Lindsay Lohan's soon-to-be fellow jail inmate – CNN Special Investigations Unit - CNN.com Blogs
By Abbie Boudreau
CNN Special Investigations Unit
@AbbieCNN
What do Lindsay Lohan and this man have in common?
Starting July 20, actress Lindsay Lohan will check into Los Angeles County jail to start her 90-day sentence for missing alcohol counseling sessions in violation of her probation. And already, it’s been widely reported that her three-month stint behind bars may be shortened because of jail overcrowding.
Here’s what I find so interesting.
There’s an inmate named Richard Fine who is sitting in a jail cell in L.A. County wishing he could leave, and free up some space for someone else. He’s 70 years old, and has been serving time for more than a year.
Fine is a former attorney who once worked for the Department of Justice. As we first reported in May of 2010, Fine is now being held in contempt of court after he refused to turn over financial documents and answer questions when ordered to pay an opposing party's attorney's fees, according to court documents.
Fine says his contempt order masks the real reason why he's in jail. He claims he's a political prisoner.
"I ended up here because I did the one thing no other lawyer in California is willing to do. I took on the corruption of the courts," Fine said in a jailhouse interview with CNN.
For the last decade, Fine has filed appeal after appeal against L. A. County's Superior Court judges. He says the judges each accept what he calls yearly "bribes" from the county worth $57,000. That's on top of a $178,789 annual salary, paid by the state. The county calls the extra payments "supplemental benefits" - a way to attract and retain quality judges in a high-cost city.
Fine says the judge who put him in contempt of court had received supplemental benefits from the county.
Fine believes the judge should have removed himself from a case involving the county. But that didn’t happen. Fine says he thinks that is the underlying reason the judge slapped a contempt order on him."The reason I'm here is the retaliation of the judges," Fine says. "They figured they're going to throw me in jail and that way they feel that they can stop me."
So far, neither the judge involved in this case, nor Fine seem to be willing to work things out, and end this 16-month imprisonment. This could go on indefinitely.
Fine actually gets an entire cell to himself.
Jail officials tell us he is in solitary confinement for his own protection, since the general population can be dangerous. In fact, Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the L. A. County Sheriff's Department, says Fine's jail cell could be used for a “violent offender.”
I am not placing any judgment on what should or should not happen in Lindsay Lohan’s case or that of other celebrities who have broken the law. But the issue of jail overcrowding has been in the California spotlight for years. And it makes me wonder how many other non-violent L.A. County jail inmates are taking up cell space that could be used by other people who really should be locked up.
Here's the original story.
Filed under: Abbie Boudreau
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