PEELER’S PROGRESS

UPDATE We know what Zsa Zsa’s doing. But what’s CAROL PEELER, the socialite who pleaded guilty last year in the multi-million dollar Hillcrest Securities tax fraud scheme, doing in her 1,000 hours of forced community service?

Peeler wasn’t interested in talking, dahlink, so we moved on to Judge JOE FISH, the man who sentenced her, and he referred us to Peeler’s probation officer, who sent us up to the chief, AL HAVENSTRITE. Al told us all kinds of things about community service sentencing, but he insisted that Peeler’s gig was not public information.

So we went back to Peeler’s prosecutors with the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., but they weren’t at any of the numbers we had when we first wrote about Peeler (“Whose Case Is It, Anyway?”) in June of 1989. So began the search through the 96 offices that house U.S. attorneys in D.C. Finally, we found prosecutor MICHAEL SHEPARD along about office number 26.

All Shepard knew for sure was that Peeler was working off her hours and that her attorneys had filed a motion to have her sentence reduced, specifically her $250,000 in fines and restitution. And he knew that the government opposes any reduction.

Still minus a straight answer, we went back to the judge, who said he would go to the law and get us a ruling.

The final verdict: not public information. Court’s discretion. And the court, when it comes to Peeler, has chosen to be discreet.