A crying Paris Hilton was taken to court in a police car Friday for a hearing on her early release from jail, heightening the struggle between the judge who sentenced Hilton and the sheriff who turned her loose.
ADVERTISEMENT Hilton appeared to be in handcuffs when she was placed into a black-and-white patrol car, which sped away from her Hollywood Hills home with lights flashing. Paparazzi sprinted in pursuit and news helicopters pursued overhead, broadcasting live TV coverage.
The police car arrived at the courthouse and disappeared into the underground parking lot. Inside, Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer was to listen to the city attorney's complaint that Sheriff Lee Baca did not have the right to reassign Hilton to electronically monitored home detention after only three days in jail for violating probation in a reckless driving case.
Outside the courthouse, passers-by stopped to gawk at news cameras. One of them was Moses Baltazar, who was attempting to clear up his own traffic ticket. He said he was no fan of Hilton, noting she once tipped him only a dollar when he worked as a valet, even though he helped keep paparazzi away from her.
He thought she should be returned to jail. "Driving like that, you have to behave. If you're rich, you have money, you have to respect yourself."
The frenzy began early Thursday when sheriff's officials released Hilton because of an undisclosed medical condition and sent her home under house arrest. She had been in jail since late Sunday.
Hilton was fitted with an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet and was expected to finish her 45-day sentence for a reckless driving probation violation at her four-bedroom, three-bath home.
The decision by Sheriff Lee Baca to move Hilton chafed prosecutors and Sauer, who spelled out during sentencing that Hilton was not allowed to serve house detention.
Late Thursday, Sauer issued the order for Hilton to return to court after the city attorney filed a petition demanding that Hilton be returned to jail and to show cause why Baca shouldn't be held in contempt of court.
Baca does not have to be in court, and it was unclear who would represent the Sheriff's Department.
At first Hilton was going to be allowed to take part in the hearing by telephone, but that decision was soon reversed.
The home detention also was met with outrage from the sheriff's deputies union, members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, civil rights leaders, defense attorneys and others.
"What transpired here is outrageous," county Supervisor Don Knabe told The Associated Press, adding 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.
Baca dismissed the criticism, saying the decision was made based on medical advice.
"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," Baca told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday.
"My message to those who don't like celebrities is that punishing celebrities more than the average American is not justice," Baca said.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown criticized the Sheriff's Department for letting Hilton out of jail, saying he believed she should serve out her sentence.
"It does hold up the system to ridicule when the powerful and the famous get special treatment," Brown told The Associated Press before testifying at a congressional hearing in Washington.
"I'm sure there's a lot of people who've seen their family members go to jail and have various ailments, physical and psychological, that didn't get them released," he said. "I'd say it's time for a course correction."
Hilton's path to jail began Sept. 7, when she failed a sobriety test after police saw her weaving down a street in her Mercedes-Benz on what she said was a late-night run to a hamburger stand.
She pleaded no contest to reckless driving and was sentenced to 36 months' probation, alcohol education and $1,500 in fines.
In the months that followed she was stopped twice by officers who discovered her driving on a suspended license. The second stop landed her in Sauer's courtroom, where he sentenced her to jail.