Arraignment Rescheduled After Conrad Hilton Fails to Show in Indio

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By City News Service

Conrad Hughes Hilton, the younger brother of Paris Hilton, failed to appear for his scheduled arraignment in Indio on Monday, but a judge agreed to a request by his attorney to not enforce a bench warrant as long as the 21-year-old Los Angeles man attends a rescheduled hearing on Sept. 17.

Hilton was charged in April with felony reckless evasion of a peace officer following a pursuit on Interstate 10 in August 2014. The chase ended with Hilton’s 2013 BMW colliding with a car and a big rig near Cathedral City, leaving him with a broken hand.

During today’s hearing at the Larson Justice Center, Superior Court Judge Dale R. Wells said he had spoken with Hilton’s lawyer, Richard A. Hutton, and based on the reason he was given, he decided to issue and hold the bench warrant. Wells granted a request by prosecutors that the warrant amount be raised to $500,000.

Neither the judge nor the defense attorney disclosed why Hilton was not present.

Hilton was arrested May 16 in Riverside at 12:40 p.m., when he turned himself in and posted $100,000 bail.

On March 17, Conrad Hilton pleaded guilty in Los Angeles federal court to causing a disruption aboard an international flight last summer, telling the judge that he checked into a rehabilitation facility afterward and was medicated for the “psychotic breakdown.”

An enraged Hilton was restrained and handcuffed by flight attendants after an outburst in which he called fellow passengers “peasants” and accused the crew of “taking the peasants’ side,” according to an affidavit written by an FBI agent who investigated the 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.

He was sentenced June 16 to three years probation, 750 hours of community service and a $5,000 fine in that case, and vowed to a judge that nothing like that would ever happen again.

But six days later he was arrested again for allegedly violating a restraining order by going to his ex-girlfriend’s Hollywood Hills home. Proceedings are pending in that case.