Rehab apparently hasn’t worked for Lindsay Lohan, who re-entered a treatment center after being charged with drunken driving Tuesday for the second time in three months.
So is it time to lock up the Hollywood starlet?
It is — at least that's consensus of former judge and prosecutor Jeanine Pirro and psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow, who joined Harvey Levin of celebrity Web site TMZ.com on TODAY Wednesday to discuss Lohan’s latest scrape with the law in Los Angeles.
“She should be off the street,” Ablow told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer. “She should be in a locked psychiatric unit as someone unable to care for herself and a danger to others.”
Pirro, who has a reputation for being a no-nonsense law enforcer, agreed.
“She needs to be in custody where she gets real treatment and she’s not going to be a danger to society, because clearly that’s what she is,” said Pirro.
“Less than two months ago, she was arrested for DUI,” Pirro continued. “They found a white, powdery substance which turned out to be cocaine. She hasn’t been charged with that yet. Her license was suspended. She shouldn’t have been behind the wheel of the car. She’s so far beyond the legal limit, it’s not funny with the alcohol. She’s a train wreck.”
‘Heated debate’
Lohan was arrested in Santa Monica early Tuesday after the mother of Lohan’s former personal assistant called 911 to tell police another driver was chasing her. According to reports, the assistant had either just quit her job or been fired by Lohan several hours earlier. Police said Lohan and the assistant’s mother were having a “heated debate” when they arrived on the scene.
“Lindsay says she, too, was being chased by someone or some people. Something was going on that night,” Levin said. “The word that I’m getting is that it was a little bit out of control.”
The actress, who turned 21 earlier this month, was wearing an ankle bracelet that was supposed to detect any alcohol in her system. She had volunteered to wear the device after undergoing a stint in rehab following a previous DUI arrest in Beverly Hills on Memorial Day.
She allegedly refused to take a Breathalyzer test when stopped by police, but failed other sobriety tests. According to Santa Monica police, when she was taken to police headquarters for booking, she agreed to a breath test that showed her blood alcohol content to be between .12 and .13, well above the legal limit.
Police said they also found cocaine in her pocket and charged her with felony possession of a narcotic.
Lohan, whose driver’s license is still suspended from the May DUI arrest, during which cocaine was also found in her car, is facing up to six years in jail, according to Pirro.
More rehab
Lohan’s first starring role came nine years ago in Disney’s remake of “The Parent Trap.” She also starred in “Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen,” “Mean Girls,” “Herbie: Fully Loaded” and “A Prairie Home Companion.”
While praised for her acting ability, she came under increasing fire as being difficult to work with and irresponsible.
As a teenager, the Long Island, N.Y., native made frequent tabloid headlines for partying with the likes of Nicole Richie and Paris and Nicky Hilton. In 2005, she also had three auto accidents, none of which were attributed to alcohol at the time.
In January of this year, she checked herself into rehab. But on May 26, she was involved in the accident that led to her first DUI charge. Two days after the arrest, she was back in rehab.
She re-entered rehab after posting $25,000 bail following her Tuesday arrest.
Blair Berk, her attorney, said in a statement that “addiction is a terrible and vicious disease.”
But as Berk was saying she has addiction problems, Lohan was sending an e-mail to “Access Hollywood” in which she said: “I am innocent. I did not do drugs. They’re not mine.”
Lauer asked Ablow what happened to old-fashioned rehab, when addicts went in and didn’t come out until they were actually straight.
“I think the problem is that rehab is often about just getting off the drugs or the alcohol and doing a little bit of monitoring with this voluntary ankle bracelet that she was wearing, but it doesn’t get to the core of why you’re drinking, or why you’re using drugs,” Ablow said.
Lohan’s father, Michael, who spent several years in prison for securities fraud when she was a child, has blamed his daughter’s problems on the breakup of his marriage.
“Guess what?" Ablow said. "The problems that led Lindsay Lohan to use alcohol and drugs started in that family.”
“She faces some serious time” in jail,” Pirro told Lauer. “She may end up in state prison. And you know what? I think there are a lot of people out there who think this rehab stuff has not done anything for her. The ankle bracelet did nothing. It’s time for jail.”