Lindsay Lohan violates probation by ditching rehab behind prosecutors' backs

Troubled US actress Lindsay Lohan faces fresh legal problems after failing to check into a California rehab center for 90 days of court-ordered treatment, reports said Friday.

Santa Monica City Prosecutor Terry White was quoted by local media as saying that Lohan was in violation of her probation after spending just a few minutes at her chosen rehab center.

"Ms. Lohan is in violation of her probation, that much is clear," White told the Los Angeles Times, adding he was uncertain of the star's whereabouts.

Lohan's apparent failure to show came towards the end of another bizarre day in her ongoing legal saga.

Lohan had originally been expected to check into a facility in New York state on Thursday, but changed her mind because it did not allow smoking, heading instead for a center in Newport Beach, south of Los Angeles.

Los Angeles Superior Court judge James R. Dabney agreed to the 11th hour location switch requested by Lohan's New York-based attorney Mark Heller, saying it "appeared to comply" with what prosecutors wanted.

However the move was criticised as "highly improper" by White. It later emerged that Lohan had only spent a few minutes inside the rehab center before leaving, local media outlets reported.

The TMZ.com entertainment news website reported that Lohan would be the subject of an arrest warrant if she was not at her designated rehab center by early Friday morning.

The 26-year-old was also sentenced to two years' probation in March, after pleading no contest to misdemeanor charges stemming from a car crash in Santa Monica in June 2012.

Lohan will have to carry out 30 days of community service -- which she can do in New York, where she currently lives -- and undergo 18 months of psychotherapy.

Lohan was driving a Porsche that collided with a truck on the Pacific Coast Highway last June. She at first claimed she was a passenger in the car, but an investigation later showed that she had been the driver.

Although she won praise for her performance in the 2004 film "Mean Girls" as a teen, the former Disney star has become better known for her drug problems, legal woes and social life.

She has been in and out of court often since 2007, but has managed to stay out of prison except for 87 minutes behind bars in November of that year.

[s_bukley / Shutterstock.com]