Lindsay Lohan got into a fight this weekend after a starstruck partygoer got a little too anxious with his camera phone. Except the partygoer wasn't exactly some random New Yorker. It was Christian LaBella, a 25-year-old who works for Illinois Republican Congressman John Shimkus.
According to reports, LaBella was out partying, hitting up spots like Double Seven and 1Oak when he met Lindsay. After the clubs closed, LaBella wound up back at Lindsay's room at the W hotel her and her friends.
Some time around six in the morning she grabbed his cell phone— perhaps just messing around— and found some photos that LaBella had apparently snapped of her earlier in the evening. She tried deleting them and LaBella is said to have demanded his phone back. A scuffle broke out and Lindsay told police that he threw her on the bed and scratched her.
She managed to escape and lock herself in the bathroom, only to eventually bolt from the room and run down several flights of stairs. She then tried walking back up, but ran into LaBella on her way. She says he choked her from behind and threw her to the floor before her friend, Claus Hjelmbak, got LaBella off.
She pulled the fire alarm and LaBella ran. When cops arrived they found LaBella in the stairwell, unable to get out due to the fire alarm's disabling of the elevators. Lindsay then identified him to police and he was taken to the 13th Precinct in Gramercy Park.
Hours later, the assault charge got tossed. Lindsay refused medical attention and wasn't even seriously hurt. Undeterred, they each filed harassment complaints against one another.
“Lindsay was clearly assaulted," Lindsay's rep Steve Honig said. "I think there needs to be a consequence for that."
LaBella hasn't issued a statement, but his uncle Peter Jessop thinks Lindsay's just using him for her own benefit.
"It’s shameful that a celebrity with a personal publicist can persecute a nice guy like Christian,” Jessop said. “He’s a decent kid who met her at a nightclub and she invited him back to her hotel room with other people. And now she’s using her celebrity to launch a full-scale witch hunt against him just to be relevant again.”
[via NY Daily News]
