Lohan begins serving sentence on house arrest

LOS ANGELES – Lindsay Lohan returned to a women's jail before dawn on Thursday and was released before rush hour to begin serving a four-month jail sentence at her home for a probation violation.

The actress left the lockup with an ankle monitor that she must wear for about 35 days, sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said.

The term is longer than the three weeks or less that Lohan would have spent in a solitary confinement unit at the jail, where she served 14 days last summer for another probation violation.

Whitmore said the "Mean Girls" star is paying for the costs of her monitoring.

Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner sentenced Lohan to 120 days in jail and 480 hours of community service in April after determining the actress took a necklace without permission from a store near her home.

The judge said at a hearing that if Lohan served time under house arrest, she could not leave to whittle down her community service hours at a women's shelter and the county morgue.

Lohan pleaded no contest earlier this month to misdemeanor grand theft but did not receive additional jail time. The jail term was imposed after Sautner determined Lohan violated her probation in a 2007 drunken driving case.

Whitmore said the actress was cooperative when she turned herself in, and it took about an hour for her to be fingerprinted and booked. No new mugshot was taken.

Lohan's attorney, Shawn Holley, did not immediately return an email message seeking comment.

The actress has been cast to appear as the wife of John Gotti Jr. in a biopic of the infamous New York mob family. Shooting is scheduled to begin later this year.

Steve Honig, a spokesman for the film, "Gotti: Three Generations" declined comment Thursday.