After being sued by a restaurant employee who claimed she was intoxicated when she crashed into his vehicle two years ago, Lindsay Lohan is now fighting back.
Lohan filed a countersuit against Raymundo Ortega last Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming Ortega (along with several unnamed defendants) were the ones to blame for the October 2005 crash.
According to the court papers obtained by Access Hollywood, the actress is seeking $75,000 from Ortega — considerably less than the $200,000 he asked for in his own suit.
Lohan alleges Ortega was “negligent in the ownership, operation, repairs and maintenance” of his vehicle.
Following the Oct. 4, 2005 crash, Ortega filed a lawsuit on June 14, 2007 claiming Lindsay had “consumed alcohol and became intoxicated” before crashing into his van.
However, before filing her lawsuit last week, back in July Lohan filed papers saying she wasn’t under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident. Within those papers, Lohan claimed Ortega’s allegations were “nothing more than an attempt to extort money from a celebrity by making false and scurrilous allegations in a complaint.”
In making her case, the 21-year-old starlet pointed to the police report taken at the scene, which stated that “Ms. Lohan had not been drinking and there was no signs of intoxication at the time of the incident.”
Within the police report, the responding officer wrote “while speaking with the involved parties, I did not observe any objective signs of either alcohol or drug intoxication and determined that no further investigation regarding intoxication was warranted.”
At the time of the crash, authorities said it did not appear Lohan was responsible. According to the police report, the officer on the scene concluded Ortega caused the accident by making an illegal U-turn in a business district.
A trial for both lawsuits has been set for April 7, 2008.