Michelle Rodriguez has found her way out of jail. The Latina actress was recently released from a Los Angeles County women’s jail after serving 18 days of a 180-day sentence for violating probation in a drunken driving case.
The troubled actress 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 same thing happened two years ago when Rodriguez served just one day of a 60-day jail sentence for probation violation.
Rodriguez was sentenced in October for failing to prove she had done community service and for drinking while wearing an alcohol monitoring device.
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. While still on probation, she spent five days in a Hawaii jail in 2005 after pleading guilty to drunken driving there, which led to her one-day jail term in Los Angeles for probation viola
Brad Renfro, was found dead Tuesday in his home. He was 25.
Paramedics pronounced him dead at 9 a.m., said Craig Harvey, chief investigator for the Los Angeles County coroner's office. The cause of death was not immediately determined, Harvey said, but an autopsy could be conducted as early as Wednesday.
Renfro had reportedly been drinking with friends the evening before his death,
Renfro's lawyer, Richard Kaplan, said he did not know whether the death was connected to any problems with addiction.
"He was working hard on his sobriety," Kaplan said. "He was doing well. He was a nice person."
Renfro recently completed a role in "The Informers," a film adaptation of a Bret Easton Ellis novel that stars Winona Ryder, Brandon Routh and Billy Bob Thornton.
"Brad was an exceptionally talented young actor and our time spent with him was thoroughly enjoyable," Marco Weber, president of the film's production house, Senator Entertainment, said in a statement.
The actor served 10 days in jail in May 2006 after pleading no contest to driving while intoxicated and guilty to attempted possession of heroin.
The latter charge stemmed from his arrest in Los Angeles' Skid Row area, when he attempted to buy heroin from an undercover officer in 2005.
For several years he was better known for that drug bust and the resulting criminal case than for acting.
After one court appearance, he talked to reporters about drug rehabilitation, saying he was "tired of paying the consequences" for drinking and drug use and eager to get clean.
.png)
