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Lohan is arrested in suspected DUI crash

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Times Staff Writer

Hard-partying actress Lindsay Lohan was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving Saturday after the rehab veteran crashed her Mercedes convertible in Beverly Hills shortly before dawn.

Lohan, 20, who could face more charges, was slightly injured after she lost control of her car traveling west on Sunset Boulevard about 5:30 a.m., Beverly Hills police said. The car ended up striking a curb and shrubbery along Foothill Road. Two other people in the 2005 Mercedes SL65 -- a car that normally seats a driver and one passenger -- were not hurt.

The “Georgia Rule” and “Mean Girls” star left the scene of the crash and was taken by an unidentified associate to Century City Doctors Hospital, Lt. Mitch McCann said.

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Someone also drove off the heavily damaged Mercedes, which police located at a nearby condominium complex. McCann initially said that police found a substance believed to be cocaine in Lohan’s car, but he later backed away from that statement, saying only that the substance was found during the investigation.

Officers responding to a 911 call tracked down and arrested Lohan at the hospital, he said. She was cited on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol, a misdemeanor, and released for treatment of a chest injury, McCann said.

He said the case will be presented to prosecutors this week. Lohan is due in court Aug. 24.

The actress had checked herself into a Los Angeles rehabilitation clinic in January and has attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, her publicist and mother have said. They could not be reached for comment.

Last summer, a studio executive blasted Lohan in a letter that accused her of hampering the filming of “Georgia Rule,” which is now in theaters, with her “exhaustion”-related absences.

“We are well aware that your ongoing all-night heavy partying is the real reason for your so-called exhaustion,” James G. Robinson, chief of Morgan Creek Productions, wrote in the letter.

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Two years ago, a tabloid photographer crashed his car into Lohan’s vehicle. She had become fodder for paparazzi because of what appeared to be her dramatic weight loss.

On Saturday, onlookers gathered outside the Beverly Hills police station as word of Lohan’s arrest spread. “I think it’s sad,” said Susan Beck, who was walking her dog. “She has too much time and too much money.”

patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com

Times staff writer Paul Pringle contributed to this report.

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