LOS ANGELES (AP) - Lindsay Lohan was freed from house arrest Wednesday morning, ending a drama-filled 35 days and opening the next chapter in the troubled starlet’s efforts to put her court troubles behind her.
Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said Lohan’s electronic monitoring equipment was removed shortly before 10 a.m. and she was removed from the jail system around 10:20 a.m.
Lohan is not entirely free. She still has to complete 480 hours of community service, complete an anti-shoplifting class and comply with other terms of her release.
Her spokesman, Steve Honig, said Lohan is “very focused” on resuming her community service, which is being performed at a downtown Los Angeles women’s shelter and will also require her to work at the county’s morgue.
Lohan, 24, was sentenced to four months in jail in May for violating her probation in a 2007 drunken driving case by taking a necklace from a jewelry store without permission earlier this year. She pleaded no contest to the theft and received no additional penalties, but will remain on probation for several more months.
Lohan’s shorter confinement was the result of jail overcrowding in Los Angeles’ only women’s jail and mandatory credits, but it was not without drama.
Just days into her captivity, authorities were summoned to Lohan’s home in the beachside community of Venice because her monitoring equipment reported her out of the area. The equipment had to be replaced because of a faulty battery in the actress’ ankle monitor, and after officials learned that a houseguest had spilled a drink another piece of monitoring equipment.
Lohan was summoned to court last week after probation officials told a judge the actress had tested positive for alcohol. Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner determined after reviewing Lohan’s case file that the actress was no longer required to undergo random drug tests and that she had not been ordered by a previous judge to abstain from alcohol.
Sautner did order the actress to stop hosting parties while serving house, telling her at one point, “Don’t give people a reason to hate you.”
Lohan has struggled to put a pair of 2007 drunken driving and drug arrests behind her. She was jailed twice and sent to rehab twice last year for failing to comply with the terms of her probation. She was accused of the necklace theft roughly three weeks after her release from rehab.
She has said she wants to resume acting and remains a cast member of a biopic of the infamous New York Gotti crime family titled, “Gotti: In The Shadow of My Father.” Shooting on the film is expected to begin later this year.
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