LOS ANGELES – Lindsay Lohan was freed from a suburban Los Angeles jail late Friday night, well short of the nearly monthlong stay a judge had intended for the actress following a failed drug test.
Lohan was released at about 11:40 p.m. after posting $300,000 bail, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said early Saturday.
Celebrity website TMZ.com reported her release just before midnight.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elden Fox had ordered Lohan held without bail during a brief hearing Friday morning, But his ruling later was overturned after the "Mean Girls" star's attorney, Shawn Chapman Holley, filed a late-afternoon appeal seeking bail.
Judge Patricia Schnegg, who is an assistant supervising judge of LA's criminal courts, issued a ruling shortly before 6 p.m., saying that since the starlet had been convicted of misdemeanors, she was entitled to bail.
The actress is not entirely free. She will be required to wear an
ankle alcohol monitor and stay away from establishments that primarily sell alcohol.
She is also due back in court on Oct. 22, when the judge who curtly sent her to jail will decide what her punishment will be for failing a drug test roughly two weeks after he released her early from rehab.
At that hearing, Fox will formally determine whether Lohan, 24, violated her probation by failing a court-mandated drug test. The positive result came after the judge released Lohan early from inpatient rehab at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
Fox did not say why he had ordered no bail for the actress Friday morning, or state what drug appeared in her system during the recent test.
Friday marked the third time Lohan has been sent to jail in a three-year-old drug and drunken driving case. She spent 84 minutes at the jail in 2007 and 14 days of a three-month sentence earlier this summer.
