Troubled star Lindsay Lohan’s due back in court twice this week as she will face a new charge of felony grand theft for allegedly stealing a necklace worth $2,500 from a Venice jeweler. The ‘Mean Girls’ star claims the jeweler loaned her the necklace and she plead not-guilty when arraigned earlier this month. Get the details on this story with photos and video below!
Currently on probation for a 2007 DUI offense, LiLo was warned by the judge not to break any more laws now that she’s on bail for a felony. She was released on a bail of $40,000 following her arraignment for the grand theft.
Lindsay Lohan is due back in court twice this week. Once for her probation meeting with her judge, and the second time to face the new charges against her. While the charges against her are grave, there might be hope for the young star yet. A number of questions are being raised about the felony theft case by people involved. According to TMZ, several jewelers appraised the necklace between $800 and $1,000, not the $2,500 the jewelry store was asking.
“It seems to me that the appropriate charge, based on the fair market value of the goods, should have been petty theft and not grand theft,” LiLo’s lawyer, Shawn Chapman Holley said.
Petty theft applies when a stolen item is worth less than $1,000, and only carries a possible sentence of 6 months. If convicted of grand theft, LiLo could face up to 3 ½ years behind bars.
Also in question, and likely to be a focal point of LiLo’s defense, is the testimony of the jewelry store owner. Initially, the owner told police that video surveillance showed the troubled star pocketing the necklace and leaving the store without payment. Later, she revised that statement saying that LiLo had worn the necklace out of the store.
If her lawyers are unable to capitalize on these inconsistencies, the resulting sentence could result in the first major jail-time LiLo would face. Previous jail stints have been shortened due to prosecutors being unable to hold her behind bars on a misdemeanor charge without an option for bail. What do you think of the charges against Lindsay Lohan? Due back in court twice this week, will this be the final blow that lands her behind bars for the foreseeable future? Or will she beat the rap once again?
Photos: www.wenn.com/STS
February 24th, 2011 at 1:18 pm
This is why low level dui and drug arrests should not be charged under the criminal code, but simply as a civil offense. Why? Because her two minor dui arrests were simply observations of something amiss, or probable cause by the police who after their interrogation and testing concluded mild alcohol involvement, a tiny amount of cocaine discarded for evidence purposes. But because these are so highly criminalized her third criminal charge of theft of the necklace becomes such a big deal. They make her seem like a serial criminal, when in fact her earlier charges, four years ago were what happens at some point to your typical college student who drinks and gets behind a wheel. Not the stuff of serious criminals. Now they can micromanage her life over the dui offenses to such an extreme its no wonder she is rebelling. This is supposed to be America, a free country, where people can be themselves without undue interference by the state. Yes theft is considered a real crime, but the rest are recent additions to the criminal code and plain over doing it. The last thing we as citizens need to do is make our criminal justice system a growth industry, because believe me it will use every opportunity to encroach on our freedoms as that feeds its play plan, command and control and bigger budgets.
February 24th, 2011 at 2:02 pm
I think at least up to the necklace incident, the criminal justice system was simply tormenting the girl for what your average college student does at one point in their life. Her main crime was she wasn’t on a campus somewhere protected from the truely mean city streets where you can easily be stopped over anything and arrested. Do you people have any idea what this repeated interaction with the criminal justice system has on ones self esteem? Its not as simple as just paying a fine or staying in jail x number of days, you have to go to rehab, deal with people you don’t want to be around, do drug and alcohol testing for a year or more, is it twice a week for her, plus pay all the charges, and reappear in court periodically. All of this started when she bumped up on a curb in her car and they breathalized and searched her. What do you think people in their young twenties do a quarter of the time? Really bad luck to have such high scrutiny into one’s private life. I wouldn’t assume its just cause she’s a bad person, but an unlucky person. Maybe the necklace slide wouldn’t have happened if they treated her sanely to begin with.
February 24th, 2011 at 5:13 pm
It is interesting how campus police will try and just manage the situation to get it to stop and everyone to go back to their dorms if they arent being too bad. Yet in the city streets zero tolerance rules and the police will arreest you for anything and everything at all rarely using deiscretion like they use to. The campus police, in most places, rely more on communication skills, where as the city police rely on brute force. Its a whole different approach. True there are hard core criminals out on the streets and the danger level is higher, but even suburban citizens now get manhandled and tazed over simple insubordination or talking back. I would say campus police treat the campus community with a lot more respect in general and a lot more like police use to treat their communities. Somehow that has been lost with the militarization of City and State police departments all across the land, where prosecution has taken precedance over simple policing. The unbelievable number of routine proactive traffic stops has created a torrent of new criminals that years back would have not been prosecuted for anything before all the dui and war on drugs and terrorism laws. They would have just gone home, ate dinner, watched tv and gone to bed. Now we make them criminals.
February 27th, 2011 at 10:50 am
no good deed is left unappreciated. Now the news reports she got a substantial speeding ticket going on surface streets. Maybe she does have real issues and doesn’t deserve our sympathy. Oh, the humanity!