Maybe being a rich, young great-grandson of hotel magnate Conrad Hilton – a great-grandson who believes the rest of us are “peasants” – isn’t as great as we might assume.
Conrad Hughes Hilton, 22, already made headlines when he was cuffed during an international flight disruption. That’s when he referred to fellow passengers as “peasants.” In a separate incident, he was arrested for allegedly violating a restraining order keeping him away from an ex-girlfriend.
And now he’s pleading guilty to a charge of evading arrest during a high-speed chase in his pricey BMW on a major freeway that is used for travel from Los Angeles to the Palm Springs area.
Hilton, after entering the plea in a Riverside County courtroom in Indio, was sentenced to 90 days in sheriff’s custody, with 89 days in the work release program.
Hilton was charged with one felony count of reckless evading of a peace officer, stemming from a 2014 incident in which he fled from a California Department of Fish and Game officer attempting to pull him over for speeding.
Hilton pleaded not guilty to the charge in September, but withdrew the plea Wednesday during a felony settlement conference and was granted three years probation.
In a declaration in support of an arrest warrant, Fish and Game Officer Jason Green wrote that on Aug. 23, 2014, he saw Hilton driving recklessly on eastbound Interstate 10 in Calimesa, nearly colliding with several other vehicles in the process.
Green tried to pull Hilton’s BMW over to the side, but Hilton sped away, prompting a short pursuit that Green wrote involved Hilton driving more than 100 mph and swerving into the dirt center median. Green eventually lost sight of the BMW “in a cloud of dust” and ended the pursuit for safety reasons.
About a half-hour later, Green received word that a BMW matching the description of Hilton’s car had crashed on Interstate 10 at Date Palm Drive in Cathedral City. Hilton was cut out of the car by emergency crews and hospitalized for a broken hand before being arrested.
The arrest came a month after an enraged Hilton was restrained and handcuffed by flight attendants on a transcontinental flight following an outburst in which he called fellow passengers “peasants” and accused the crew of “taking the peasants’ side,” according to an affidavit prepared by an FBI agent who investigated that disturbance.
During the nearly 11-hour flight, Hilton physically threatened two flight attendants and repeatedly smoked marijuana and cigarettes in an airplane lavatory, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Last spring, Hilton pleaded guilty in a Los Angeles federal courtroom to causing a disruption aboard an international flight, telling a judge that he checked into a rehabilitation facility afterward and was medicated for the “psychotic breakdown.”
Hilton was sentenced in June to three years probation, 750 hours of community service and fined $5,000 in that case, and vowed to the judge that he would stay out of trouble.
However, six days later, he was arrested again for allegedly violating a restraining order by going to his ex-girlfriend’s Hollywood Hills home.
–Staff and wire reports