Lindsay Lohan completes jail sentence in 84 minutes Thursday

By Robert Jablon

LOS ANGELES – Lindsay Lohan was a jailbird for just 84 minutes Thursday, becoming the latest celebrity to serve less than a day for a drunken driving offense.

Lohan, 21, turned herself in to the Los Angeles County women’s detention center in Lynwood at 10:30 a.m. She was searched, fingerprinted and placed in a holding cell in the inmate reception area but got to keep her street clothes, sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said.

“She was cooperative,” he said.

Lohan was released at 11:54 a.m. Her original daylong sentence was reduced because she met criteria that took into account overcrowding at the lockup and the fact that her crime was nonviolent, Whitmore said.

Did the celebrity receive special treatment?

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“Absolutely not. This is what we do for most everybody in this position,” Whitmore said. In fact, 30 to 50 women are granted early releases from the facility every day, he added.

An e-mailed message seeking comment from Lohan’s publicist was not immediately returned.

In May, the star of “Mean Girls” and “Freaky Friday” was arrested after crashing her Mercedes-Benz into a tree in Beverly Hills. She was arrested again in July after the mother of Lohan’s former personal assistant called 911 to report that her car was being chased by an SUV. The chase ended in Santa Monica, where police arrested Lohan for being behind the wheel. In both cases, Lohan was found in possession of small amounts of cocaine.

In August, she reached a plea deal on misdemeanor drunken driving and cocaine charges stemming from the arrests. The judge sentenced her to four days in jail – the mandatory minimum for a second drunken-driving offense – but gave her credit for 24 hours already served. She elected to complete 10 days of community service instead of 48 hours behind bars.

The total deal called for her to enter treatment, spend a day in jail and perform community service.

“It is clear to me that my life has become completely unmanageable because I am addicted to alcohol and drugs,” Lohan said in a statement released by her publicist in August.

Lohan had until Jan. 18 to serve the jail time.

She spent two minutes longer in lockup than Nicole Richie did in August for a similar offense.

Richie was arrested Dec. 11, 2006, after witnesses reported seeing her black Mercedes-Benz sport utility vehicle headed the wrong way on a freeway in Burbank. She pleaded guilty in July to a misdemeanor DUI charge in a deal with prosecutors that helped her avoid a potential year in jail because it was a second driving-under-the-influence conviction. She served 82 minutes in custody, during which she was booked but never actually placed in a cell.

Richie’s co-star on TV’s “The Simple Life,” Paris Hilton, served 23 days at the same jail this year after she was found guilty of driving on a suspended license while on probation for an alcohol-related reckless-driving case.