Following in the tragic and treacherous path of Prison Break actor Lane Garrison, currently serving a 40 month sentence for killing a Beverly Hills High School student on a DUI fun run, Roger Avary, the Academy Award-winning writer/director who's worked on Pulp Fiction, The Rules of Attraction, and most recently the Beowulf screenplay, now finds himself in his own living nightmare following a fatal accident early Sunday morning in Ojai. Here's the chain of events, according to the LAT:
· Avary was driving outside Ojai Lumber Co. building at 2:54 a.m Sunday when the accident occured.
· Avary's wife, Gretchen, 40, was ejected from the back seat. She was taken by paramedics to Ojai Valley Community Hospital, with injuries listed as "serious."

Tom Cruise-related justice is swift, and it is harsh: Marc Lewis Gittleman, the man who supplied David Hans "The Sultan of Sleaze" Schmidt with the thousands of wedding photos the infamous celebrity-smut-intermediary then used to try to extort $1.3 million from the actor (who immediately contacted the FBI to prevent images of him smashing wedding cake into his new war-bride's face from ever reaching the tabloids), was sentenced to two years of probation and $3,000 in fines. Actually, given the tragic, self-inflicted sentence the troubled Schmidt received during his house arrest, the co-conspirator escaped from the fiasco with barely a wrist-slap. [ABC News.com]

Last Celeb DUI of 2007 winner Mischa Barton phoned into omnipresent showbiz presence Ryan Seacrest's radio show On Air this morning, her first public statement on the matter since being picked up by cops in WeHo two days after Christmas for driving under the influence of alcohol and non-medical marijuana.

TMZ's reporting Michelle Rodriguez has been released from Lynwood today, 163 days short of the 180 she was sentenced to. Last we checked, Kief is still in the Glendale City Jail on Day 37 of his 48-day stint. Like the table of Ye Rustic regulars loudly bemoaning his absence over Jager shots last night, we've got to ask: Where is the justice? [TMZ]

• Britney's Drug Dealer Speaks [YouTube]

Add Tracie Rice, a passenger in the vehicle chased down by Lindsay Lohan's Denali in the infamous high-speed cokepant arrest, to the growing list of traumatized victims suing the road-rage-prone starlet. She's seeking damages to cover expenses from spending "$7,000 on medical bills, including a therapist who charges $175 per visit, and [losing] her $60,000 per year job because of the incident," plus $11.75 for what she spent to see I Know Who Killed Me. [breitbart.com]

The other Christian Louboutin has finally dropped in the Jessica Seinfeld affair, as Missy Chase Lapine, the cookbook author whose book The Sneaky Chef bore an extremely uncomfortable resemblance to the one Mrs. Jerry Seinfeld was plugging on Oprah, is suing the couple. Not only does she claim copyright infringement, but also defamation against the Bee Movie star, who, among the observations he made about the complainant on The Late Show with David Letterman, compared Lapine to "wackos who wait in the woodwork to inject a little adrenaline in your life experience," and noted that "many three-named women do become assassins." THR, ESQ. predicts that the trial should be "entertaining," unless of course the couple decides to settle behind closed doors, offering Lapine an undisclosed but substantial settlement paid off entirely in designer footwear.

America's Next Top Model Cycle One contestant Elyse Sewell and Marty Crandall, her boyfriend and keyboardist for The Shins, both wound up in Sacramento jail accusing the other of domestic abuse. Sewell blogged about the incident on LiveJournal (it's since been switched to private pending the investigation), explaining among other things that the bite mark on Crandall's arm was inflicted in self-defense. If you're having trouble remembering which one she was, we've included some YouTube of her facing off in a nude challenge with eventual winner Adrianne Curry, who, as far as we know, hasn't bitten Peter Brady against his own wishes. [Reality Blurred, YouTube]

Oh, what the hell: Defamer videographer Molly McAleer was up to capture the live feed, we're up to blog it—and this Fox News helicopter cameraman's voice has become our new best friend, helpfully pointing out where one of the Van Halenses lives, then trenchantly observing, "Look at this....look- look- look- look at that. That is insanity!" upon witnessing the swarm of paparazzi trailing the ambulance containing a Britney Under the Influence. OK, we really need some sleep before the cops show up to make us give up our two kids—and we don't even have any!

Here's a riveting turn of events in the ongoing Spears-Federline custody saga that's all but certain to push the name Jamie Lynn to the tabloid sidelines for a minimum of two publishing cycles: The "Gimme More" singer's stubborn refusal to hand over her two children to K-Fed's custody led to a four-hour police showdown at her home tonight, requiring the presence of several squad cars, firetrucks, a helicopter and an ambulance—the last of which carted her off on a gurney to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. (Footage courtesy of myfoxla.com, accompanied by running commentary from a cameraman whose gripes of having to "follow this frickin' thing to the hospital" suggest he may not have been entirely aware his audio was being broadcast throughout the internets.)

We don't think this one needs too much dressing up: A report about former Playboy magazine model Rebecca Reyes, who claims she was manhandled by Texas cops, replete with tearful, first person recollection of the events. Observations? Um, former Playboy models crying makes us sad. Also, brown is an underrated tanktop color. Happy New Year, everyone!

That's a relief! Brandy won't face charges for involuntary vehicular manslaughter, so says the Los Angeles City Attorney's office. Brandy is no doubt relieved that she won't have to hire an army of lawyers to defend her in court against criminal charges, and can instead put it all towards the civil suit, a possible settlement, and a medium Pinkberry with no toppings purchased with what's left.[MSNBC]

Comic Ant, best known from his failed grab at the Last Comic Standing crown and hosting that show where porked-out C-listers stand on a giant scale in an effort to shed their poundage while retaining their dignity, is the victim of check fraud: An identity thief, likely affecting a piercing voice, has nicked ninety Gs from the jester's coffers:

Former Barbra Streisand lover/Perm-Tensility Quality Control Technician Jon Peters, who only recently spent millions to give his adoptive godson Kal-El Brandon Routh the most dancing-waterest wedding in Kryptonian history, is on the receiving end of yet two more sexual harassment lawsuits filed by exasperated staff members claiming to have been faded-superproducer-handled during their tenures at the Peters estate. From Page Six:

Sean Connery isn't just a smooth and dashing Scot, he's also a compulsively litigious thorn in the side of New York State Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman. It seems the septuagenarian is engaged in an endless game of "Suit, Countersuit" with his neighbor, in an enmity-charged relationship not seen since Bond thwarted Dr. No. Appropriately, his neighbor's name is Mr. Sultan:

We can all breathe a little bit easier now that we know that the "narcotic" found on Mischa Barton during her DUI arrest was, in fact, marijuana. (To be honest, we thought California classifies that stuff as a "holistic food additive.") We also now have access to heartbreaking images of a babushka-wrapped Barton—accidentally, we're sure, evoking Benazir Bhutto—being led away from the the jail where she spent the night to her parents' waiting car. A sobering event for all involved, to be sure. [Page Six]

Celebrity DUI Christmas continues—sort of. Early Tom Cruise screen love interest Rebecca De Mornay, whom we mistakenly thought couldn't so much as get arrested in this town, was charged today for being picked up by police October 30, after the hand that rocked her steering wheel led them to suspect she might be driving under the influence. (She was: She blew a .09.) Her court date is December 31st, "but she does not have to appear." [TMZ]

We knew the end of the year would net a far bigger DUI fish than Boy Meets World's Topanga, and Swervy Claus has come through once again, crashing his sleigh into the side of Defamer HQ-2 with a newly booked Mischa Barton to put under our twinkling Christmas stump. True to their names, the girls at Hollyscoop were first on the scene:

We'd like you now to take a moment and think back: way, way back, when a pre-reformed shock-starlet Lindsay Lohan was light years away from sharing the urban-pop-recording goings-on in her newly clean-and-sober life with a Las Vegas radio show (which we'd in turn set to charming, anthropomorphized vegetable imagery). 2005 was the Golden Age of Lohan-Generated Vehicular Manglings, but who of us could have anticipated that over two years later, we'd still be talking about the once-commonplace occurrence of her black Mercedes colliding with a delivery van following a lunch at The Ivy:

Great news for everyone who knew deep in their hearts that beloved Moesha star Brandy would never intentionally mow down someone on the highway: She may not have! Potentially exculpatory evidence in her ongoing fatal fender-render investigation might have her appraising the talents of mother-and-son plate spinning teams on America's Got Talent faster than you can say "Hey, that guy's selling oranges. I've been meaning to get some—OH MY GOD!" TMZ reports: