Bling Ring

Several celebrities, including Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Orlando Bloom, gathered at the same downtown location two weeks ago for an appearance that had nothing to do with a movie shoot or a club opening. After receiving subpoenas, the stars testified before a Los Angeles County Grand Jury in the case against five reputed members of the "bling ring," who authorities said broke into the stars' Hollywood Hills homes and made off with more than $3 million in art, cash, clothes and jewelry.

In the E! tabloid-esque reality series "Pretty Wild," viewers have watched aspiring starlet Alexis Neiers go from fame-hungry to infamous. The show has mixed the 18-year-old's link to a string of celebrity burglaries alongside her showbiz ambitions, her wild night life and her inane squabbles with her sisters. But Neiers' life is about to go from trying to hang out in bars to going behind bars. Starting June 24, she faces a six-month stint in county jail for her involvement in a burglary at the home of actor Orlando Bloom, a sentence that threatens to put the series on lockdown.

An 18-year-old woman who pursued fame on a cable TV reality show after being prosecuted for her role in the "bling ring" celebrity burglary case agreed Monday to plead no contest to felony residential burglary and was sentenced to six months in jail. Alexis Neiers was a relatively minor player in the burglary ring but took on an outsized role when her arrest and prosecution coincided with production of the E! Entertainment reality show "Pretty Wild," about her and her two sisters growing up in the fast lane in suburban Los Angeles as an aspiring Hollywood starlet.

A convicted drug dealer who allegedly helped a "bling ring" sell off luxury items stolen from the homes of young celebrities, including Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, pleaded no contest Friday to several felonies, authorities said. Jonathan Ajar, known as "Johnny Dangerous," was the fence for the items stolen in at least 10 burglaries that also targeted the residences of Rachel Bilson, Orlando Bloom, Brian Austin Green, Megan Fox, Audrina Patridge and Ashley Tisdale, authorities said.

When David Corvo, executive producer of NBC's "Dateline," heard rumblings at the beginning of the year that "The Jay Leno Show" was on shaky ground, he knew he had to prepare. "I wasn't born yesterday, so I'm always thinking, 'Be ready, be ready,' " Corvo said. "We're the guys who come off the bench." As NBC tries to patch together a new lineup for the 10 p.m. hour, it has called on "Dateline" to fill in the gap on Fridays by stretching the program to two hours, from 9 to 11 p.m., an expanded format that was originally slated to begin in May. That means the newsmagazine has 12 extra hours this spring.

When detectives investigating a rash of burglaries at the homes of young celebrities raided a Westlake Village house in October, they turned up a Marc Jacobs handbag reported stolen by the actress Rachel Bilson, a Chanel necklace reported missing by Lindsay Lohan and an E! channel camera crew filming a reality show. Police booked an 18-year-old who lived in the home on a first-degree residential burglary charge, a felony that carries up to six years behind bars. But for the young woman, Alexis Neiers, and her family, there were worries beyond prison.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge found sufficient cause Tuesday for an alleged member of the "bling ring," which targeted the homes of young Hollywood celebrities, to stand trial for burglarizing actor Orlando Bloom's Hollywood Hills home. Judge Darrell Mavis issued his decision after Los Angeles Police Department officials testified that Alexis Neiers admitted entering the actor's home July 13, that investigators found stolen items belonging to actresses Rachel Bilson and Lindsay Lohan in her Thousand Oaks home and that another alleged burglar identified her in a security video.

A man's home may be his castle, but few of us -- even celebrities -- have moats these days to protect our privacy. That was true long before the "bling ring" allegedly used the Internet to case the cribs of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. Nor did thieves have to wait for the invention of Google maps to reconnoiter neighborhoods in search of easily accessible homes. That's worth remembering if, as we fear, some legislator decides that a law should be passed to prevent Internet surfers from looking at houses they easily could scope out from the sidewalk.

Authorities arrested suspects accused of burglarizing the homes of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and other young celebrities after a member of the alleged "bling ring" confessed, according a search warrant affidavit obtained by The Times. The search warrant said the crew would surf the Internet to find where the celebrities lived, then watched the locations and worked out ways to break into the homes. In many of the cases, the doors were simply left open. In the case of Hilton and actress Rachel Bilson, the crew broke in numerous times, according to the search warrant affidavit filed at a Las Vegas court.

Police recovered Paris Hilton's designer perfume, a pistol belonging to actor Brian Austin Green and a handwritten inventory listing diamonds and other jewelry at the homes of suspects accused of burglarizing the homes of young Hollywood celebrities, according to a search warrant affidavit obtained by The Times. The affidavit by Los Angeles Police Department detectives names five alleged members of the burglary crew -- Jonathan Ajar, Courtney Ames, Roy Lopez Jr., Alexis Neiers and Diana Tamayo -- who were charged last week with residential burglary and other felonies in connection with at least 10 burglaries in the Hollywood Hills from late 2008 to last month.