A judge sentenced a tearful Paris Hilton to 45 days in jail Friday, ruling that the hotel heiress knowingly disobeyed the law and drove her car without a valid license while on probation for an earlier traffic offense.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Sauer sternly rejected Hilton’s defence that she was misinformed about her license status and ordered the 26-year-old socialite to report to a county detention facility on June 5.

Hilton wept and her mother, Kathy, yelled at the prosecutor, ‘You’re pathetic,’ as the packed courtroom cleared.

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 defence lawyers said she was being singled out for harsh treatment because of her celebrity.

Taking the witness stand in her own defence, 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 on Feb. 27.

Hilton said she had relied on information conveyed to her by her publicist, Elliot Mintz, who she said told her that she was permitted to drive for work-related reasons after the first 30 days of her license suspension late last November.

But the judge said he disbelieved Hilton, declaring that the ‘smoking gun’ in the case was a notice she had received from a police officer, and had signed, during an earlier 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.’

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 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 on I want to pay complete attention to everything,’ she said. ‘I just want to say I’m sorry.’

[Reuters | Via]