Michelle Rodriguez begins 6-month jail term

Actress Michelle Rodriguez smiles during the 32nd Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto September 8, 2007. Rodriguez began a 180-day jail term in Los Angeles on Sunday for probation violation, the second Hollywood celebrity after Kiefer Sutherland to face a Christmas incarceration.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actress Michelle Rodriguez began a 180-day jail term in Los Angeles on Sunday for probation violation, the second Hollywood celebrity after Kiefer Sutherland to face a Christmas incarceration.

According to Los Angeles County Sheriff's Dept. records, the former "Lost" star checked in to Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, south of downtown Los Angeles, under her given name, Mayte. Michelle is her middle name.

Rodriguez must serve the full stretch in the overcrowded jail, where sentences for minor crimes are often cut short. In November, actress Lindsay Lohan served 84 minutes of a 1-day sentence, while reality TV starlet Nicole Richie was released 80 minutes into her 4-day term in August.

A judge sentenced Rodriguez in October for violating her probation on previous drunken-driving and hit-and-run offenses, and specified that she not be granted work furlough, early release or home confinement.

Rodriguez admitted failing to complete community service obligations. She was also found to have consumed alcohol on at least three occasions while wearing a monitoring bracelet around her ankle, in violation of a probation requirement that she refrain from drinking for 90 days.

The probation violation stems from a 2004 plea of no contest -- the equivalent of guilty -- to three traffic offenses in Los Angeles, including hit-and-run and drunken driving violations. She was previously sentenced to 60 days in jail for a probation violation in May 2006, but was released after just four hours and 20 minutes due to overcrowding.

Rodriguez rose to fame in 2000, playing a feisty pugilist in the indie film "Girlfight." She went on to star in such movies as "The Fast and the Furious" and "Blue Crush." Her "Lost" character, police officer Ana-Lucia Cortez, was killed off after about two dozen episodes.

Sutherland, the star of the action series "24," began a 48-day term in another Los Angeles-area jail on December 5 for drunken driving.

(Reporting by Dean Goodman; Editing by Alan Elsner)