Sutherland receives 48-day jail sentence

December 6, 2007

Kiefer Sutherland was sentenced yesterday to 48 days in jail for racking up a second drunken-driving arrest in three years and immediately reported to a city lockup. The star of the Fox TV drama "24" was being processed at the Glendale city jail, said Officer John Balian. Sutherland, 40, who pleaded no contest in October to driving with a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit of .08, appeared in court with his attorney and politely answered the judge's questions, said Assistant City Attorney Dan Jeffries. His request to serve his time at the Glendale city jail was granted and he was ordered to complete the sentence by March 30, Jeffries said. "Kiefer made the decision to surrender to custody immediately," his attorney, Blair Berk, told The Associated Press. He could have waited as late as Feb. 12. (AP)

Prosecutors dropped charges against Jonathan Rhys Meyers yesterday after he expressed remorse through his lawyer for being drunk and abusive at Dublin Airport on Nov. 18. The Irish actor faced two charges of public drunkenness and breach of the peace after he was refused permission to board a flight to London. Rhys Meyers did not appear in court for the arraignment, and state prosecutors said they had accepted an apology from the actor. Lawyer Michael Staines said his client "unreservedly apologizes" to airport security guards, police, and staff at the British airline BMI, and planned to make a donation to an unspecified charity as a way to acknowledge his wrongdoing. (AP)

The drummer for the Police apologized to Chilean President Michelle Bachelet for comments decried as derogatory by the government and invited her to attend the band's concert yesterday in Santiago. Stewart Copeland told Chile's Mercurio newspaper in an interview published in October: "Look, the future President of Argentina would be good for one beer; yours [would be good] for four." While unclear what Copeland meant, many Chileans took them to mean he found their first woman president less attractive than Argentine president-elect Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who'll be her country's first elected female leader. Copeland said in a letter to Bachelet that his words were taken out of context. (Reuters)

Jack Jordan, 35, a former mental patient accused of stalking Uma Thurman, refused to plead guilty yesterday to attempted coercion, a felony the court would have reduced to a misdemeanor once he completed at least a year of a mental health program. His lawyer, George Vomvolakis, said Jordan would consider pleading guilty to a misdemeanor with commitment to a psychiatric program. Jordan was arrested in October on charges of stalking the actress for two years. Jordan, free on $10,000 bail, lives with his parents in Massachusetts. (AP)

The busboy who sued Lindsay Lohan alleges in court papers filed Tuesday that he has proof the actress had been drinking before she collided with his van in October 2005. Raymundo Ortega, seeking $200,000 in damages, contends Lohan drove her Mercedes-Benz into a van he was driving after she drank alcohol and later tried to escape paparazzi. Lohan, 21, has countersued, saying the California Highway Patrol concluded that Ortega caused the crash by making an illegal U-turn. Her lawyers were scheduled to ask a judge next month to compel Ortega to prove the actress was drunk. Instead, they filed to cancel the hearing, saying Ortega provided responses to their discovery request. (AP)

"The hours are earlier. I'm out here every day." - Comic Seth Meyers, saying that picketing for the Writers Guild strike is harder than working on "Saturday Night Live"