27 months: Jailing the party parents makes international news
Paris Hilton's teary return to jail made the front page of the June 9 Washington Post. So did another case involving alcohol and jail, but this story is based in Charlottesville.
The tale of George Robinson and ex-wife Elisa Kelly's 27-month jail sentence for serving booze to teens is building steam across America, and it has even jumped oceans to England and Australia.
"They wanted to make sure no one drank and drove, so they held their teenage son's party at home. Now they are going to jail," reads a headline in the Times of London June 11– the same day the local duo began serving their sentence at Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail.
COVER SIDEBAR- Pre-jail interview: 'hindsight is 20/20,' says Robinson
There's one party George Robinson will never forget: the one that sent him to jail for 27 months.
Nearly five years after Robinson and his now ex-wife, who has changed her name from Elisa Robinson to Elisa Kelly, were arrested for serving alcohol to teens at the 16th birthday party for one of Kelly's sons, the appeals are up, and on June 11 Robinson and Kelly began serving a 27-month sentence– the harshest sentence anyone around here can remember handed down for serving booze to minors.
And they were originally sentenced to 16 years with eight years suspended, a sentence that stunned the community in 2003, when the Robinsons were led shackled out of Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.
George Robinson, 52, remembers Kelly's son, Ryan Kenty, approaching them about a 16th birthday party. "I said no beer, no alcohol," says Robinson.
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COVER SIDEBAR- Pre-jail interview: 'hindsight is 20/20,' says Robinson
COVER- 27 months: Jailing the party parents makes international news
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