Police Bust Lindsay Lohan, Find Possible Cocaine

The actress was charged with driving under the influence early Saturday morning.

ByABC News via logo
February 9, 2009, 9:36 AM

May 27, 2007 — -- Fresh out of rehab, Lindsay Lohan was accused of driving under the influence early Saturday morning, and police found what they believe to be cocaine in her car.

Witnesses said at 5:30 a.m., Lohan, 20, was driving down Hollywood's Sunset Bouelvard in her Mercedes convertible. She jumped a curb and flew into a set of trees. Right after the accident, she ran into a nearby house.

"I quickly got out of my car and said, 'Lindsay, are you ok?' And she didn't really respond, she was moving fast," said X17 photographer Perry Farinola.

Farinola then saw Lohan get into another car. He said she didn't appear to have been drinking.

"She looked good coming out of the club and the party that I saw her at," he said.

The police didn't agree. Their initial investigation led to charges.

"Officers tracked Miss Lohan to the local hospital where she ultimately was placed under arrest for ... driving under the influence," Lt. Mitch McCann of the Beverly Hills Police Department said Saturday.

Lohan left the scene and ended up at an L.A. hospital, where police arrested her but did not take her into custody so her minor injuries could be treated. When police impounded her car, they searched it and found something else.

"It was a usable amount of illegal narcotics that was preliminarily identified as cocaine," McCann said.

The arrest is the latest chapter in Lohan's history of hard partying. Saturday's was the third car accident she's had in the last two years. The actress recently announced she checked into rehab for alcohol abuse in January, though paparazzi cameras have since caught her drinking.

The current case could transcend the tabloids: Police say Lohan could face additional charges. Her tentative arraignment date is Aug. 24.

Ronald Richards, a Beverly Hills attorney, believes Lohan could go the way of Paris Hilton -- to jail.

"It is a very serious misdemeanor on the panaloply of misdemeanors, and then you have the DUI," Richards told ABC News Radio. "She could be looking at a lot of classes and a lot of community service."