
After initially reporting that she had been granted permission to phone in her appearance, TMZ.com reported that Judge Michael T. Sauer has ordered Hilton to appear in court Friday afternoon and dispatched a car to pick her up from her Hollywood home. Hilton was in floods of tears when she left her home, handcuffed, to attend the court hearing in the back of a police car. Prosecutors appealed the decision to release Hilton on house arrest yesterday, which would have allowed her to finish her sentence for violating probation at home. Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca insists the decision was made on medical grounds, but critics believe she was granted preferential treatment. The 26-year-old was serving a 23-day sentence in Los Angeles' Century Regional Detention Center for violating her parole following a 2006 drunk-driving arrest.