Lindsay Lohan due in L.A. court this morning in car crash case

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Lindsay Lohan is expected be in a Los Angeles courtroom Wednesday morning after earlier indicating that should would miss the mandatory court appearance on charges of lying to police about a car crash.

But her attorney, Shawn Holley, who has kept her from serving serious time behind bars despite the actress’ repeated probation violations, is no longer representing Lohan, a source familiar with the case said.

New York attorney Mark Heller will oversee Lohan’s defense if Los Angeles Superior Judge Stephanie Sautner allows it.

Lohan is ordered to appear before Sautner on Wednesday for allegedly violating probation in a jewelry shoplifting case and to answer to a new charge of lying to Santa Monica police when she told them that she was not driving a Porsche involved in a collision with a truck on Pacific Coast Highway.

Paperwork submitted to the court says Lohan was too ill to travel from New York and could not appear Wednesday. But facing the likelihood that an arrest warrant would be issued if she failed to show up, Lohan flew to L.A.

Tabloid websites showed Lohan shopping in New York over the weekend. In recent years, Lohan has made more court appearances than movies. Nearly six years ago she was arrested for drunk driving in Los Angeles and was subsequently convicted. She repeatedly violated the terms of that probation, going to jail for short periods of time, as well as rehab.

In 2011, she was convicted of another misdemeanor, this time shoplifting a necklace from a Venice jewelry store. After Lohan missed required therapy sessions and community service shifts at a downtown women’s center, Sautner got tough.

Knowing that jail overcrowding would result in Lohan serving just a few days if she were sent there, Sautner sentenced her to 360 hours of labor at the county coroner’s office.

Lohan completed the requirements last year, winning praise from the judge, who ended Lohan’s drunk-driving probation.

But then last summer came the traffic accident on Pacific Coast Highway and new charges.

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2-mile stretch of La Cienega Boulevard to be closed throughout morning

-- Richard Winton