in the STates is appaling ,there is a recurrent scenarion.black people acvcused of murder,receiving a state appointed lawyer which does no research,bo investigations,no interviews,no checking on police work,absdolutely nothing .In fact death penalties are handed out if the accused person 's profile meets a few characterisitics .Being black is certainly one of them .
I just it didnt only take the Paris Hilton example to demonstrate that justice is not the same for all .Remember Ollie North,the Watergate burglers,what was their effective punishment?
Are in jailor--jail
THe---The
STates---states
appaling----appalling
scenarion----scenario
acvcused----accused
bo---who knows what you meant
absodolutely-----absolutely
characterisitics--------characteristics
didnt---didn't
burglers-----burglars
I just it didnt only take the Paris Hilton example to demonstrate ----who knows
All of this from the guy that says the US people have a bad education----Get a life Tonny---go back to school
Tomy got his message across. I don't give a hoot about how educated he is. He makes sense.
Me, I can spell like a sumbitch in several languages but I'm a mathematical moron.
To each his own...
Now, I would like to know, why this woman goes in with short hair and comes out with a head full of long hair??
page: 1
HoorayJun 8th, 2007 - 01:07:45
A man with a pair. Put her ass back in the slammer where it should be. I'm sure every person serving time in that place doesn't want to be there and has some sort of 'medical' problem. America and almighty dollar at it's best.
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