While it's often claimed that celebrities usually get an easy ride when it comes to the law, Lane Garrison is living proof that moderately minor stars of TV shows that used to be good but aren't any more don't get that easy ride.
Lane Garrison – the dead ginger pickpocket from Prison Break – is the guy who drunkenly smashed his car into a tree in December, killing a teenage boy and seriously injuring two others. And yesterday after a series of psychiatric tests, Lane Garrison was sentenced to 40 months in jail for the crime. Let's just hope that Garrison doesn't befriend a heavily-tattooed escape artist while in jail – not because he'd copy the plot of Prison Break and escape, but because he'd copy the plot of Prison Break and get really dull.
A warning – if you're ever in a supermarket and some kids come up to and get all like "hey, you're that dude from TV. Come to our party, then drink, then drive us back to the supermarket to buy more booze," it might be an idea to remember everything Lane Garrison's been through.
Because after that exact situation happened to Lane Garrison he did drunkenly drive three teenagers back to the supermarket to buy more alcohol. Or at least he would have done if only he hadn't crashed his car into a tree on the way – killing a 17-year-old boy and injuring two 15-year-old girls – then lied to police about who was driving and how his drink got spiked. And now he's getting banged up for it.
In March Lane Garrison was charged with manslaughter over the crash. And now, following 90 days of psychiatric evaluation, Lane Garrison has been sentenced to three years and four months in jail, half of the maximum sentence available to the judge. And thanks to the overcrowded Los Angeles prison system, Lane can be expected to be released after just 20 months.
Before sentencing Lane Garrison spoke to the court. E! Online reports:
"I just want to say how sorry I am to the Setian family. I am sickened by my behavior on that night. My thoughts keep coming back to that night. I want to show that my walk with sobriety will be very easy. I want to help other kids not make the same mistake I did."
Lane Garrison's predicament should be a warning to other celebrity drink-drivers like Mel Gibson and Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie that all it takes is just one moment of concentration loss to change the public's perception of you from someone who shouts the word Sugartits at police officers to a killer.
That's something Lane Garrison will have to live with from now on, though to be fair 'killer' and 'semi-anonymous ginger pickpocket from that show you used to watch before it got crap' probably already have roughly the same social standing.
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