Diana Ross Does Time

Supremes diva spends two days in Connecticut jail as part of DUI sentence

By Lia Haberman Feb 13, 2004 5:30 PMTags

She's coming out, but Diana Ross doesn't necessarily want the world to know.

The R&B diva quietly served a two-day sentence at a Connecticut jail earlier this week in connection with her Arizona conviction on charges of driving under the influence.

"That obligation was fulfilled here," Police Chief James Walters told the Greenwich Time newspaper on Thursday. "That's about all I can add."

Ross is a resident of upscale Greenwich, Connecticut, which has a median household income of just under $100,000 per year.

Details about Ross' time in custody were not available, but an unnamed source quoted in the New York Daily News said Ross commuted to and from jail with her own comforter and sent police officers out to pick up her meals.

Takeout aside, it's apparently not unheard-of for visitors to Arizona to serve time for minor crimes outside of the state, a spokesperson for the Tucson Police Department told the newspaper.

Indeed, prosecutors originally expected the superstar to serve her time in Los Angeles, where she has another home.

The switch came just after Ross entered a no-contest plea, via telephone, on Monday.

Tucson City Magistrate T. Jay Cranshaw subsequently convicted the singer of driving under the influence. She was ordered to serve 48 hours in jail before March 9, in addition to undergoing alcohol-abuse counseling and submitting to one year of unsupervised probation. Two related charges were dropped.

The 59-year-old Motown legend was busted in the name of safety on Dec. 30, 2002, after a fellow Tucson motorist reported seeing a car driving north in a southbound lane.

A breath test showed Ross had a blood-alcohol level of 0.2 percent, more than twice Arizona's legal limit of 0.08 percent.

Ross' cushy Connecticut incarceration could set off a chain reaction in Tucson, where residents have expressed anger at what they perceive to be a slap-on-the-wrist sentence.

"The public perception is that Diana Ross got away with it," Holly Robles, a member of Pima County Mothers Against Drunk Driving, told the Associated Press after Monday's sentencing.

But the city's court system denied giving Ross the VIP treatment and released a statement saying, "This is the usual sentencing that first-time driving while under the influence of alcohol or DUI offenders get."