Arrests in Hollywood burglaries case

Reuters

BREAKING IN: Paris Hilton was one of the celebrities targeted in a string of Hollywood burglaries.

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Police have arrested six people, mostly teens, on suspicion of breaking into the homes of Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom, Lindsay Lohan and other Hollywood figures to satisfy a celebrity obsession and steal from them, authorities said.

"They were rabid consumers of everything celebrity," Los Angeles police officer Brett Goodkin said, adding that the suspects were motivated by "profit and celebrity worship".

Nicholas Prugo, 18, was charged last week with burglary at the homes of Mean Girls actress Lindsay Lohan and reality star Audrina Patridge of MTV show The Hills.

Police investigating the break-ins later arrested Rachel Lee, 18; Courtney Ames, 18; Alexis Neiers, 18; Diana Tamayo, 19; and Roy Lopez Jr, 27 on suspicion of burglary.

Prugo is accused of stealing more than $170,000 in jewellery and clothes and faces up to six years in prison if convicted. The others have not yet been formally charged.

Sean Erenstoft, an attorney for Prugo, said his client and Lee attended the same Los Angeles-area high school along with a couple of the other suspects. "Mr Prugo's involvement was very, very limited," he said.

Aside from Lohan and Patridge, police said celebrity heiress Paris Hilton, Pirates of the Caribbean star Orlando Bloom and The OC star Rachel Bilson were also victims of the burglaries which took place from October 2008 to September 2009.

Hilton's home was burglarised in December 2008 by a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt and gloves, who forced open the front door while she was out. Bloom's home was broken into in July, and he lost cash and jewellery.

After Patridge's home was burglarised in February, she posted to the web surveillance video of a man and a woman rifling through her house.

Blair Berk, an attorney for some of the celebrity victims, told the Los Angeles Times that paparazzi coverage had contributed to the thefts.

"There are only so many shots of a star's back gate before someone, be it a stalker or burglar, goes through it," she told the newspaper.

- Reuters