Perpetually troubled actress Lindsay Lohan has found herself mixed up in the law again, but in a wholly new and surprising way: this time she apparently got choked by a congressional aide rather than booked by cops. The Mean Girls star was partying it up with Christian LaBella, an Illinois Republican, before the two headed back to her room at the W Hotel Union Square with some friends. Lohan became upset after discovering LaBella had sent pics of her partying to his friends, and started trying to delete them. LaBella then demanded she return his phone and, when Lohan refused, allegedly began throwing her around the $500-a-night room. First, Lohan claims, he threw her on the bed and scratched her. She then hid in the bathroom for a while, she says, before the tussle moved from the 15th floor suite into the hotel hallways—where LaBella allegedly threw her to the ground and choked her before someone pulled him off. Lohan then pulled the fire alarm for help and ran away. Police arrived and the GOP's man was arrested, but ultimately released without charge.

Everyone has plenty to say about the incident. “We think it's both distressing and outrageous,” says Lohan's publicist. “Lindsay was assaulted and there needs to be a consequence for that.” Meanwhile, LaBella's uncle thinks Lohan is just exerting her celebrity to frame his nephew: “He’s a decent kid who met her at a nightclub and she invited him back to her hotel room with other people,” he says. “And now she’s using her celebrity to launch a full-scale witch hunt against him just to be relevant again.” Lohan's dad, Michael, is more succinct: “Wait till I get this guy.”