Lohan offered plea deal in theft case

February 24, 2011

A judge yesterday gave Lindsay Lohan roughly two weeks to decide if she will fight or take a plea deal in a felony grand theft case, but either decision could send the troubled starlet back behind bars.

Superior Court Judge Keith Schwartz told Lohan he would sentence her to jail if she accepted a plea deal involving the theft of a $2,500 necklace from an upscale jewelry store, The Associated Press reports.

"If you plead in front of me, if this case is resolved in front of me, you are going to jail," Schwartz said. "Period." Lohan, 24, has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Rejecting the deal would trigger a hearing during which prosecutors would present some of their evidence to another judge. Schwartz said that judge would sentence Lohan for a probation violation if she determined Lohan should stand trial. That could mean Lohan is sentenced to jail even before the theft case is tried.

Schwartz has said he thinks the actress violated her probation in a 2007 drunken driving case, and two other judges have warned Lohan she faced a return to jail if she got into trouble again. That was before police began investigating the "Mean Girls" star last month after the necklace was reported missing from the store in the Venice area of Los Angeles. The necklace was given to detectives by an unidentified Lohan associate before police could serve a search warrant.

On "Piers Morgan Tonight," Michael Lohan said he and his ex-wife, Dina Lohan, are "justifiably, no doubt, 100 percent" responsible, as estranged parents, for their daughter's dilemmas. "And I have to say myself more than Dina," blaming himself for his strong reaction in 2005 "when I caught her [Dina's] brother smoking crack at my son's party. I reacted the wrong way. I did not have to beat him up. . . . And inevitably that was the launch for our divorce."

The actress returns to court on March 10.