Diana Ross' Jail Redo?

by Joal Ryan
Mar 10, 2004, 12:00 PM PT



And you thought Diana Ross was demanding...

The diva has met her picky match in a judge who says the jail time the music legend did in Connecticut to settle an Arizona drunken driving rap wasn't good enough.

As a result, the lady may be singing the jailhouse blues again. Ross, who turns 60 on March 26, has been ordered back to the Grand Canyon State for an April 1 hearing to determine if she should be sent back to the big house to get her inmate steps down right.

To be fair, Tucson City Magistrate T. Jay Cranshaw isn't exactly pulling a Miss Ross. He says he's just going by the book.

Ross "served her jail time in Greenwich, Connecticut, in less than 24-hour increments, which is not in accordance with Arizona law," Cranshaw's Tucson City Court said in a statement Wednesday.

According to the Arizona Daily Star, Cranshaw informed Ross' camp last week that the singer's Feb. 9-12 tour of duty at the police department in the posh Greenwich suburb wasn't going to cut it.

Ross endured no more than 22-and-two-thirds hours at a time behind bars, once clocking just under three hours before going out for the evening, per a report given to Cranshaw by Greenwich police, the paper reported.

According to the Daily Star, Ross' cell-block life progressed thusly:


5:30 p.m., Feb. 9: Go behind bars.
4 p.m., Feb. 10: Leave bars behind.
6 p.m., Feb. 10: Behind.
8:30 p.m., Feb. 10: Leave.
8 a.m., Feb. 11: Behind.
6 a.m., Feb. 12: Leave. For good.

For those keeping score at home, that's a total of just under 48 hours spent in the not-so-nice hole. Per Ross' Feb. 9 no-contest plea to driving under the influence, the supreme Supremes star was to spend 48 hours, precisely and apparently consecutively, in lockup.

"There are a lot of things that have not been exposed in the court file yes," Ross attorney James Nesci told the Daily Star. "There are extenuating circumstances that will be presented to the court on Ms. Ross' behalf."

In the paper, Nesci hinted that one explanation for Ross' sporadic jail time was the availability, or lack thereof, of female Greenwich officers to supervise the entertainer.

Phone calls seeking comment from Greenwich Police Chief James Walters were not returned Wednesday.

In the Greenwich Time last month, Walters declared that Ross' "obligation was fulfilled."

At the time, Ross and the Greenwich police were under scrutiny after the New York Daily News reported the diva's version of hard time included ordering take out and bunking down in her own comforter.

Nesci denied Ross received special treatment.

"She spent her time in the Greenwich jail cell block [with] a steel toilet and a steel sink and a polished steel mirror and a cut, under lock and key," the attorney told the Daily Star.

Nesci didn't deny Ross feasted on take-out, and that's because, he said, all the inmates there do. The Greenwich jail doesn't have a kitchen.

Ross won't be so fortunate if she's called upon to put in an appearance in a Tucson jail--the Daily Star said the local minimum security facility has a sandwich machine and a hot kitchen. Outgoing calls to Domino's not allowed.

The "Endless Love" balladeer's seemingly endless legal woes date back to Dec. 30, 2002, when she was pulled over by police in Tucson after a motorist spotted her driving in the wrong traffic lane.

She was allowed to her serve her jail sentence in Greenwich, where she has a five-acre estate (and where she's appealing a $168,000 property tax bill), because that's typically the way Arizona authorities let things work for out-of-towners who run afoul of the law.

In addition to a two-day jail term, Ross was placed on one year's unsupervised probation, and ordered to undergo alcohol counseling.

Ross' home life, meanwhile, has not lacked for drama of late, either. Arne Naess, her most recent ex-husband and father of two of her children, died in a mountain-climbing accident in January. A month later, Ross found herself ferociously denying tabloid reports claiming she had hooked up romantically with, and was planning to marry, Liza Minnelli's estranged husband, David Gest.

I loved her in Lady Sings the Blues

I wonder if she was singin'

"I'm coming out, I want the world to know, got to let it show...

Man life's a bitch when you're famous and doing jail time. Just ask Robert Downey Jr.

guitarslinger44 said:

I like Robert Downey Jr. Is he back in the slammer??? Is he not in rehab still?