Fact Check

Lindsay Lohan

Account describes woman's finding wallet belonging to actress Lindsay Lohan?

Published Dec. 8, 2004

Claim:

Claim:   Account describes woman's finding wallet belonging to actress Lindsay Lohan.


Status:   Undetermined.

Example:   [Collected on the Internet, 2004]




Hey Girls,

I just wanted to update you about our weekend in NYC. Of course it was Liz's birthday so it was bound to be a crazy time...you know it's never a dull moment when two or more of us P.C. girls get together! Well, for those of you who didn't receive a late night phone call Saturday night from Liz, Ill fill you in on what happened...

When we got off the subway in Manhattan, me Liz and Charley were attempting to catch a cab when I saw something laying on the street...it looked like a wallet so I kicked it over to Charley and said "what's this?" Charley picked it up and we jumped into the cab.

Inside the cab Charley opened the wallet and found a license, an American Express Black card, a $20 bill rolled tight, and a folded up $1 bill.

He yells: "Oh my God, guess who's wallet this is!"

I said: "Who's? I found it, hand it over!" To my surprise it was Lindsay Lohan's California license and credit card! I took out the dollar bill and unfolded it to find a rather large bag of what looked to be cocaine!

I couldn't believe my eyes! We had a pop star's wallet with illegal drugs and she's only 18! The first thing that came to mind was to blackmail for a large amount of cash or a casting in her next movie...

Unfortunately I've learned that publicity might not be so appealing when you have tons of strange people calling your cell phone to buy your story.

Since I had no idea if I should keep the wallet or send it back, I called US Weekly for advice. US Weekly called Lindsay's publicist and the next thing I knew I was getting calls from her publicist threatening to sue me.

She wanted my home address so she can send a driver out to pick it up. I refused to give her any personal information. The National Inquirer called me about 8X to buy my story for $2500 (which keeps going up every time I talk to them), they want to take pictures of the evidence, give me a polygraph, and interview me tomorrow. I don't think its the morally correct thing to do and I'm not sure its the safest either. the New York Post has attempted to contact me (check for an article in tomorrow's paper, most likely it will not be a completely accurate story), the NYPD (who threatened to arrest me if I don't hand over the goods since they claim it is government property), and some strange people who wouldn't even tell me who they were (but thought I was dumb enough to give them my address). I don't know who to believe and what to do with the wallet. I told Lindsay's publicist that I would like to return it to her in person so that I knew it was going to her. She said she would ask her. Supposedly Lindsay was freaked out by the whole thing and was crying hysterically and denied ever doing any drugs. The publicist told me she only drinks a lot and likes to party, and smokes cigarettes, but what 18 year old doesn't...what a publicist she is!

She also claimed to have called Lindsay's parents who called their lawyer and is ready to sue me if I make any wrong moves.

At this point I’m kind of afraid to answer my phone anymore b/c I’m scared someone might get my address and come to my house. I think what I will do is just mail it to her house in Beverly Hills tomorrow and hope it gets to her.

Anyway, I scanned the license and the credit card for you guys to see just for kicks. I blacked out her street address b/c I don't know what kind of trouble I can get into and I have to be careful!

The black card is cancelled, but it would have been nice to have a night of unlimited spending on Lindsay Lohan for Liz's 24th birthday!

Lindsay Lohan



Origins:   We don't yet know anything about the origins or authenticity of this piece. The putative scanned images of actress Lindsay Lohan's American Express card and driver's license may have been produced by someone who found her dropped wallet, or they may have been produced by someone who had access to her personal possessions by some other means. The text accompanying the images may be an accurate account written by the same person who found the wallet and created the scans, or it may be a completely fabricated account that someone else tacked on to the images. All we know for sure is that the New York Post reported Ms. Lohan did in fact misplace her purse, and someone found it in New York's Upper East Side on 4 December 2004:



[Lohan] apparently misplaced her handbag, which was found Saturday by a guest at a party at an Upper East Side bar for alums of Providence College.

The lucky finder was showing off Lohan's California driver's license, her black American Express card and other things she'd rather we didn't mention.

"It was like when you're in fifth grade and one girl in the corner shows off her boobs," chuckled one titillated bystander. "People were dying to see."


Frankly, the account provided with the scanned images sounds rather less like the words of a cautious wallet-finder and more like an attempt to sling some mud in Ms. Lohan's direction. Perhaps it's no coincidence that this item started infiltrating inboxes in early December 2004, right after a few dozen photos of the 18-year-old actress partying with friends in New York over Thanksgiving weekend also started circulated on the Internet, prompting her publicist to deny that Ms. Lohan smokes marijuana.

(Only Ms. Lohan's street address was blacked out in the original version of the images displayed above. We have also blacked out portions of the American Express card number and the driver's license number, since we don't know for sure that those documents, if real, have since been invalidated and reissued with new numbers. We also don't know why the driver's license gives Ms. Lohan's middle name as Dee when nearly every other source lists her middle name as being Morgan.)

Last updated:   8 December 2004





  Sources Sources:

    Freydkin, Donna.   "The Evolution of Lindsay Lohan."

    USA Today.   5 December 2004.

    Johnson, Richard.   "Lohan 'Sings' with Mouth Shut."

    New York Post.   7 December 2004.


David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.

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