Vintage ENM: The Paris Fiasco

[This is an article I wrote on June 11, 2007, while Paris Hilton was incarcerated for violation of probation stemming from an original charge of DUI --ENM]

I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m just about sick and tired of hearing about poor little rich girl Paris Hilton. Paris, of course, is an heir to Hilton Hotel fortune, but she’s best known for making a pornographic videotape with a boyfriend, which was later released on the internet. She claims she didn’t know he filmed them having sex. She’s lying, because she’s quite obviously posing and primping for the camera in the video.

She also has a reality show called “The Simple Life”, which depicts her and another stupid spoiled whore, Lionel Richie’s daughter Nicole, wreaking havoc on the lives of everyone they encounter while they show what happens when stupid spoiled whores are set loose on decent hardworking folks.

Paris is a fashion model as well, for high-priced designer crap, and she’s appeared in a few movies where we all were subjected to her complete lack of acting skills.

But mostly, she’s famous for being famous, and she’s obviously quite struck on herself, as it was revealed that most of the photos and even posters in her home are of herself. I laughed when I saw that. What a self-absorbed twit.

Paris is also apparently very well-known for trying to destroy the reputations of other women. One recipient of Paris’s venom is suing her as we speak. Others simply hate her because she gets her kicks from stealing other women’s boyfriends, and even their husbands.

I watched one video wherein she called some poor victim of her malice “a fucking hoodlum, broke, poor public school bitch from, like, Compton”. Compton is a working-class town near Los Angeles, incidentally. In another video she made the comments “fat ugly Jewish bitch”, “little black whore got fucked in the butt for coke”, “nigger”, “black and steal shit”, all in the course of less than five minutes. She has at other times made derogatory remarks about every imaginable type of individual, and her targets are obviously anyone who isn’t wealthy, blonde, privileged, white, and pretty.

There was no outrage over those comments, and no one even questioned why she would say things like that. Don Imus got fired for far, far less. Yet her reality show continues, and there were no consequences whatsoever for her outrageous behavior. That’s disturbing, because many young girls look up to Paris as a role model, when she is in fact anything but that.

So basically, Paris Hilton is a woman who has never faced any consequences for her actions, who has been raised to believe that the world is hers on a silver platter, and all she has to do is be pretty, and cry when she doesn’t get her way. It’s really quite sickening.

At any rate, today I read that it is costing taxpayers $1,109.78 a day to keep Paris Hilton in the jail medical unit, whereas it costs $99.64 to house the average female inmate. The question then becomes, is it worth it to keep her incarcerated, or should she be either released or placed back on home confinement?

Let’s review.

She was arrested for DUI. The prosecutor reduced the charge to reckless driving, and she was sentenced to probation. The terms of that probation were payment of a fine, license suspension, and completion of an alcohol education course.

She never even signed up for the alcohol education course. She also got caught repeatedly driving with a suspended license, once going 70 mph in a 30 mph zone after dark, with her headlights off. I don’t need to tell the average semi-intelligent person that she drove on a suspended license a lot more times than she got caught.

She finally got dragged into court on a violation of probation charge. The average person would have been charged with VOP for a lot less. She was 15 minutes late for court, which is sure to put any judge in a bad mood. She testified that she didn’t know her license was suspended, although police found a warning that she is not allowed to drive, issued by a police officer, in her glove compartment. When asked if she understood the terms of her probation, she responded “I just sign what people tell me to sign. I’m a very busy person.” When asked about a notice that had been sent to her, she responded that she doesn’t read her mail because “I have people who do that for me”. Her publicist testified that he told her she could drive. She claimed she didn’t check that information out with her attorneys, because she (and this is the funny part) didn’t have time to call them.

Obviously, she was lying, since her entire life revolves around simply being Paris Hilton, and her witness was clearly lying as well. Judges don’t like it when people lie to them, so she’s lucky she wasn’t also hit with a perjury charge.

Quite predictably, the judge sentenced her to 45 days in jail, with the specific criteria that no alternative form of incarceration was acceptable; no home confinement, no work release, no alternative jails. There was much gnashing of teeth by the Hiltons over that decision, with her mother loudly asking the judge for his autograph, and generally acting like an arrogant twit; personally, I think the judge should have held her mother in contempt of court for that behavior, since a verbal tirade upon the judge certainly would never be tolerated if they were not wealthy and well-known. Paris was allowed to report at a later date to serve her sentence.

The day she turned herself in, she attended an awards show, walked the red carpet, and was obviously fine. That would change very quickly, though, or at least it changed if you live in BizzaroWorld.

After serving only three days in jail, the sheriff placed Paris on home confinement without filing the proper pleadings to amend her sentence. The prosecutor wasn’t even advised of this action. The judge was advised of what they wanted to do, and he told them his original sentence stands; he did not want her released, period, end of discussion. The sheriff ignored the judge, claimed that Paris was suffering from “severe” psychological problems, and said she was deteriorating quickly. He cited liability on the part of the jail if she should harm herself.

Yet a suicidal inmate is much safer in jail, than they are at home. In jail, they are being watched, and it’s extremely hard to commit suicide because there’s very little there with which one could inflict self-harm. At home, there are many, many ways to commit suicide, so in all actuality his liability was potentially far greater with her on home confinement.

Quite predictably, all hell broke loose over the sheriff’s decision, and the judge demanded that Paris be brought to his court the next day, and that the sheriff show cause why he shouldn’t be held in contempt of court.

Quite predictably, Paris was sent back to jail, although the judge didn’t act on the show cause order for contempt against the sheriff.

That’s the only thing the judge did with which I disagree, incidentally. The sheriff should indeed have been held in contempt of court.

Quite predictably, Paris whined and cried some more in court, even cried for her mommy although she’s 26 years old, and this time the sheriff placed her in the medical unit for evaluation. Yet, quite predictably, doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. She’s still in the medical unit, and is not only doing interviews from jail, but also playing ping-pong. I vomited into my mouth a little bit when I read that, incidentally.

The latest news is that Paris was taken out of jail and placed on home confinement because she suffers from ADD and claustrophobia. Hello? They sent her home from jail for that? What a bunch of frickin’ ‘tards. If there was ever any question about whether Paris was receiving preferential treatment before, those questions have been answered with a resounding “YES”.

How convenient that she can hang out in the small VIP rooms of clubs, but mysteriously has claustophobia in jail. How convenient that she has ADD - a diagnosis which many question - when the treatment for that is Adderall. Adderall, of course, is speed, and there are videos of Paris doing all kinds of drugs. Sounds to me like she found a way to keep doing drugs even when in jail.

Problem is, does Paris really need that level of care - the equivalent of a private hospital room with four beds, no less - if she’s well enough to do an interview with Barbara Walters and play ping-pong? Not only no, but hell no.

First, it’s obvious to anyone with more than one brain cell that there are people in jail with much more serious illnesses who could use those other three beds. Second, Paris’s alleged illnesses do not require that level of treatment. Would you be put in the hospital for having ADD and claustrophobia? Give me a break.

So it’s worth every single penny to keep Paris Hilton incarcerated. The judge originally ordered her to jail with no allowance for alternative incarceration, because he was dealing with a defendant who quite obviously has absolutely no respect for the law whatsoever, and in fact by her actions proved that she believes the law doesn’t apply to her (that’s not even going into her complete disrespect for the property of others on her reality show). In the real world, people like Paris are called a sociopath. I therefore support the judge’s decision completely, with the sole exception of not finding the sheriff in contempt of court.

If Paris is psychologically well enough to do an interview with Barbara Walters, she doesn’t need to be in the expensive medical unit. She also shouldn’t be released or placed on home confinement again, though, since she was obviously faking a psychological disorder in an attempt to manipulate the criminal justice system.

Face it, if doctors are “baffled” by her alleged “severe” condition, as was reported over the weekend, she’s just malingering (a crime in the military, and it should be a crime in jail as well, given that the taxpayers have to foot the bill for it). In fact, for that stunt, jail officials should take away her good time (since good time is intended to reward inmates who don’t cause problems) and force her to serve the entire 45-day sentence.

The sheriff should put her back where she was previously incarcerated, and completely stop the preferential treatment she has been receiving since the beginning, in order to save money for the taxpayers. If she starts blubbering again, the jail should do to her what they’d do to anyone else, by just telling her to shut up.

The simple fact of the matter is, Paris Hilton is no better than anybody else who’s in jail. In fact, there are people in jail who are merely awaiting trial but can’t afford bail, and thus people who have never been convicted of anything but being poor; and people who are incarcerated but charges will never be filed against them. Where’s their preferential treatment, when under our laws a defendant is considered innocent until proven guilty in court? I have a lot more sympathy (and empathy) for those people than I will ever have for a wealthy overgrown brat who has been convicted of a crime involving threat to public safety, and who not only refuses to even try to meet the requirements of simple probation, but also continues to be a threat to public safety while on probation.

I also read that her visitors are taken right past all the other visitors, and the other visitors are made to wait in line for hours while Paris has her visit. That’s beyond ridiculous. Her visitors should not get preferential treatment either. Let them wait like everyone else, because it is completely unfair to others if the Hiltons are given priority in jail visitation. The truth is, like their daughter/sister who is no better than anyone else in jail, the Hiltons are no better than anyone else in the jail visitors’ area. They may not like that fact, and I’m pretty sure that Paris’s extremely arrogant mother won’t like it at all, but sometimes the truth hurts. Deal with it.

Last but certainly not least, the citizens of Los Angeles County should recall the Sheriff for his part in this fiasco. When he decided he could overrule a valid court order - especially given that the recipient of his largesse has a grandfather who contributed to his campaign - he crossed a line no sheriff should ever cross, caused citizens nationwide and even worldwide to lose faith in our system of justice, and thus proved beyond any doubt whatsoever that he is not worthy of his office of public trust.

His actions have also started a deluge of lawsuits that will eventually end up costing the county many millions of dollars.

It was reported today that a lawsuit has been filed by a female veteran with cancer, who lost both legs on active duty, and who was in jail but charges were never filed against her. This woman allegedly developed a hernia while in custody which went untreated, she was denied her cancer medication, and she claims to have been verbally abused and humiliated by being forced to crawl around the facility without the use of her prosthetic legs.

While that may seem like an exaggeration to some, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it actually happened. The problem is that pretty white girl Paris was treated like a princess for her ADD and claustrophobia, while a black female disabled veteran with cancer and no legs, who was never even charged with - much less convicted of - a crime, was treated worse, at that same jail facility in which Paris was originally placed, than I treat my animals. It’s sickening, but it happens a lot more than most people think.

Did Paris Hilton receive, and is she continuing to receive, preferential treatment? Absolutely, and hopefully the Hilton case will make people nationwide think twice about whether justice in this country is truly blind. It is not.