Live Updates: GH star Haley Pullos released from jail, judge issues a stark warning!
General Hospital star Haley Pullos finished a three-months jail sentence for DUI Monday – but was then immediately placed on probation for five years and ordered to work 200 hours of community service.
The glamorous 26-year-old actress – who pleaded no contest in April to driving the wrong way on a Los Angeles freeway while she was drunk and high, causing a near-fatal crash – also lost her driver’s license for a year and must complete a nine-month alcohol education program and undergo mental health treatment.
The sentence was handed down by Judge Terry Smerling at a court hearing in Pasadena, California, where he also ordered Pullos to pay more than $8,000 in restitution to the injured driver whose car she smashed into.
General Hospital star Haley Pullos, 26, appeared in court on Monday in an orange jump suit as she was released from jail and placed on probation
Pullos – who let her long blonde hair flow over orange jump suit prior to being released later in the day – was warned by the judge never to drink and drive again.
And, he added, ‘God forbid you cause an accident in the future and somebody dies, you will be charged with murder.’
About an hour after Monday’s brief hearing, smiling Pullos was released from a side gate of the Pasadena courthouse, telling DailyMail.com exclusively, ‘I’m very happy to be going home.’
Wearing a black paper jail release suit and sunglasses and holding a book from Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series and a carton of orange juice, she ran into the arms of her waiting parents, Alex and Judy Pullos, hugging them as she cried tears of joy at being free after 90 days behind bars.
Although she was freed, the 26-year-old also lost her driver’s license for a year and must complete a nine-month alcohol education program and undergo mental health treatment
Also greeting her was a bearded man believed to be one of her two brothers who was holding the family dog, and actress Nancy Lee Grahn, 68 – who played Pullos’s mother on General Hospital.
‘Thank you so much for coming,’ Pullos told Grahn before heading off with her parents in a gray Ford Fusion.
Earlier in the proceedings, Judge Smerling granted Pullos her request to take a two week trip out of the country in the fall with her parents, Alex and Judy Pullos, who were in court as their daughter was released.
Pullos – who prosecutors said had a blood alcohol level of 0.25 per cent, more than three times the legal limit – originally pleaded not guilty to two DUI charges and another count of hit-and-run following the April 2023 accident.
But in a deal with LA’s District Attorney, she changed her plea to no contest on one DUI and in exchange, the DA dropped the other one plus the hit and run.
Pullos – who started playing Molly Lansing-Davis on the popular daytime soap opera when she was 11 – was also ordered Monday to pay $8,260 in restitution to 24 year-old Courtney Wilder, whose car she collided head-on with on the 134 Ventura Freeway in Pasadena.
Wilder, who was rushed in critical condition to a local hospital to undergo emergency surgery, is now suing the actress in civil court, seeking damages for negligence.
Pullos was charged with a first count of felony DUI causing injury and a second of driving with over 0.08 blood alcohol content causing injury. The first count was the one that was dismissed in the plea deal.
Also dismissed was a hit-and-run charge resulting from Pullos running into a parked car just before the freeway crash. But though prosecutors dropped that count, she will still have to pay restitution to the owner of the car she damaged.
Police say that Pullos, who was dropped from General Hospital a month after the accident, drove her white 2019 Ford Fusion westbound on to the eastbound 134 Freeway and smashed into Wilder’s Kia which was traveling east at 60mph.
Haley’s parents, Akex and Judy Pullos, look on as their daughter appeared in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday
When she was arrested, prosecutors Pullos had a blood alcohol level of 0.25 per cent, more than three times the legal limit
Pullos seen leaving court, where she walked free on probation was ordered to pay more than $8,000 in restitution to the driver whose car she smashed into
‘Despite having just caused two accidents, one of which resulted in serious, life-threatening injuries, she cared more about her overpriced clothing than she did the safety and all-being of the victim of her reckless, intentional and despicable conduct.
‘As more evidence of her abhorrent behavior, Haley Pullos continued to fight medical staff and was forced to be sedated.
‘Not only was she driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, but she was drinking behind the wheel, as evidenced by the edible wrappers and empty alcohol bottles which were found in her vehicle,’ Wilder added.
Pullos – who was spotted by DailyMail.com checking into a luxury rehab facility in Malibu a few weeks after the crash – is fighting Wilder’s civil lawsuit against her, insisting it was he who was to blame, not her.
And she is asking the judge to dismiss the suit and order Wilder to pay her legal fees.
In January, Wilder added Pasadena’s No Comment Lounge – where Pullos was working as a hostess the night of the accident – as a defendant in his civil lawsuit, accusing the popular nightspot of plying her with booze, then letting her drive herself home.
Wilder is also suing the State of California Transportation Department, claiming the road where the accident happened is in ‘dangerous condition.’
