Sean Penn Moves to L.A. County Jail

Actor Sean Penn has begun serving the remainder of his parole violation sentence in a special cell at the Los Angeles County Jail, where he is separated from other prisoners, authorities said Sunday.

The volatile actor, who will serve 27 days in the facility, checked in at about 11:30 p.m. Saturday night, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Stephen Lee. Penn was taken to a section known as “administrative segregation,” Lee added, which has about 200 single cells. Prisoners there are fed in their cells and do not mix with the nearly 8,000 other inmates.

Sheriff’s deputies don’t call it celebrity status, Lee said. But he noted that the people placed there are “anybody who might be of sufficient notoriety who would be at risk in the general population.”

Penn was ordered to spend 60 days in jail for violating probation stemming from a battery conviction last year. With credit for good behavior, he was required to serve only 33 days.

The 27-year-old actor already served six days in early August in a small rural jail in Bridgeport, in Mono County, before being released to fulfill filming commitments. Those jail accommodations, which Penn paid $80 a day to secure, became controversial when Supervisor Kenneth Hahn questioned whether there could be “equal justice . . . if the rich can be treated differently than the poor.”