UPDATE (4:06 pm/ET): TMZ says an appeal is in the works, to be filed by Monday. Matt says, "Leave it be, Paris. You have as much chance of getting off scot-free as I do of not having to update this story over the weekend."
UPDATE (3:14 pm): Stars blind?
Yes. Justice? Maybe not. Judge Michael Sauer on Friday afternoon showed what's under his robe, ordering Paris Hilton back to the detention facility to finish out her sentence (
with credit for five days served). Hilton reportedly was all but dragged out of the courtroom, crying, "Mom, Mom, Mom" to (I'm guessing) her mother. Earlier in the hearing, Sauer revealed that the sheriff department's motion to downgrade the
Simple Lifer to house arrest (which they went ahead and did on Thursday morning) never made it to his desk, and even if it had, "There's no way I would have approved it." He's a pit bull, I tell ya!
UPDATE (2:02 pm): Nearly two hours after her "call time," Hilton showed up at the courthouse. Despite using a "secret" entrance to avoid the media circus, this much is confirmed: The heiress owns gray sweats 100 times uglier than the ones I plan to wear while cleaning out my garage this weekend.
UPDATE (1:47 pm): Despite the fact that it is significantly past the 9 am/PT time that was originally scheduled for her hearing, Hilton was just put in handcuffs and shoved into a sheriff's cruiser to go to the courthouse. The first time she has ever quibbled about some back-seat action? Discuss.
UPDATE (11:57 am): The judge, apparently having never agreed to the phone thing, ordered Paris to get to court. Even sent some hunky cops to drive her there.
UPDATE (10:51 am): On the topic of special treatment, TMZ reports that Paris will appear at her Friday 9 am/PT hearing
via telephone. I foresee a Cingular/"dropped calls" commercial:
"Ms. Hilton, is there any reason we should not send you back to jail?"
[
Silence, as Paris spazzes out on her end of the line]
Our original story: Sip your Red Bull by the pool while you can,
Paris, because come 9 am Cali time, Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo is hauling your infamous backside in front of the judge to argue that the sheriff's department acted outside of its jurisdiction in
"reassigning" you to house arrest. "I was extremely troubled to learn that the sheriff's department has decided to release Ms. Hilton from custody just three days after she was admitted to county jail," Delgadillo said in a statement Thursday. "Had we been provided with the proper notification, we would have opposed the decision on legal grounds."
Delgadillo plans to argue that Judge Michael Sauer's original sentencing specifically forbade Hilton's stint being downgraded to any nonjail option such as "electronic monitoring" via ankle bracelet. (A rep for the court counters that such changes happen "all the time." Delgadillo will also contend that any "medical" concern (Paris was reportedly refusing to eat, putting herself at risk of a breakdown) could have been addressed by the detention facility's doctors. Says Delgadillo, "We cannot tolerate a two-tiered jail system where the rich and powerful receive special treatment."