LYNWOOD, Calif. - Nicole Richie has been released from jail, just 82 minutes after the pregnant TV reality star checked in for what started out as a 90-hour sentence for driving under the influence of drugs.
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Maribel Rizo says the reality show star, who checked into jail in the Los Angeles suburb Lynwood at 3:15 p.m. local time, was released at 4:37 p.m. based on her sentence and federal guidelines.
Rizo refused comment when asked whether Richie spent her brief sentence in a jail cell.
A call to Richie's lawyer, Shawn Chapman Holley, was not immediately returned.
An email message to her publicist Nicole Perna was not immediately answered.
The brief jail stint took place at the county jail for women, the same place her The Simple Life co-star Paris Hilton was housed for nearly three weeks after she was convicted of driving on a suspended licence while on probation for an alcohol-related reckless driving case.
Richie pleaded guilty in late July to a misdemeanour DUI charge in a deal with prosecutors that helped her avoid a potential year in jail on a second alcohol-related conviction.
Her first conviction was in 2003, for driving under the influence of alcohol.
She was arrested again Dec. 11, 2006, after witnesses reported seeing her black Mercedes-Benz sport utility vehicle headed the wrong way on a freeway in Burbank. The California Highway Patrol said they found her parked in the car-pool lane.
Richie, the daughter of Lionel Richie, told authorities she had smoked marijuana and taken the prescription painkiller Vicodin, a CHP officer said at the time. No drugs were found on her or in the car.
Richie had the option of serving 90 hours either in county jail or at any city jail. She would have had to serve the full sentence in a city lockup.
