Lindsay Lohan arrested after allegedly fleeing accident scene
“Mean Girls” star Lindsay Lohan has just been arrested after she fled the scene of an accident early Wednesday morning, when she allegedly hit a pedestrian in downtown Manhattan.
According to law enforcement sources, Lindsay Lohan was pulling in to park her Porsche Cayenne near the Dream Hotel in downtown New York City when she allegedly hit the knee of a 30-something year old guy.
The troubled actress was arrested and charged with leaving the scene of an accident two hours after the incident took place in an alley between the Maritime and Dream hotels in Chelsea. Lohan was given a desk appearance ticket.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said that police don’t think Lindsay Lohan — who is currently on probation — was drunk, but no breathalyzer test was performed.
The chef, Jose Rodriguez, who was allegedly hit by Lindsay Lohan as she drove her Porsche in Manhattan, claims the starlet was “slurring” her words and “smelled like alcohol.”
“They acted like I was nothing,” Jose Rodriguez told the Daily News hours after the early Wednesday incident. “That no one could touch her because she was rich and powerful.”
An NYPD source who saw surveillance video of the accident said Lindsay Lohan did not appear drunk and that Rodriguez didn’t make that claim to police officers who responded. The source added that the contact between the vehicle and Rodriguez was “slight,” and that he ran down the ramp after being struck.
Meanwhile, Lohan’s spokesman, Steve Honig, called the incident “much ado about nothing.”
“We are confident this matter will be cleared up in the coming weeks and the claims being made against Lindsay will be proven untrue,” he said.
Jose Rodriguez said he had just left Bottega, the restaurant where he works at the adjacent Maritime, and was walking on the underground ramp when he “saw this car come real quick and hit me.”
“I was in so much pain. I fell to the side,” he said, adding that when Lohan emerged from the Porsche Cayenne, “I asked, ‘Why did you do that?’
“She said, ‘You have to get out of the way.’ She told me I have to move.”
“She was slurring,” Rodriguez claims. “She smelled like alcohol real bad.”
Jose Rodriguez said one of the men in the car moved Lindsay Lohan from the driver’s seat into the back and then told him there was “no problem.”
“He kept saying, ‘We have to move the car,’ and for me to move,” the chef said. “They drove off, like it didn’t matter.”
The police source said the surveillance video shows Lindsay Lohan blinked her headlights to catch the attention of about eight people in her way, but that Jose Rodriguez walked right in front of the Lohan’s car.
“There’s contact — slight contact,” the source said. “Then he realizes what’s happened. He doesn’t go down. He takes off after the car…You see him on the driver’s side talking to her.”
Rodriguez was reportedly taken to the Bellevue Hospital, where he said the doctors told him he suffered from torn tendons and gave him morphine to ease the pain he was feeling.
It’s unclear where Lindsay Lohan went, but Electric Room security called the police when she returned at 2:30 a.m. The actress was subsequently arrested, taken to the 10th Precinct stationhouse, where a lawyer met her. Lohan was eventually released at 5:30 a.m. and is due back in court on October 23.
Lohan’s vehicle was spotted later outside the Bowery Hotel, where her former girlfriend, DJ Samantha Ronson, has been staying. A parking ticket was left on the car’s windshield when a valet drove it away.
Jose Rodriguez insisted that he didn’t recognize “Liz & Dick” star Lindsay Lohan after he was struck .
“I didn’t know who she was until people told me. I don’t know why she couldn’t just do the right thing,” he said.
Aside from filing a complaint with the police, the chef made an incident report with Maritime security in which he said “the female appeared disoriented.”
“Mr. Rodriguez took pictures with his cell phone of the vehicle license plate but was prevented from taking pictures of the individuals by Dream Hotel security,” the report says.
Lindsay Lohan gave police a California address, and the Porsche has Florida plates, but she’s reportedly looking for a pad in Manhattan with her assistant, Gavin Doyle.