Lindsay Lohan charged with felony grand theft in necklace case

Lindsay Lohan has been charged with felony grand theft in connection with a $2,500 necklace removed from a jewelry store Jan. 22. Prosecutors are asking that bail be set at $20,000.

"Lohan will be arraigned at 1:30 p.m. at the Airport Superior Court, Department 144," Deputy District Attorney John Lynch, head of that branch of the Los Angeles County system, said in a statement released Tuesday. The "Mean Girls" star, 24, is being allowed to turn herself in, thus avoiding a "perp walk" in handcuffs before cameras, TMZ.com said.

Danette Meyers, the prosecutor in the DUI case for which Lohan remains on probation, is also involved in this new case, the site added.

When reports surfaced during the weekend that Lohan might be charged, her attorney, Shawn Chapman Holley, denied her client stole the necklace. Sources close to the Lohan family have told Newsday the necklace, a one-of-a-kind from Kamofie & Co. of Venice, Calif., was borrowed and that an assistant was late in returning it.

Holley did not return a call for comment from The Associated Press.

This latest issue comes on the heels of police in Riverside County, Calif., last month giving the prosecutor there the results of an investigation into whether Lohan committed battery in a scuffle with a staffer at the Betty Ford Center Dec. 12.

She also is still on probation from her 2007 DUI conviction, and is scheduled for a progress hearing in Los Angeles County Superior Court in Beverly Hills on Feb. 25.

Dmitry Gorin, an attorney and former deputy district attorney, told the Los Angeles Times Tuesday that a conviction for grand theft or second-degree commercial burglary can carry a prison sentence of about 2 years, though a settlement typically results in much less time. "She could realistically face 90 to 180 days in county jail, including [for] her probation violation," he said.

Lohan served 13 days in jail for probation violation last summer, and after failing a court-ordered random drug test in September was sentenced to inpatient substance-abuse treatment through Jan. 3.