Michelle Rodriguez was released from jail on Wednesday after serving 18 days of a 180-day sentence for violating probation in a drunken driving case.

She was released early under a program that deals with jail overcrowding by allowing nonviolent female inmates to serve as little as 10 percent of their sentence.

The judge who sentenced Rodriguez ordered that she serve the entire sentence. The judge was consulted about the early release but the Sheriff's Department had the final say when jail safety was involved, Whitmore said.

"The sheriff supports, obviously, the desire to have inmates serve their full sentence," but the county has only one women's jail and it is "bursting at the seams," Whitmore said.

Rodriguez was on probation after pleading no contest to drunken driving, hit-and-run and driving on a suspended license in connection with two Hollywood incidents in 2003.
 


Publication date: 11 January 2008   

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