See the update at the end of this post about Lindsay Lohan apparently spending three minutes in the Newport Beach rehab before resurfacing at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage late Thursday.
Lindsay Lohan is Newport Beach's now, bitches!
No, she's not here for the next 90 days to show off bikinis, nor shoot a movie, catch a rave or follow a band who has no interest in her.
The hot mess of an actress has checked into the Morningside Recovery drug rehab.
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But her stay was threatened by the prospect of going to jail.
To set things up for those who do not watch E! News: When Lohan's Porsche crashed into the back of a truck in Santa Monica on June 8, she was already on probation for her May 2011 no-contest plea to a misdemeanor grand-theft charge for sticky-fingering a necklace from a Venice jewelry store. She told officers she'd been a passenger in her own car, they determined she'd been behind the wheel, and that led to her no-contest plea to reckless driving and a sentence of probation, counseling, community service and a mandatory drug-rehab stay.
She arranged through her lawyer to enter a rehab in New Jersey, near her new home in New York. But after checking in at the Seafield Center, she discovered it did not permit smoking, so she decided to pack 270 outfits for a 90-day stay in Morningside Recovery.
After missing one flight from New York yesterday, Lohan got a ride on a private jet bound for Southern California. There was just one problem: Her choice of rehab had to have been approved by the court.
Without the court's okay to enter Morningside, Lohan faced the possibility of having violated her probation. She could have had to serve 180 days behind bars, the sentence that was stayed as part of her original plea bargain deal pending completion of the counseling, community service and rehab.
At a hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court this morning, Lohan's New York-based attorney, Mark Heller, produced a letter for Judge James R. Dabney from Morningside, showing that Lohan is in treatment there.
But Terry White, a Santa Monica assistant city attorney, said he had three newspaper articles critical of Morningside. Heller offered to have Dabney speak directly with someone at Morningside about the rehab.
Dabney set a May 10 hearing to ensure all parties are satisfied with Lohan's treatment at Morningside and ordered Heller to show proof Lohan completed the program by July 31.
According to a City News Service report, the judge also warned the attorneys against leaking any information from Lohan's treatment reports, saying the news media has “been quite impressive” in getting information.
Come on down, paparazzi, parking's never a problem in Newps!
UPDATE, MAY 3, 9:09 A.M.: Uh, message to paparazzi: RE-ROUTE! RE-ROUTE!
After Thursday morning's legal drama that had both sides and the judge agreeing that Lindsay Lohan could fulfill her court-ordered rehab at Morningside Recovery in Newport Beach, the troubled actress reportedly turned up at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage.
That is, of course, the rehab where Lohan fought with a staffer in 2010, producing a police call, civil suits and counter suits.
The Stir reports Lohan showed up at Morningside around 11 a.m. Thursday, spent 3 minutes there and split, possibly to go shopping at a nearby electronics store.
But if that was a reference to Fry's Electronics in Fountain Valley, the timing is apparently off. Photos for paparazzi, who had been on stakeout in Orange County since late Wednesday, are turning up of Lohan at Fry's around 9 a.m.–a half hour after her attorney Mark Heller told a judge in LA his client was safely “in the bosom” of Morningside Recovery.
TMZ gets the scoop on LiLo popping up at Betty Ford late Thursday night. Perhaps this is part of a sentimental journey, as Harvey Levin's gossip site also has Lohan re-hiring LA attorney Shawn Holley, who is reported to have cut a deal with Terry White of the Santa Monica City Attorney's office to make Betty Ford the latest acceptable rehab for Her Hot Messness.
White might have been in the mood to deal because of concerns he'd previously expressed about Morningside. “A CBSLA investigation” found that eight of 11 listed facilities operating under “Morningside Recovery, LLC” are unlicensed. That report prompted Morningside CEO Mary Helen Beatificato to issue a statement that began, “It has been reported in the media that Morningside has no license/certification to provide drug and alcohol treatment. This is completely false.”
TMZ added in its coverage that Lohan was moments away from having an arrest warrant issued against her when she checked in to the desert rehab.
Waldo was easier to keep track of.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.