Lindsay Lohan hires private detective to delve into background of psychic after she took on Gloria Allred to represent her in assault case

Lindsay Lohan has hired a private investigator to delve into the background of the psychic who accused her of assault in a New York nightclub on Wednesday night.

Sources close to the star believe she made the decision after it emerged that celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred is representing Tiffany Mitchell in the case.

Mitchell and her husband met with Allred on Friday for almost three hours to discuss the case.

Lohan vehemently denies punching Mitchell in Avenue nightclub and claims she is being set up so that her accuser can make money off her.

Accuser: Tiffany Mitchell leaves a meeting with high profile lawyer Gloria Allred on Friday after she and her husband spent over 2.5 hours with Allred

 Calm before the storm: Lindsay Lohan clutches a bottle of Poland Spring water at Avenue club just before her arrest on Thursday

The actress hopes the investigator will find something murky in the blonde's past, a criminal record or evidence she has done this type of thing before. 

A source told TMZ: 'Lohan feels the palm reader is just another in a long line of people who see the actress as an opportunity to make money off her - and the fact that Mitchell hired Allred of all people just proves that.'

The Liz and Dick star has admitted calling Mitchell a gypsy after she approached her and offered to read her palm in the club on Wednesday. 

She claims she did not know it was considered an insult and said she only confronted her because she thought Mitchell and her friends had stolen her purse with $10,000 inside.

Gossip Extra today reported that this is not the first time Tiffany Mitchell has used her 'psychic abilities' to extort money from people.

An anonymous source told the website she would go around high-end nightclubs in Palm Beach - where she lived with her husband for seven years - targeting rich socialites.

One woman said she charged her $43,000 to cleanse her aura.

 

'I feel bad for Lindsay,' the source said. 'I went to see (Mitchell) for about three weeks in November 2011. She used fear tactics to make it seem that I could be in real trouble if I didn’t pay her $43,000.

'She senses when people are vulnerable and when she can make money. I complained about her (Mitchell) to Palm Beach Police but they didn’t do anything about it.'

It emerged yesterday that Lohan burst into tears in the middle of a New York hotel after being sprung from jail following her alleged nightclub brawl on Thursday.

Nightmare 24 hours: Lohan, circled, emerged from a New York police station on Thursday morning. The woman in the green dress is believed to be a decoy

As her handlers tried to get Lindsay out of sight, the Mean Girls actress begged those around her for help.

The New York Post is reporting a source witnessed the child star fall to pieces at hotel on the Upper East Side.

They recalled her saying: 'She was crying and kept asking, ''Why does this happen to me? This is a setup! I don’t deserve this... It’s not my fault!''

'Lindsay was saying, ''I was trying to find out who stole Ali’s purse! I gave her the money for my family, to pay for my brother’s school fees,' the source told the paper.

The purse had $10,000 in it, the New York Post reports.

'Lindsay says she never hit the girl,' the source added.

'She just went over to find if they had her sister’s purse. They were looking around the area, but the girl was sitting at the table, and some pushing started.'

 

Hooded: New video footage shows her screaming at her assistant Gavin Doyle

However, Lohan has apparently been downing up to two litres of vodka a day for the past two months, to deal with the stress of her worsening financial situation and impending probation violation, stemming from her June car crash.

According to TMZ, the troubled actress had been drinking all day on Wednesday and early Thursday things came to a dramatic head when Lindsay allegedly assaulted psychic Tiffany Eve Mitchell at Manhattan's Avenue nightclub.

The website also claims that Lindsay admitted that she did call her alleged victim, Tiffany Mitchell 'a gypsy' but she was unaware the term was a slur.

Lindsay had earlier arrived to Justin Bieber's New York concert that night already inebriated, to watch support act The Wanted, the website claims.

Apparently 24-year-old Max George, one of the members of the British boyband who Lindsay has a crush on, was also implicated in the cat fight: Lindsay is said to have lashed out at 28-year-old Mitchell for flirting with the singer, sources close to the band told MailOnline.