Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca on Friday defended his department’s previous early release of Paris Hilton and insisted that Hilton is a “low-level offender” with “severe medical problems” who doesn’t belong in jail.
“This lady has some severe problems,” Baca told reporters at a press conference.
Baca, who indicated that Hilton was suffering from a psychological illness, added: “The only thing that I can detect is special treatment is the amount of her sentence, because under our ten percent early release program she would not have served any time in our jail or would have been directly put on a home electric monitoring system. So the special treatment, in a sense, appears to be her celebrity status — she got more time in jail.”
In explaining what medical reasons were behind his decision Thursday to release Hilton from the L.A. county jail in Lynwood, Baca said, “She was not taking a particular medication while she was in our custody.”
Baca said that Hilton is currently in a medical ward at the county’s Twin Towers Correctional Facility and that his department would abide by Judge Michael Sauer’s order that Hilton serve her sentence, which he said meant eighteen more days in custody.
“Let’s not make a judicial or criminal justice football out of this woman,” Baca said.
(US Magazine)
