LOS ANGELES (AP) - Sheriff’s investigators want Lindsay Lohan charged with battery for last month’s skirmish with a Betty Ford Center rehabilitation technician.
A two-week investigation shows Lohan violated her probation during the Dec. 12 altercation and details will be sent to the Los Angeles County Probation Department this week, Riverside sheriff’s Sgt. Joe Borja said in a news release.
A Beverly Hills judge has said Lohan will be jailed if she violates probation.
Investigators expect to take their case to the Riverside County district attorney’s office this week for possible prosecution, Borja said.
Lohan returned to the Palm Desert drug dependency center after curfew and refused rehab worker Dawn Holland’s request to take a Breathalyzer test. Lohan is accused of pushing Holland, who then dialed 911, and Lohan ripped the phone away and injured Holland’s wrist.
Lohan was scheduled to get out of rehab Monday, but there were conflicting reports about whether the 24-year-old actress was released, the latest bout of uncertainty for her.
TMZ reported that Lohan was still taking sobriety classes at the center and would come back to Los Angeles on Tuesday, though E! insisted that she had departed the facility, citing Lohan’s mother, Dina, who called it “a great day.”
Lohan herself remained silent on Twitter on Monday. Messages for Lohan’s attorney, Shawn Chapman Holley, were not immediately returned. A spokesman for Betty Ford said the facility does not comment on its patients.
Lohan’s father, Michael, was also mum on whether Lohan was actually leaving rehab Monday.
Lohan has been receiving treatment at Betty Ford, about 120 miles east of Los Angeles, since late September. A judge overseeing her probation for her 3 1/2 year-old drunk driving case required Lohan to remain at the rehab center until Monday.
Whether she’s in or out, Lohan faces an uncertain career and looming legal issues. For months, she’s been haunted by her inability, or unwillingness, to shake the drunken driving case that resulted in Lohan’s two separate trips to rehab and jail in 2010.
Despite the latest investigation, experts say Lohan has a good shot at recovery. Provided, of course, that she wants it, changes her party girl lifestyle and remains in continued therapy.
If a New Year’s Day message posted on her Twitter account is any indication, the “Mean Girls” star seems ready to do just that. “Today is the first day of the rest of my life,” it said. “`The future depends on what we do in the present.’ -Mahatma Gandhi… One step at a time…”
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