Socialite Out of Solitary After 3 Days

A Newport Beach socialite finished three days in solitary confinement Thursday for hoarding items such as jail underwear, towels and olive-drab inmate jumpsuits in her cell, authorities said.

Tina Schafnitz, serving a 10-month sentence for selling cocaine to a Tustin detective, had been hiding the items somewhere in her cell at the James A. Musick Facility in Irvine, Sheriff’s Lt. Tom Garner said.

Garner said he didn’t know exactly what Schafnitz had been stuffing in her locker or under her mattress at the minimum-security facility, but said it included towels and clothing. She spent three days in an isolation cell at the Central Women’s Jail in Santa Ana, with no television, radio or contact with other inmates, as a penalty for hoarding, he said.

“The reason they have that rule is people who have lots of extra clothing tie them together and make rope and throw them over the barbed wire,” Garner said. “And apparently she’s been warned more than once.”

Schafnitz, 39, who had once raised money for the American Heart Assn., the American Cancer Society and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in her high-profile social circle, was arrested March 16. She was sentenced to jail, three years’ probation and a $5,000 fine after pleading guilty to selling $1,000 worth of cocaine to the undercover officer and having a gun in the trunk of her Mercedes.