The actress Lindsay Lohan has appeared in another instalment of the tortuous courtroom drama that has gripped Los Angeles since January, when she was accused of stealing a $2,500 (£1,540) necklace from a jewellery store in the city.
In a short hearing at Los Angeles Superior Court yesterday Judge Keith Schwartz indicated that the actress had rejected a deal in which she would plead guilty in return for a more lenient jail sentence.
The judge ordered her to appear at a preliminary hearing in April, when prosecutors will present the evidence against her and a judge will decide whether Ms Lohan has violated the terms of her probation on a 2007 drink driving case.
Judge Schwartz gave Ms Lohan until March 25 to consider if she would still like to enter a plea bargain and begged both parties to keep the terms of the deal secret, following a series of leaks to the media. Ms Lohan denies any wrongdoing and insists the necklace was given on loan.
“Thankfully this case doesn’t involve military secrets where people’s lives are at stake because I can’t believe how things leak out,” he said, before referencing several Hollywood-based websites that have carried details of the negotiations. The reporters involved ought “to be in the foreign service,” he said. “They want to join up with the CIA . . . I don’t even tell my wife what’s going on so I can’t understand how they find out this information.”
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Ms Lohan, who arrived half an hour late for the hearing in a black people carrier that had been tracked through the traffic clogged streets of Los Angeles by a news helicopter, spoke once to confirm that she understood when she was next required to appear in court.
Her return to court came days after surveillance footage was aired of her trying on necklaces at Kamofie & Co., which reported the necklace stolen on January 22. The necklace was eventually given by a Lohan associate to detectives, who had obtained a search warrant for the actress’s home.
The owners of the necklace, Kamofie & Co, said they would auction it and donate the proceeds to an unspecified charity after the case was resolved.
In another celebrity case, Mel Gibson is expected to appear in a court today to answer charges of domestic abuse, following allegations made by his former girlfriend.
Mr Gibson has not been arrested or charged, following allegations brought by Oskana Grigorieva, the mother of his sixteen-month-old daughter, that he had assaulted her during an argument at his home in Malibu, California, in January last year.
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Mr Gibson’s legal representatives have indicated that he will not contest the battery charges because he wishes to avoid the “media circus” of any trial. It is expected he will ordered to continue with counselling.
“Sometimes justice can come for a client at too high a personal price,” said Blair Berk, Mr Gibson’s lawyer. “That is particularly so for Mel, whose right to due process can only be exercised in this case with an emormous media circus attached.”