Washington, May 21: Lindsay Lohan will not be arrested when she returns to the United States from the Cannes Film Festival, despite a judge’s order on Thursday that the hard-partying actress be detained for missing a probation hearing in a drunken-driving case.
Hours after an exasperated Beverly Hills judge said Lohan had “no valid excuse” for missing the hearing and issued an arrest warrant, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore told Reuters that the actress’ legal team had posted bail of $100,000.
That is the amount the judge had set as bail for Lohan, in a routine procedure in the U.S. legal system that allows an accused person to avoid jail by providing money that would be forfeited if the individual became a fugitive.
Earlier in the day, Lohan’s attorney, Shawn Chapman Holley, told the judge that Lohan was stranded in France when her passport was stolen at the Cannes festival. Holley said Lohan now has a new passport. It is not known when she will return to Los Angeles.
Judge Marsha Revel issued the arrest warrant for the 23-year-old “Mean Girls” actress after hearing Lohan missed three alcohol education classes imposed in a 2007 drunken driving case. Authorities said at the time that Lohan could potentially be arrested at the airport upon her return to Los Angeles.
Later on Thursday, Lohan’s legal team posted bail, and the warrant was lifted, Whitmore said. “She will not be arrested when she comes back to the U.S.,” he said.
Another court hearing has been set for Monday that Holley is expected to attend, Whitmore said. It was not clear if Lohan would also be there.
At the court hearing Thursday, where Revel faulted Lohan for not being there, the judge said Lohan should undergo random weekly drug and alcohol testing on her return to California, be fitted with an alcohol monitoring bracelet and should not drink any alcohol until a formal hearing to determine whether she has violated her probation.
“If she wanted to be here it looks to the court like she could have been here,” Revel said. “There is really no valid excuse.”
“She has to take this seriously. I warned her before,” said Revel, who in October extended Lohan’s probation after other missed classes and warned her she risked being sent to jail.
The alcohol education classes are part of Lohan’s sentence for a 2007 arrest for drunken driving, reckless driving and driving under the influence of cocaine.
The tabloid staple was photographed hitting the party circuit in Cannes this week, and her frequent night-clubbing in Los Angeles and New York has been a source of celebrity gossip for months.
But officials from the alcohol education program she attends said in court documents that Lohan “has never come (to class) under the influence, been rude or disrespectful” and is “receptive to ideas regarding lifestyle changes”.
Lohan was considered one of Hollywood’s most talented young actresses after films like “Freaky Friday” and “Mean Girls.” But her life has spun out of control despite three stints in rehab.
In her last movie role with a U.S. theatrical release, Lohan played a stripper in the 2007 box-office flop “I Know Who Killed Me.” She was dropped last month from a movie project after the film’s financial backers deemed her “unbankable.”
—-Agencies