LOS ANGELES — Lindsay Lohan is "scared to death" about going to jail, and is planning to appeal her 90-day sentence with a new lawyer, her mother Dina Lohan said in an interview.
"She's a fighter, and until the final result — we're not giving up," Dina Lohan told celebrity news television show Entertainment Tonight in an interview to be broadcast on Friday. "I think it's time we get another attorney just to see it from another light and do damage control," she added, saying her daughter hoped to file an appeal.
The "Mean Girls" actress is due to start her three-month jail term on July 20. She was ordered to jail by a Beverly Hills judge who ruled on Tuesday that Lohan, 24, had violated her probation for a 2007 drunk driving and cocaine possession case because she had failed to attend weekly alcohol education classes imposed by the court.
Lohan's lawyer abruptly quit on Thursday, hours after issuing a statement calling the sentence "harsh and unfair" but stating that Lohan was prepared to serve her jail time and comply with the court's orders."
Lawyer Shawn Chapman Holley did not give a reason for leaving, but Dina Lohan suggested Lohan's team was unhappy with Holley's handling of the case.
"I feel like Shawn, Lindsay's attorney, should have stood up (in court on Tuesday) and said, 'Listen, I didn't know you were going to have witnesses.' We would have had ten witnesses. We didn't get a shot. We didn't get a shot at fairness," Dina Lohan said.
Lohan was stunned by the sentence, breaking into sobs in court in a hearing that was streamed live on celebrity news site TMZ.com. TV industry paper Broadcasting & Cable said that 2.3 million people watched Tuesday's hearing on TMZ.com — a bigger audience than some TV shows command.
"It's very difficult, we're not sleeping well, we're not functioning. We cry a lot and we hug a lot. She's petrified, we all are. We're angry. We're disappointed in the system," Dina Lohan said. "Lindsay's scared to death."
Asked if her daughter could survive jail, she said; "You know, she's strong, but until someone faces something as devastating as that...we're going to have to see...God willing it won't happen."
Dina Lohan said she and Lindsay were spending hours researching case law.
Lindsay Lohan sent out a stream of messages on her Twitter account earlier this week citing articles in the United Nations Human Rights declaration regarding torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments.
Lohan rose to fame as a child actress in "The Parent Trap" and later movies like "Freaky Friday" established her as one of Hollywood's most promising young actresses.
But her career has spiraled downward since 2007, when she made three trips to rehab and spent 84 minutes in jail on the drunk driving offense.
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