By Meilissa Gentry

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 6/8/07 — Sheriff Lee Baca finally made an appearance today at a thirty minute press conference in Monterey Park to answer any questions that might be under speculation and stood firm on his decision of sending Paris Hilton home.

Baca stated that he sent Paris home “Based on her severe medical conditions.” Apparently Paris has a mental condition and her doctor refused to give out medication information to the sheriff, which made the situation complicated for Baca. Consequently he felt the best decision in Hilton’s case was to let her go and finish her sentence at home.

However Baca has been accused of using his authority before to benefit friends and supporters since he has been in office and according to AP he has accepted thousands of dollars worth of freebie meals, sports tickets and trips. “The Los Angeles Times” last year reported Baca for putting one of his closest friends on the payroll as a $105,000-a-year adviser.

Because of all this, many are subject to think that Baca is back to his old tricks and accusing him of favoritism. But according to Baca, Hilton has been ordered to spend an unusually long amount of time behind bars; going on to state that under his department’s early release program, Hilton would not have served any of her time in jail and would have been put on home electronic monitoring.

John Gregory a reporter for ABC news asked sheriff Baca if he were an inmate and had a medical condition and wouldn’t tell him what medicine was on, would he have to let him go? Baca told him that he deals with this type of thing all the time, which Gregory interrupted with, “I don’t know if he deals with Paris Hilton types…” Baca also informed him that there are currently a total of 2,000 mental inmates in the system.