Paris Hilton charged with cocaine possession; Heiress thought it was gum

08/30/2010 by Corinne Heller

Paris Hilton has been charged with possession of 0.8 grams of cocaine, which is a felony, and a criminal complaint released on Monday says the 29-year-old hotel heiress and reality star "willfully" possessed the bindle containing the drug but told police "she had not seen it but now thought it was gum."

On August 27, Las Vegas police arrested Hilton and her boyfriend, nightclub manager Cy Waits, after the officers detected a "strong smell of marijuana" coming from their 2009 Cadillac Escalade, according to the document. They were later released.

"This matter will be dealt with in the courts not in the media and I encourage people not to rush to judgment until all of the facts have been dealt with in a court of law," Hilton's attorney David Chesnoff had said after the arrest, which marked Hilton's third drug-related incident for Hilton in the last two months.

Hilton is set to be arraigned on October 27 in Clark County District Court, CNN said. If convicted of the low-grade felony, she is expected to get probation but could be sent to jail for up to four years if she violates its terms.

The criminal complaint says that before the couple's arrest, when the police first looked over in the couple's direction, Hilton started to roll a car window up. An officer told Waits, the driver, to pull over. About 100 people walking nearby recognized the heiress and crowded the vehicle. (See a video of Hilton being questioned by police.)

The report said Hilton said she was "extremely embarrassed, due to all the people taking pictures of her and she did not want to be seen by them." She said she wanted to stay near Waits but needed to use the restroom and asked an officer to accompany her to the nearby Wynn Hotel, where her boyfriend manages his nightclub, to "prevent her from being molested by the growing crowd".

A policeman took Hilton inside the building and had her place her purse on a table as they waited for a female officer to arrive to take her to the restroom. The heiress said she "needed to put some lip balm on" and the policeman handed her the purse.

"As she began to open it, I saw a small bindle of what I believed to be cocaine in a clear baggy begin to fall from the purse and into my hand. I then immediately took the purse and dropped the bindle back on the top," the officer said in the complaint.

He then showed the bindle to the female officer when she arrived and arrested Hilton for possession of a controlled substance.

"After I read Hilton her Miranda rights, she told me the purse was not hers and that she had borrowed it from a friend," the officer said. "She also said several cosmetic items inside the purse were not hers, but the $1,300 cash and credit cards were hers. I asked Hilton whose cocaine it was and she said she had not seen it but now thought it was gum."

The purse also contained a broken tablet of Albuterol, which is used to treat breathing problems, and a package of Zig Zag wrappers, which are used to roll marijuana joints and tobacco cigarettes. The heiress said both was hers. A test later showed that the bindle found inside her purse did indeed contain 0.8 grams of cocaine.

On July 16, Hilton was held by police on the French island of Corsica for possession of marijuana. It was less than a gram in her purse and police soon released her without pressing charges. On July 2, she was detained in South Africa for marijuana possession at the World Cup. Hilton was later cleared of those charges too and the local police apologized to her publicly for the incident.

Hilton's latest arrest incident also marks another dramatic incident for Hilton this month. On Aug. 24, Hilton said a man armed with two knives tried to break into her house, while a police spokesperson later confirmed a man who had broken into her Sherman Oaks home carrying such weapons was arrested.

Hilton pleaded no contest in 2007 to alcohol-related reckless driving and was sentenced to 45 days in jail. She spent 23 days behind bars.