Los Angeles (CNN) -- Lindsay Lohan got a temporary reprieve from a 120-day jail term for violating probation Friday, but the actress must immediately start court-ordered community service that should keep her busy for months.
While Lohan recently traveled to New York to discuss acting roles, including in the upcoming "Gotti" film, her next year could be spent in Los Angeles working on Skid Row, in court and behind bars.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner sentenced Lohan to jail and community service after deciding Friday that Lohan violated her probation when she was charged with stealing a necklace from a jewelry store in January.
It's the latest punishment for Lohan in a four-year-long legal saga that started with two drunk driving convictions in 2007, followed by three judges ordering her to jail for probation violations in the past year.
Unlike last September, when Lohan's entry into drug rehab convinced another judge not to enforce a jail sentence for a failed drug test, a rehab stint does not appear to be an alternative this time.
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Lohan has spent a total of eight months in rehab programs since the start of 2007 for treatment of a self-admitted substance abuse problem.
Sautner made it clear she thought Lohan did not respect the previous judges who sent her to jail twice last year.
"She thumbs her nose at the court," Sautner said, referring to an incident last July that was caught by a courtroom camera. "She walks into court with 'F U' on her fingernails. I don't know what that means unless it has 'I am' before it."
It would take Lohan three months of working five days a week, eight hours a day to complete the 480 hours community service Sautner ordered Friday, along with the four-month jail sentence.
Her first job will be for 360 hours at the Downtown Women's Center on Skid Row in Los Angeles. Sautner suggested Lohan might behave better after seeing "how truly needy women and women who have fallen on real hard times have to live."
Lohan must then work 120 hours at the Los Angeles County morgue, an assignment other drunk driving probationers have served.
She still has a June 3 trial date for the necklace theft charge. The judge said she would "give her an opportunity" by reducing the felony to a misdemeanor.
The opportunity may be for Lohan to accept a plea deal, something she rejected last month when she demanded a trial by jury.
At the time, defense attorney Shawn Holley said she "has a strong defense and we are confident that a jury will listen to the evidence fairly and acquit her."
Sautner was unimpressed with the defense presented at Friday's preliminary hearing.
It centered on Holley arguing that Lohan was "doing a million different things," including texting, when she walked out of the jewelry store with the gold and diamond necklace she had tried on 20 minutes earlier.
Lohan was "more scattered than crafty," Holley told the judge.
"It's undisputed that Ms. Lohan walked out of the store with the necklace on," Holley said. The prosecution must show she had "specific intent to permanently deprive the store of that necklace."
Holley conceded that Lohan "did not rush to return the necklace," but she said it just "makes her not a very considerate or courteous person," but not a thief.
Sautner did not buy the defense argument. "If in fact it was an accident, she could have called the store back," Sautner said.
Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Danette Meyers called it a "classic garden variety theft."
There was no mention Friday of the defense theory floated before the hearing that Lohan believed the store owner was loaning the necklace to her because she was a celebrity.
Lohan's Friday ended with her posing for her fifth mugshot at Los Angeles County's Lynwood Correctional Facility, where she's been several times before. She was out after five hours when she posted the $75,000 bond set by Sautner.
She can stay out of jail while Holley appeals the probation violation decision, but Sautner ordered her to immediately begin the community service work at the women's center.
