酒店名媛帕丽斯·希尔顿因在缓刑期间无牌驾驶，被洛杉矶法院起诉。5月4日她在父母和律师的陪同下前往法庭接受审讯，法官批评她明知自己被吊销驾照还仍公然违法驾车，属知法犯法行为，因此裁定她须入狱45天﹗
The stunning decision capped a two-hour hearing in which prosecutors argued that Hilton was thumbing her nose at the court and seeking to be placed above the law, while defense lawyers said she was being singled out for harsh treatment because of her celebrity.
Taking the witness stand in her own defense, the star of the reality TV show "The Simple Life" testified that she was unaware her driving privileges had been completely suspended at the time police stopped her and impounded her car>Hilton said her publicist, Elliot Mintz, had told her she was permitted to drive for work-related reasons after the first 30 days of her license suspension late last November, and that she relied>But the judge said he did not believe Hilton, pointing to a notice she had received from a police officer, and had signed, during another traffic stop in January.
He said Hilton had "completely ignored" that notice, which she had carried in her glove box for weeks, and another license suspension notice sent to her office address by the Department of Motor Vehicles that Hilton said she never saw.
"In my opinion, there's not doubt that she knew that her license had been suspended," the judge said. "She doesn't look at her mail, her personal assistant never goes through it either. ... I think she just wanted to disregard everything that was said and continued to drive no matter what."
"I'M SORRY"
In a final statement before she was sentenced, Hilton, dressed in a gray waist jacket, white blouse and black pants, her blond hair tied back in a pony tail, stood before the judge and denied that she had sought to flout the law.
"I did what I was told. I would never drive just because I want to. I follow the law and I respect the law. From now>But the judge was unmoved.
Vocabulary:
suspend：吊销（执照）
thumb her nose：蔑视
impound：扣押