Busboy says Lohan drinking before ’05 crash

updated 4:35 p.m. ET Dec. 5, 2007

LOS ANGELES - The busboy who sued Lindsay Lohan alleges in court papers that he has proof the actress had been drinking before she collided with his van in October 2005.

Raymundo Ortega, who is seeking $200,000 in damages, contends Lohan drove her Mercedes-Benz into a van he was driving after she drank alcohol and later tried to escape paparazzi.

The court papers were filed Tuesday.

Lohan, 21, has countersued, saying the California Highway Patrol concluded that Ortega caused the crash by making an illegal U-turn in Beverly Hills.

Her lawyers were scheduled to ask a judge next month to compel Ortega to prove the actress was drunk. Instead, they filed to cancel the Los Angeles Superior Court hearing, saying Ortega provided responses to their discovery request.

Lohan was 19 at the time of the crash. She recently spent more than a month at a drug and alcohol treatment program in Utah, her third visit to rehab this year.

She served 84 minutes in jail Nov. 15 as part of a plea deal on misdemeanor drunken driving and cocaine possession charges stemming from two arrests that were unrelated to the crash that prompted the lawsuit.

Last week, the celebrity gossip site TMZ.com published what it said was a receipt showing what Lohan and four friends ordered at the Ivy restaurant the afternoon of the crash. The bill includes four Ivy Gimlets, a vodka drink.

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