London - AFP
Troubled star Lindsay Lohan checked into prison to serve a 30-day prison sentence but was freed early Monday after only five hours due to overcrowding, officials said. In her latest in-and-out jailing, the 25-year-old former child star was booked into the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, south of Los Angeles, at 8:58 pm Sunday, but left around 1:40 am. She was seen arriving at her Venice Beach home in a chauffeured black Cadillac Escalade, accompanied by a body guard, before 2:00 am. Judge Stephanie Sautner handed Lohan the 30-day sentence last Wednesday after she admitted breaching probation for previous offenses, and ordered her to report to jail by November 9. But the Sheriff's Office said at the time she would be jailed for only one night, because chronic prison overcrowding means anyone jailed for less than 90 days for a non-violent crime is basically checked in and checked out. Lohan -- once the promising child star of hit Disney movies "The Parent Trap" and "Freaky Friday" -- has a reputation for hard partying and has faced a series of legal troubles. She was sentenced to 35 days of house arrest in May, as part of a plea bargain over the alleged theft of a $2,500 necklace from a jewelry shop near her home in Venice Beach. Sautner ruled at that time that the starlet had violated her probation for a 2007 drug and drunk driving offense when she allegedly stole the necklace on January 22.