Friday, June 08, 2007

Paris Hilton out of Jail due to "Medical Condition" discovered by her psychiatrist

But if it was anyone else, they would have done the full time. There is not much public sympathy for her release:

So Paris spent her big three days in prison before getting released yesterday, to serve the rest of her sentence under house arrest a la an ankle monitor. The reason for La Hilton's release was said to be due to her fragile mental state, as her psychiatrist, Dr. Charles Sophy told law enforcement that Paris was at risk of some sort of nervous breakdown.

Um, doesn't everyone have a little bit of a nervous breakdown when they are sent to prison?

Anyway, after all that hoopla, and Paris probably dancing a jig that she gets to spend the next 40 days lounging around her mansion, the heiress has been ordered back to court today, for a hearing to determine why the Sheriff's Department allowed her to get out of jail when the judge had expressly ordered her to serve out her entire sentence.

Send her back! Send her back! Send her back!
(The late night Talk show comedians have been having a field day with this. Jay Leno even labeled her disease as a case of "Rich Bitch-itis".)

UPDATE: The latest news is that Paris Hilton has been sent back to jail, crying, and screaming how unfair it all was. She is to serve the full time sentenced, with no mitigation of her sentence due to good behavior, or other means such as house arrest, work crew, etc. Many people seem to approve of this action by the judge. At least one gossip news site is also saying that Hilton is receiving "appropriate medical attention" in the form of psych drugs.

And we also recommend an investigation into this psychiatrist Doctor Charles Sophy. As noted here, this psychiatrist has been involved in other curious legal mysteries
The headshrink who treated Paris Hilton for her mysterious ailment during her jail stint was involved in another high profile case -- and the circumstances were just as curious.

Dr. Charles Sophy, a Beverly Hills psychiatrist, had a role in the Michael Jackson molestation case in 2003. Sophy's only public acknowledgement of Jacko was made to the television show "Celebrity Justice," where he admitted, "I'm involved in the Jackson case ... but not the way that you think."

TMZ has learned Sophy took a high-level position at the Department of Family and Child Services just as the Jackson story broke. He requested a memo from the staff -- detailing an interview Jackson's accuser gave to social workers -- in which the boy denied being sexually abused by Jacko.

Almost immediately after Sophy got the memo, it leaked to the media. Sophy would never publicly say why he needed that memo or talk about how it leaked.

Now Sophy is again connected to a celebrity legal mystery.
Note that the skepticism and huge public outcry regarding Hilton may result in a return to jail. We are firm believers in equal justice under the law, and beleive it should be enforced. House arrest in a fabulous mansion is not really equal justice. As seen in this report.
Thursday’s taste of freedom may have been brief for Paris Hilton.

The bubbleheaded blond party girl, whose release from jail after only three days of what was originally a 45-day sentence prompted a firestorm of criticism over wealth, celebrity and justice, faces a court appearance today that may send her back to a cell.

After a huge outcry Thursday, and in response to a motion filed by the Los Angeles city attorney’s office, Judge Milton T. Sauer ordered Hilton, 26, to appear today in court for a 9 a.m. hearing regarding her early release.

Early Thursday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office sent the heiress home to her Hollywood Hills mansion to wear an electronic ankle bracelet for the remaining 40 days of her sentence for violating probation in a reckless driving case. She was released for medical reasons, said Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca, refusing to elaborate.

After she was freed, everyone from the Rev. Al Sharpton to Erie County District Attorney Frank Clark blasted the decision.

“It sends a terrible message,” Clark said. “I think it looks awful. So many people say that there are two classes of justice — there’s one class for the rich and privileged and then there’s the justice system that serves all the rest of us.

“We who are in the system are constantly saying that that isn’t true, that everybody is basically treated the same, and then something like this happens, and it proves to everybody beyond a reasonable doubt that there are two classes of justice and if you are in that class that is wealthy and influential, you are going to be treated differently than the average John or Jane Doe.”

Hilton was sent home from the L.A. County jail’s Lynwood lockup shortly after 2 a.m. Thursday, a stunning reduction to a sentence that was cut from 45 to 23 days because of “good behavior” before she even set foot in jail.

Clark said he has never seen a case like this. “Have I ever heard of an individual, who, after sentencing, all of a sudden gets a series of reductions for no discernible legal reason? The answer is, in almost 35 years, no,” he said.

Sharpton released a statement saying that although he had empathy for Hilton, whom he had met when he hosted "Saturday Night Live" in 2003, “this early release gives all of the appearances of economic and racial favoritism that is constantly cited by poor people and people of color.”

Sharpton said that when he was jailed on civil disobedience charges, he went on a hunger strike, and jail officials “paid for a doctor to come see me daily rather than release me.”

But Baca, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, defended his decision. “The problem here is that there is a medical issue, and it isn’t wise to keep a person in jail with her problem over an extended period of time and let the problem get worse,” he said. He refused to elaborate.

Clark said jail officials may have been relieved to have a medical reason to release the attention-grabbing heiress, who had three sessions with her Beverly Hills psychiatrist while she was behind bars.

With Hilton as an inmate, the jail is “under horrible scrutiny, which they don’t like at all,” said Clark. “The entire world of paparazzi is camping out on the jail doorstep every day.”

Local defense attorney Thomas J. Eoannou, who successfully defended country singer Tim McGraw when he and Kenny Chesney were accused of scuffling with sheriff’s deputies in 2000, says celebrity “cuts both ways” in criminal cases.

“I think that celebrities are oft-times dealt with more harshly,” said Eoannou. “I don’t know that if you were the average Joe, you would have gone to jail for 45 days and been ordered in solitary confinement, which she was.”

Hilton was kept in a special protective custody wing and housed without a cellmate.

“I think the judge was sending a message that just because you’re a celebrity doesn’t mean you’re not going to jail,” Eoannou said.

Baca, the Los Angeles sheriff, said, “My message to those who don’t like celebrities is that punishing celebrities more than the average American is not justice,” he said.

But locally, that explanation wasn’t cutting much ice.

“I guess if you get arrested for anything, L.A. is the place to do it,” said Kathleen DeLaney, an academic archivist at Canisius College. “To go to jail, I’m sure she was terrified. But how many other women go to jail who are absolutely terrified, and have no recourse?”

Clark says if Hilton were arrested locally, she would have served her time. “We’ve had celebrities in our jails,” said Clark, including Chesney and McGraw.

When Earl Simmons, more widely known as the rapper DMX, was charged with speeding and drug possession in Cheektowaga in March 2000, said Clark, “ we had him in and out of jail, he was yelling and screaming, he was throwing things and we kept him right in there. I think we’re a blue- collar place; we have a healthy skepticism and are less prone to be awfully impressed” by celebrity.

“ I don’t blame Paris Hilton at all,” said Clark, pointing out that anyone in her position would do anything they could to win their own release. “ The sad part is that they bought it.”

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