Lindsay Lohan can’t afford counseling, her attorney argues. Really.
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Lindsay Lohan needs to speed up her completion of court-ordered community service and get cracking on psychological counseling if she wants to stay out on probation, a judge said Thursday -- even if the actress doesn’t have health insurance.
With Lohan at her side during the status hearing in L.A., attorney Shawn Holley argued that the actress hadn’t been working on Screen Actors Guild projects and therefore was not eligible for health benefits, without which she might not be able to afford counseling. That, Holley said, was why Lilo hadn’t yet hooked up with a doc after her house arrest ended more than three weeks ago.
The Ministry will pause a moment for all readers who have no health insurance and also do not live in a cozy beach shack to ponder how in the world they’d be able to figure out how to pay cash for court-ordered psychological counseling.
‘I find it hard to believe that she can’t afford counseling,’ prosecutor Melanie Chavira told Judge Stephanie Sautner.
After Sautner suggested Lohan might be able to find someone who could help her out with a few bucks inside the 21 days she has to get into therapy, Holley indicated that finding financial aid would not be necessary.
Also on Thursday, Lohan was hit with a $1-million civil suit filed by Dawn Bradley, the former Betty Ford Center employee who alleged the actress yelled at her, threw a phone and grabbed her wrist and twisted it last December at the rehab center.
In the suit, Bradley claimed she suffered ‘significant injury’ to her wrist as well as ‘post-traumatic stress syndrome requiring several therapy sessions.’ So, yeah, after being let go from her job, Bradley apparently was able to find psychological counseling.
Incidentally, a quick online check of psychologists in the Venice area revealed a number of folks whose hourly rate starts around $100 an hour and tops out at $150 to$200 a pop. Get this: Some of them even take credit cards -- or cash!
Now, we’re not saying all those M.A.’s and MFCCs and PhD’s would be cool getting paid in shoes, but as a last resort to stay out of jail, it couldn’t hurt to ask about barter, right? Bet those $1,195 Louboutins that L.A. Now spotted Lohan wearing in court Thursday would get her at least an hour or two of head-shrinking in trade.
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-- Christie D’Zurilla
Twitter.com/dzurillaville
Reuters contributed to this report.
