Paris Hilton's parents skip line on jail visit
LOS ANGELES - Paris Hilton's parents visited their daughter after breezing past others waiting to see loved ones - an incident that raised new complaints that the heiress is receiving special treatment.
The visit came less than a week after Hilton was reassigned to house arrest days after being jailed for violating parole. The 26-year-old celebrity was later ordered back to jail.
Alvina Floyd, one visitor to the at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility, waited more than four hours to visit her fiance. It normally takes two hours, and Floyd, 20, blamed the Hiltons for the delay.
"I have to be at work later," she said. "I can't wait here all day."
Shatani Alverson, 23, said she was hustled out of the jail's visiting room moments after her husband walked in because of the Hiltons. She was told to come back after lunch.
Steve Whitmore, a sheriff's spokesman, said it was routine for high-profile inmates to receive visitors during lunch, a time when the visiting room is normally cleared out and closed.
The visit came shortly after the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors ordered Sheriff Lee Baca to respond by next week to allegations of favoritism for reassigning Hilton to house arrest. At the time, Baca cited an undisclosed medical condition as the reason for making the decision.
Hilton was sent to a medical ward, where sheriff's officials said it costs $1,109.78 a day to house a female inmate compared to $99.64 a day in the general population.
Mary Tiedeman, who regularly visits the jails as a monitor for the ACLU, said the area where Hilton was being housed was usually reserved for high-security inmates or those worse off than Hilton has appeared.
"I don't know what her health issue is, but you have got to have a pretty intense medical or mental health problem to be in that part of the jail," she said.
