f it's anytime minutes you're after, the Century Regional Detention Center may be the cell phone provider for you. At least according to a group of deputies, who have launched new allegations of VIP treatment for former inmate Paris Hilton.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department confirmed Friday that officials have made good on their word and begun an internal investigation into whether the heiress' was improperly pampered during her three-week stay at the Lynwood facility.
While Sheriff Lee Baca has routinely denied that the Simple Life star received any perks behind bars, several deputies have come forward in the wake of Hilton's release to detail special treatment they claim she was given to during her incarceration.
The department declined to go into details of the allegations, but according to the Los Angeles Times, the deputies union has provided several examples of indulgences allowed Hilton and no other inmate.
Chief among the complaints is the allegation that Hilton was given unlimited free access to a cell phone while holed up in her private cell.
While all inmates are allowed access to a pay phone, there are rigidly enforced set blocks of time in which they are allowed to make calls, and even then only after waiting in line with fellow prisoners.
The deputies' charge about Hilton's all-access phone pass seems to have been corroborated by Barbara Walters, who said on The View last month that she had received a phone call from the locked-up socialite at around 2 a.m.
Two sheriff's officials, who spoke to the Times on the condition of anonymity, said that in addition to Hilton's unlimited anytime and, apparently, anywhere minutes, top department officials at the Lynwood lockup paid daily visits to the heiress, solicitations that did not extend to her fellow inmates.
A high-ranking captain hand-delivered Hilton's mail, the sources said. Typically, all incoming post is handed off to inmates by trusties, whose job it is to do so.
Finally, the disgruntled deputies allege that, upon her processing into the facility, Hilton was issued a new jail uniform rather than a hand-me-down orange jumpsuit, which is the case with most jailbirds.
Additionally, Michael Gennaco, the chief attorney for the Sheriff's Department's Office of Independent Review, told the Times that the investigation would also be looking into other issues surrounding Hilton's custody, but would not reveal the nature of those issues.
"We want to make sure the department looks into these matters in an objective and thorough way," Gennaco said. "Whatever allegations of special treatment are reported, we will ensure there is an appropriate inquiry and report the results of those reviews."
Baca's spokesman Steve Whitmore says that the complaints logged by the internal affairs bureau differed from the official account of Hilton's incarceration and the sheriff was determined to use the investigation "to get to the bottom of it."
While the specific allegations of special treatment are new, the notion that Hilton underwent something other than the typical inmate experience is hardly a revelation.
On May 4, the 26-year-old hotel namesake was sentenced to 45 days in jail for violating her probation on an alcohol-related reckless driving charge. She thwarted the press and turned herself in during the waning minutes of June 3 and was released in the early morning hours of June 7 by Sheriff Baca, who claimed he reassigned the heiress to house arrest due to an unspecified medical condition.
Baca said Hilton did not have her proper medication, and the heiress later admitted that she was claustrophobic.
Hilton's return to her Hollywood Hills home was heralded with cupcake deliveries and family visits, but ultimate short-lived as Judge Michael T. Sauer ordered her back to jail for the duration of her sentence. Baca came under fire from prosecutors, politicians and activists, who suggested he gave Hilton kid-gloves treatment.
Just prior to her release on June 26, Hilton denied to E! News anchor Ryan Seacrest in a phone interview from jail that she was being singled out by officials.
"I'm just like any other inmate here," she said. "I'm not receiving any special treatment."
She does have a point.
According to a study by theTimes of similar probation-violation cases, Hilton wound up spending more time behind bars than the typical offender.
In the meantime, the heiress is slowly but surely getting back to her workaday life. After a trip to Hawaii, she's begun to reemerge on L.A.'s nightlife scene, hitting up Hollywood hot spot Les Deux into the early morning hours last weekend.
Earlier this week, she held a hush-hush meeting with Macy's executives in San Francisco to discuss launching a new denim line.
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