DOWNEY JR. GETS OUT OF PRISON

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Actor Robert Downey Jr. was released from prison on
$5,000 bail Wednesday after an appeals court ruled he had served
enough time to fulfill his three-year sentence on drug charges.

A panel of the California Second District Court of Appeal said Downey
was entitled to receive credit for time he served in drug
rehabilitation facilities.

"When those additional time credits are added in, it is obvious
appellant has more than served his sentence," the court's opinion
said.

Bob Martinez, a spokesman for the California Department of
Corrections, said Downey was released at midafternoon from a drug
treatment facility at Corcoran.

Downey, 34, was jailed after he admitted during a probation hearing
that he was missing scheduled drug tests. Superior Court Judge
Lawrence Mira sentenced him Aug. 5, 1999, to three years in prison for
violating his probation.

Downey's lawyers petitioned the appeals court a year into Downey's
sentence, saying that Mira failed to indicate whether the felony
sentence would run concurrently or consecutively with misdemeanor
counts that placed him in rehabilitation.

"He's served a year and he should have been out in February,"
attorney Ross Nabatoff told the court at a hearing last week. "This
is a sad tale."

Downey had already served 53 days in a drug rehab lockdown center as
part of a 15-month sentence for the misdemeanor convictions of driving
under the influence, carrying an unloaded weapon in his car and being
under the influence.

The son of film director Robert Downey earned an Oscar nomination for
his work in the title role in "Chaplin," the 1992 screen biography
of the famed comedian. Other film credits include "Less Than Zero,"
"Natural Born Killers," "One Night Stand," "Two Girls and a Guy"
and "U.S. Marshals."

The actor's legal troubles date to June 1996 when he was stopped for
speeding on the Pacific Coast Highway and authorities found cocaine,
heroin and a pistol in his vehicle.

A month later he was found passed out on a child's bed in a neighbor's
home. Three days later, he was arrested for leaving a recovery center.