PARIS HILTON'S LEGAL PROBLEMS

This material was originally part of my main Paris Hilton page (http://www.timothyhorrigan.com/paris_hilton.html). Hopefully things will calm down for her now that she has paid her debt to society (and now that Lindsay Lohan has become the #1 Bad Girl in Hollywood.)

See also:

Paris Exposed! (A big pileof her accumulated junk fell into the hands of scavengers who have been exhibiting it on their web site.)
Paris's "Stars Are Blind" video. (UB40 is suing her for copyright infringement.)

CSI:NY is coming to Second Life, beginning October 24, 2007! The victim is the socalled "The Paris Hilton of Second Life"

PARIS IS OUT OF JAIL!

So, Paris Hilton really did have go to jail. Yikes! Even though she is guilty as hell, this is still a little shocking. This also seems more than a little unfair, especially while Bush & Cheney — as well as Lindsay Lohan— are still running free.

She turned herself in after the 2007 MTV Movie Awards. She did an end run around the paparazzi by arranging to be booked at a men's jail in Downtown LA instead of the women's jail in Lynwood where she was actually supposed to do her time. She was scheduled to do 23 days (reduced from 45 for "good behavior") in jail— but three nights later she was released in the middle of the night for unspecified "medical reasons." Or actually she was "reassigned" to house arrest with an electronic monitoring device on her ankle.

However, the judge who sentenced her refused to go along with this, so she was literally dragged screaming back to jail on Friday June 9. It turns out she truly did have medical problems— evidently because she went off some psychiatric meds she had been taking — so she spent the rest of her term in medical wards. Just after the stroke of midnight on Tuesday morning June 26, she was set free, having served her full 23 days. Ironically, if the judge had gone along with the house arrest, she would have had to have been confined 22 days more.

On May 4, 2007, Paris was sentenced to 45 days in jail, for violating parole after a drunk driving conviction. She had to report to the Los Angeles County women's prison on or before Tuesday June 5, 2007. Her sentence was soon magically reduced to 23 days (ostensibly) for "good behavior" — ven though she hadn't done anything particularly good (or bad) during the days after her court appearance. (Actually, the sentence was probably reduced because the correctional facility was overcrowded and she was a first-time— and non-violent— offender.) This sounds pretty good compared to her original 45-day sentence— but not so good compared to zero days.

She began serving her sentence a couple of days early, turning herself in on Sunday night, June 3— immediately after attending the 2007 MTV Movie Awards.

She left the jail shortly after midnight three nights later, on Thursday morning, June 7, 2007. She had been "reassigned" to house arrest with an electronic monitoring device, for unspecified "medical reasons". Her sentence was increased to its original 45 day length, but the sheriffs decided that she had served 5 days already because her time in jail had spanned 5 calendar days. The next day, the judge threw her back in jail.

Paris has been stopped several times in recent months for various traffic violations, beginning with a DUI bust on September 6, 2006. Even during the weeks between her trial and her incarceration, she somehow managed to get a parking ticket.

The night of Wednesday September 6, 2006 was not one of the highlights of Paris's career. After a long day where (according to her long-suffering flack, former John Lennon myrmidon Elliot Mintz) she had been shooting a new music video all day without stopping to eat, she was busted near her home for DUI. Supposedly, she had had only one margarita at a party. And she was also supposedly on her way to a local fried food hut for a burger— oddly, not Carls Jr.

She didn't seem all that drunk when the paparazzi briefly photographed her getting out of the car. Reportedly, her blood alcohol level was .08%, just barely over the limit for DUI in California. Eventually, on January 22, 2007, she copped a plea: she pled no contest to alcohol-related reckless driving and was hit with 3 years of probation (reduced to 2 years if she does community service) plus some fines.

But then, a few weeks later on February 27, 2007, the cops stopped her on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood for driving at night without her lights on. (This is easy to do in L.A., because the streetlights on the main thoroughfares are much brighter than they need to be — so bright you don't really need headlights at all.) Her driver's license, it turned out, was suspended (as a result of the DUI incident back in September.) The cops impounded her $200,000 Bentley on the spot and she had to walk home.

(A justifiably upset Paris walking home with her $200,000 bag of DVD's.)

Both sides looked silly. Paris was rather lamely claiming that she didn't realize that her license was suspended. And the local law enforcement authorities look stupid because, until she finally got pulled over, they (ostensibly) never knew that she was still driving— even though there are numerous photos and videos of her on the web showing her behind the wheel of various vehicles.

For example, here is Paris behind the wheel in November 2006. Lindsay Lohan is riding shotgun while sitting on Britney Spears' lap:

After the February 27, 2007 stop Paris got threatened with jail time. The applicable local authorities (specifically the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office) pressed charges against her for violating probation by driving with a suspended license and also for not attending an alcohol education program. The decision to press charges was issued on April 30, although it didn't become public knowledge till TMZ.com and other media outlets got hold of the public records on May 2 or 3.

"TMZ,com story entitled Paris: 45 Days in the Clink": This May 3 article includes some interesting court documents.

One interesting detail in the public record is that she was originally charged with having drugs in her car as well as drunk driving on September 6. (She plea-bargained the charges down to Reckless Driving.) Another interesting detail is that she was stopped on January 15, 2007 (a week before her plea bargain was finalized): her license was already suspended, and she was therefore breaking the law by driving, but she was allowed to head on home when she promised to let her passenger take the wheel. When she was busted for the final time in February, the cops found the citation from this stop in her glovebox. This little piece of paper turned out to be a small detail of big importance, because it proved definitively that she knew she wasn't supposed to be driving. (However, when she went to court she claimed that she never read the slip of paper. She blamed her decision to keep driving on Elliott Mintz, who supposedly told her it was OK for her to drive.)

The prosecutors asked the court to punish her with:

45 days in County Jail
Being forbidden to consume any alcohol for 90 days, during which time she will have to wear a monitoring device.
Having her license suspended for 4 more months
Having her car impounded at her expense for 30 days

On May 4, 2007, Paris appeared at the L.A. Metropolitan courthouse in downtown L.A. The district attorney made a big fuss about treating everyone the same. And even though the cops shut down the streets outside the courthouse when she arrived (10 minutes late), she did not get preferential treatment. The judge didn't stop at merely approving the 45 day sentence: Judge Michael T. Sauer ruled that she will not be allowed any work release, furloughs, use of an alternative jail, or electronic monitoring in lieu of jail. The only concession the judge allowed on May 4 was that she won't have to report to the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, CA until a month later on June 5 (although at some point her sentence got magically cut in half to 23 days.) In the end, she turned herself in two days before the deadline, on Sunday night, June 3rd.

Three nights later, she was released to one of the alternative sentences which her judge had rejected. Because of unspecified "medical reasons" she was allowed to go home and be under house arrest with a monitoring device on her ankle. The total length of her sentence was kicked back up to the original 45 days. Because her incarceration had spanned five calendar days, she was credited with that much time served. If all had gone according to schedule, she would have been stuck in her house in West Hollywood for 40 days until Tuesday, August 10, 2007. Politically (bearing in mind that she is highly apolitical), it probably would have been better if she could have just served her 23 days in jail. She was regarded with a certain amount of sympathy after she surrendered to the authorities, especially since she withstood some vicious ridicule from Sarah Silverman at the MTV Movie Awards. But now she has even become the target of demonstrations: an African-American community group rallied in downtown LA the day she got out to demand an investigation into her early release.

The next day, Judge Sauer hauled her back into court. He was none too pleased by the Sheriffs Department actions, since house arrest was one of the options he rejected on May 4. He overturned the LASD's decision, and Paris was literally dragged screaming, back to prison. Her attorneys filed a "habeas corpus" motion, challenging the State of California to prove that her imprisonment was legal. This was surprising since the Bush Administration abolished habeas corpus on the federal level in 2001. However, habeas corpus still applies in California state cases.

She eventually decided not to appeal her sentence, and she spent almost a week in a medical ward at the main "Twin Towers' jail. Even though she truly did have some major medical issues during her first three days of incarceration (apparently triggered when she went off some psychiatric meds which she didn't tell the authorities about when she surrendered), the fact that she went straight to the medical ward was controversial. Most prisoners who develop medical problems are ignored until the problems get so bad they can't be ignored— and maybe not even then.

On Thursday, June 14^th she was sent back to the womens facility in Lynwood. (This was the same day Cheney aide and convicted felon Scooter Libby was told that sadly he would have to go to prison while his case was under appeal — well not right away, of course — that would be too cruel — but he was expected to come in to starting doing his time sometime this summer or maybe in the early fall.) And there she remained for twelve days: just after midnight on Tuesday morning, June 26th, she was set free. Her stay was fairly quiet, although there was a controversy over who would interview her when she got out and how much she would get paid (if anything) — and the case also backfired on L.A. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo when it turned out that his own wife got a much lighter sentence for wrecking his official city car while driving with a suspended license.

It seems like a shame that she went to the slammer at a time when the likes of Bush & Cheney are allowed to run free— but her excuses were lame, and she was blatantly scoffing at the law by continuing to drive.

Here are links to some TMZ.com stories.

"Paris Busted for DUI"
"Another Paris Driving Mishap"
"Exclusive: On the Set of Paris' New Music Video" (includes footage of her music video shoot, showing her walking across a lawn over and over again.)
"Brandon Davis and Paris — The Incredible Hatred Toward Lindsay" (from way back in May 2006: has nothing much to do with the September DUI bust aside from the fact that she was driving the same car both times. She appears to be sober, but her friend Brandon Davis— whoever the hell he is— is totally flaming drunk and spews out a vile but hilarious tirade about Lindsay Lohan.
"When Greasy Bears Attack" Davis made the news again in late February 2007 when he disrupted Paris' birthday party at the Prime Grill in Beverly Hills by harassing two of her fellow actor-singer-bimbo hyphenates: Paula Abdul and Courtney Love. The TMZ video is fairly uneventful, just some dopey people walking in and out of the lobby of what appears to be an office building — except that everyone looks grim even before the event, as if they knew in advance that the party would be a fiasco. And, there is a fleeting glimpse of Courtney Love's daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, who is now a teenager.
"Paris: 45 Days in the Clink": Paris gets threatened with dire consequences, including possible jail time. The May 3 article includes some interesting court documents.
"Paris Ordered to Serve 45 Days in Jail" & "Paris' Summer at the Prison Hilton": On May 4, she went to court and shockingly got hit with 45 days in prison, beginning June 5.
"Hilton in Custody and Doing Time": late Sunday night, June 3, she began doing her time, a couple of days ahead of the deadline.
"Paris Hilton -- Free Woman": in the wee hours of Thursday morning, June 7, she was released from prison to serve (ostensibly) 40 days of house arrest.
"Paris Hilton Ordered Back to Jail": on Friday afternoon, June 8, the judge dragged her screaming (literally) back to jail. She doesn't go directly back to Lynwood, however: she goes to a medical ward downtown first.
"Nicky & Stavros Get VIP Treatment at Paris' Jail": sister Nicky Hilton and friend Stavros Niarchos III are Paris's first visitors whiel she is locked up in the medical ward.
"Paris Hilton's Medical Condition Is Stable": on Thursday, June 14, LASD spokesperson Steve Whitmore announces that Paris is well enough to go back to the women's prison in Lynwood to serve the rest of her sentence (though June 25, if all goes as planned.)
"Was Paris a Victim of 'The Nancy Grace Effect'?": CNN legal affairs harpie Nancy Grace went off on a tirade one night about how appalled she was that Paris had "[landed] in a privileged unit reserved for the acutely medically ill." Two days later, Paris was back in Lynwood.
"Paris Hilton — Free At Last!": Paris gets out of jail.
"Totally Sketched Out": Paris sent TMZ.com's Harvey Levin a nice note, along with a self-portrait of herself in prison.

A month after Paris got out of jail, her friend Lindsay Lohan helped share some of the pressure by getting busted for drunk driving, cocaine possession and (possibly) assault. In a bizarre incident on Tuesday morning, July 24, 2007, Lindsay was arrested in the parking lot of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium after a drunken car chase where she pursued the mother of one of her personal assistants. Lindsay's blood alcohol level was 0.12%, half again as high as Paris's level the night of her original bust in September.

July 25, 2007 L.A. Times story.

And, Britney has also helped Paris a little.

My old boss (from the Dukakis for President campaign back in 1988), Susan Estrich weighed in on Lindsay's and Paris's cases on FoxNews.com. (In addition to teaching law at USC, Susan moonlights as one of Fox's token liberals.) She stated bluntly that she wants the judge to throw the book at Lindsay: "I have no compassion for Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton or Britney Spears or Kate Moss. I don't care how many other people get away with driving under the influence or possessing cocaine or falling off the wagon. We may not be able to afford to imprison everyone who ‘just’ drives drunk a few times and carries cocaine in her pocket, but we can afford to lock up Lindsay. Live by the sword and die by the sword."

Estrich's July 25, 2007 commentary

On Feb, 12, 2008, Paris's kid brother Barron Hilton got into trouble which could be much worse than anything his big sister has gotten into. He and at least one friend went careening recklessly at dawn around Malibu in a black Mercedes, sideswiped someone's pickup truck, and drove wildly in circles many times around a gas station out on Route 1. The car knocked an unfortunate clerk down at the gas station who was doing inventory, but luckily the clerk was not seriously injured. Eventually, the cops picked Barron up at a bus stop and busted him for for drunk driving and several other charges. His blood alcohol level was 0.14% which is twice the legal limit for an adult— but he is just 18 years old so his legal limit is 0.00%. He was arrested at 8:05 am on a Tuesday morning. He is ostensibly still in high school. It is unclear if he was planning to go to class that day.

Paris got a lot of flack for not bailing him out, and for going off instead to Vegas to make an appearance. (She was the only family member he called from jail.) But evidently she was merely abiding by a family decision to let the dopey kid stay in jail and think about what he did. Some of his buds eventually showed up after school and bailed him out.

See also:

August 6, 2004 Hampton (NH) Union story about a local porn emporium's problems with its Paris Hilton sign. Some unidentified motorist (perhaps Paris herself) ran into a curbside sign advertising the "1 Night in Paris" video (amongst other things.) The town tried to stop the owner of the store from re-installing the sign when it came back from being repaired. (Although I look foolish saying this, especially since hardly anyone is interested anyway, I did publish a review a while ago of the live peep shows at the porn shop, which is Leather & Lace in Seabrook, NH.)