LOS ANGELES – Some of Lucille Ball’s love letters and awards were sold at auction Saturday after a judge ruled to block the sale but imposed a hurdle that the comedienne’s daughter could not overcome.

While Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert O’Brien agreed to block the sale Friday, he imposed a $250,000 bond that Lucie Arnaz Luckinbill would have to pay to get a restraining order issued. Her attorney said the amount was too high and couldn’t be met.

Additional Photos

Gary Morton and Lucille Ball pose after their wedding in New York in 1961. After Ball died in 1989, Morton remarried. On Saturday, his widow sold at auction items belonging to Ball. 1961 Associated Press file

Roman Polanski

“We won on a legal basis, and the judge took it away from us on an economic basis,” said the lawyer, Ronald Palmieri. “That is very sad.”

Luckinbill is the daughter of Ball and her first husband, Desi Arnaz. She sought the return of some of the items after Susie Morton, the widow of Ball’s second husband, offered them for sale.

Ball and Gary Morton were married until Ball died in 1989. He later married Susie Morton.

Items Morton consigned to Heritage Auction Galleries included a Rolls-Royce, some of the couple’s love letters, photos and Ball’s personal items. The items were sold Saturday at an auction conducted online and in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Morton sued Luckinbill last week, seeking a judge’s order allowing the sale to go forward. Luckinbill in turn sought the restraining order Friday. Through Palmieri, she had sought the return of the love letters and Ball’s lifetime achievement awards, which she said would be donated to a museum honoring her mother.

Lawyer Shapiro agrees to represent Lohan

LOS ANGELES – Lindsay Lohan has moved to a substance abuse facility and hired a celebrity lawyer to represent her as she prepares to head to jail for violating probation in a 2007 case.

Robert Shapiro, a key figure on O.J. Simpson’s legal “dream team” in 1995, confirmed Lohan was staying at Pickford Lofts, a treatment center Shapiro founded after his son died of a drug overdose.

Shapiro said Friday that he had agreed to represent Lohan only if she does her jail time and complies with the terms of her probation.

Lohan is scheduled to begin serving a 90-day sentence Tuesday.

Polanski appears in public

MONTREUX, Switzerland – Film director Roman Polanski arrived at the Montreux Jazz Festival on Saturday in his first public appearance since being released from house arrest.

Polanski, 76, arrived in a sport utility vehicle with tinted windows. When he emerged, he was ushered into an elevator. Security personnel protected him from photographers.

His wife, the actress and singer Emmanuelle Seigner, performed shortly after his arrival. “That was the theme to ‘Rosemary’s Baby,’” she said after her first song — a reference to the 1968 film directed by Polanski.

The Oscar-winning director was freed last week from house arrest when the Swiss government refused to extradite him to the United States. He still faces an Interpol warrant in effect in 188 countries for a 1977 child sex case.

Snipes loses tax case appeal

ATLANTA – An appeals court Friday upheld the three-year prison term against action movie icon Wesley Snipes, who was convicted two years ago of failing to file income tax returns for three years.

The opinion by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is the latest blow to Snipes, whose attorneys said the three-year sentence was “unreasonable.”

But the three-judge panel concluded that the Florida federal court that sentenced Snipes “acted well within its considerable discretion.”

The actor has been free on bail while he appealed the tax-evasion convictions. Snipes’ attorney declined to comment. It’s unclear when the actor will have to report to prison.

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