By CHRIS TALBOTT
The Associated Press
Wednesday, March 7, 2007; 7:42 PM

JACKSON, Miss. -- The mayor turned himself in at the county jail Wednesday and was booked into the medical ward to await a hearing on whether he violated his probation on a misdemeanor weapons conviction, the sheriff said.

Mayor Frank Melton will be kept away from other inmates but will not have special privileges, Hinds County Sheriff Malcolm McMillin said. Doctors will monitor Melton and make sure he has the correct prescription medication.

"It's like a hospital room, only we can lock the door," McMillin said.

Melton, who recently had heart surgery, checked himself into a hospital with chest pains a week earlier, the day a judge issued a warrant for his arrest.

The mayor, 57, pleaded no contest in November to a misdemeanor charge of carrying a pistol on a college campus and guilty to two other misdemeanor weapons violations. The plea deal spared him from a felony conviction that would have automatically forced him from office.

Melton was given a six-month suspended sentence on each count, one year of probation and fined $1,500.

Melton is a wealthy former TV executive and one-time state drug enforcement agency chief. He won a landslide election in 2005 on the promise of rooting out crime in Jackson.

He became a fixture on nightly newscasts, wearing fatigues, carrying guns and criticizing the district attorney's office for not putting away enough criminals. He cruised the inner city with police and often took troubled children back to his home in a gated community.

A city spokeswoman referred questions Wednesday to Melton's attorney, Dale Danks Jr., who did not immediately return a call. Danks has said the mayor may have violated his curfew.

No hearing date has been announced.

Separately, the mayor and his two former bodyguards are to stand trial April 23 on allegations they had roles in the use of sledge hammers to damage a building the mayor considered a drug haven.