She Can Choose the Jail but Not the Wardrobe

If convicted cop-slapper Zsa Zsa Gabor opts for jail in America instead of a castle in Germany, she can expect to receive a simple, light blue dress and a room without a view.

“Absolute total boredom” is what awaits the former Miss Hungary, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. Joseph Surgent, acting captain of the Sybil Brand Institute, the women’s jail in East Los Angeles.

Gabor was sentenced Tuesday to 72 hours of incarceration for striking a Beverly Hills police officer.

But she and her husband, Prince Frederick von Anhalt of West Germany, had indicated that a jail sentence might prompt them to move to one of their estates in the European nation.

Beverly Hills Municipal Judge Charles G. Rubin gave Gabor the option of serving time in any jail in the county, meaning that she may choose a small, municipal jail rather than Sybil Brand. The courts provide the option as a way of easing overcrowding in county facilities.

“I don’t know that it makes a great deal of difference where she goes,” Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner said. “Jail is jail, and when you hear that slammer close behind you, it’s really all the same.”

If Gabor, reportedly 66, does choose Sybil Brand, Surgent said he could assure her that she will not encounter lesbians--a fear the actress expressed during her trial.

Because of her notoriety, Gabor will be segregated from other inmates for her own protection, the jail official said.

“She is not going to walk a foot out of her cell where she will not be escorted by a deputy,” Surgent said.

Although most of Brand’s 2,047 inmates sleep in bunk beds in overcrowded, barracks-style facilities, the segregation of Gabor should not be considered “special treatment,” Surgent said.

Inmates who are celebrities, political figures or law enforcement personnel--or inmates who are close relatives of celebrities, political figures or law enforcement personnel--are routinely segregated from the general jail population as a safety precaution, the lieutenant said.

All female inmates in Los Angeles County are booked at Sybil Brand before being jailed there or in the county’s Mira Loma facility in Lancaster.

Mira Loma “does not have housing for high-profile inmates who need to be segregated for their own security,” said Sheriff’s Lt. Diana Corrington at the Lancaster jail.

Whether Gabor chooses a county jail or a city jail, she will pay for the cost of her incarceration, Reiner said.

Like other inmates at Sybil Brand, Surgent said, Gabor would undergo a “pat down” search for weapons or contraband. She would be issued blue jail garb.

While her paper work was processed, she would be placed in an 8-by-10-foot holding tank furnished with only a bench and a toilet.

Later, Surgent said, Gabor would be escorted to a segregation cell.

The last celebrity accorded such treatment was television personality Cynthia Garvey, who was jailed briefly earlier this month for contempt of court in a child-custody battle with her ex-husband, former baseball star Steve Garvey.