Lohans hit with court papers over Long Island manse

A process server slapped Lindsay and Dina Lohan with court papers today — part of Chase Bank’s years-long battle to foreclose on their Long Island mansion, sources said.

The server tacked the court papers on the front gate of the troubled Starlet’s childhood house in Merrick — where Dina and Lindsay brawled in October.

Today’s court documents — which a source said names both Lindsay, 26, and her mom, Dina, 50 — were inside an envelope notes that simply: “Important Information Enclosed.”

The delivery man confirmed to The Post that he was a process server and that the papers were related to a “Chase Bank” mortgage issue.

Splash News

Lindsay Lohan arriving at amfAR gala.

Financial woes run in the family.

Hard-partying Dina has racked up over $1 million in debt in the past decade, barely avoiding foreclosure on the $1.3 million house in 2005 and 2012, court documents show.

In October, Lindsay helped her mom pay the loans, plunking down a reported $40,000.

That set off an October brawl between Lindsay and her mother — which took place in the driveway at the house — there the starlet demanded Dina pay back the huge loan.

“I was like, ‘Give me my money back! Give me my 40 grand back, that I just gave you!’” the actress said, recounting the fight to her father, Michael, in a phone conversation he recorded.

“You gave Mom $40,000?” Michael asked.

“Because she needs to keep her house,” Lindsay responded.

Lohan owes more than $200,000 in back-taxes — which Charlie Sheen reportedly help her pay in November 2012.

“Thank you Charlie Sheen for having Lindsays back!” Dina tweeted today.

But in December, the IRS froze Lindsay’s accounts.

In 2005, Dina Lohan took out a loan totaling more than $700,000 and now holds a $422,723 mortgage on the property, records show.

In 2008, she was forced to pay off a $301,715 lien for money borrowed from another lender, records show.

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Miami startup that turns text to video receives $1 million in seed funding

Guide, a new technology startup based in Miami, announced Tuesday it has closed a $1 million round of seed funding from investors including the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Sapient Corp., MTV founder Bob Pitman, actor and producer Omar Epps, and early Google employee Steve Schimmel. The Knight Foundation is supporting Guide through its new early-stage venture fund, the Knight Enterprise Fund.

Led by CEO and founder Freddie Laker and COO Leslie Bradshaw, Guide’s team of seven is focused on turning online news, social streams and blogs into video for users who may be cooking, exercising, commuting or getting ready in the morning. The free application offers consumers a selection of about 20 “anchors” — including a dog, a robot and an anime character — that will read the article and present the accompanying photos, pull-out information and video clips in its video presentation. Revenue drivers for Guide could include in-app purchases, advertising-based anchors and customizations from publishers, said Laker, a former vice president at SapientNitro.

Laker and his team plan to launch a public beta next month, which they plan to do with a splash at the huge technology conference South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas.

Read more about Guide here on the Starting Gate blog. Follow Nancy Dahlberg on Twitter @ndahlberg

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Judge angered after learning mentally ill Miami man was placed in assisted living facility, and escaped

After Cristobal Abreu was arrested for stabbing a Hialeah SWAT officer with a large BBQ fork in December 2009, doctors deemed his mind too ravaged by mental illness to stand trial.

For years, he bounced around mental health facilities.

Then a stay at a Miami Gardens assisted living facility, where funds for his medications ran out and his mental state deteriorated, ended last month when the 72-year-old Abreu was shipped without a judge’s permission to Jackson North Medical Center.

Then last week, a Jackson case worker — again, without permission from the court — sent him to an ALF in Little Havana. He promptly escaped.

“I’m free! I’m free,” Abreu yelled as he shuffled away from the San Martin de Porras facility Tuesday, according to lawyers and court personnel who aired the episode over two days in court this week.

Abreu’s ping-ponging treatment has drawn the ire of Circuit Judge Ellen Sue Venzer, who has now ordered hospital and state-contracted mental health administrators to court Friday to explain what happened.

“The system is broken,” Venzer said angrily in court this week, adding: “What would have happened if Mr. Abreu had decompensated and gone out and hurt somebody else in our community?”

Abreu’s escape was short-lived: police quickly detained him, committing him back to Jackson Memorial Hospital for an involuntary psychiatric evaluation.

The unusual episode underscores what mental health advocates in Miami-Dade’s criminal justice system say has been a reoccurring problem: “incompetent” defendants are often shuffled between facilities without the knowledge of the court tasked with supervising them.

ALFs mostly house the elderly and others with mental health issues or disabilities. It is not unusual for incompetent defendants, usually non-violent ones, to be placed at an ALF in a residential neighborhood.

“The people in the social services arena have to recognize that a court-order is sacrosanct,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said Wednesday. “I really understand the judge’s ire. She has the absolute right to be livid with everyone in the system.”

Subpoenaed to appear before the judge on Friday: Representatives from Jackson, the South Florida Behavioral Network, which contracts with the state to manage cases of the mentally ill defendants, and New Horizons Community Mental Health Center, which monitored Abreu’s case.

A lawyer for the Florida Department of Children and Families will also appear.

“It sounds like all these different agencies are treating these individuals like hot potatoes,” Venzer said in court Wednesday.

Abreu was initially arrested in December 2009 for attempted murder and aggravated battery of a law enforcement officer. The attempted charge was later dropped; the SWAT officer was not hurt because the knife pierced his shield.

During a jailhouse interview with a psychologist, the incoherent Abreu admitted that he sometimes hears voices and see visions of “flowers [and] gold diamonds.”

The court determined that Abreu was “incompetent” to proceed to trial, meaning he could not assist his lawyer in defending the accusations.

After stays in several other facilities, Abreu wound up at the Graceful Gardens ALF, 18101 NW 47th Ct., in November.

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EXCLUSIVE: BTS of Austin Mahone Flo Rida Say Your Just a Friend

The music video for Austin Mahone's smash single Say You're Just a Friend, featuring Flo Rida, is debuting Thursday, but today we're taking you behind-the-scenes of the video shoot in this exclusive clip.

PICS: New Music Tuesday!

In the video, Mahone goofs off with backup dancers and shows off one impressive hat trick all while giving a sneak peek of his flashy dance moves.

The 16-year-old YouTube sensation has been drawing strong comparisons to Justin Bieber, what with his loyal fan base (called Mahomies) and immense talent as a singer/songwriter.

You can see Mahone in person when he joins Taylor Swift on her Red tour starting May 4.

Watch the full video when it premieres on MTV tomorrow night!

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Upper West Side molestation trial in jury deadlock

A Manhattan jury deadlocked today in the molestation trial of an Upper West Side school aide, with only five out of 12 jurors believing the nine-year-old alleged victim's account of repeated unwanted stripping and "massaging" in the boy's room and auditorum.

Gregory Atkins, 57, remains accused of on four occasions last winter bringing the boy into a bathroom at PS 87 and telling him to undress so that he could "check for bruises." On the final occasion, Atkins allegedly asked the boy to perform a sex act -- which the boy refused, later that day telling his therapist and father.

Steven Hirsch

Gregory Atkins, 56, a teacher's aide at PS 87 on the Upper West Side accused of requesting a sex act from an 8-year-old boy

The jury acquitted Atkins of additional child pornography charges stemming from ten images recovered from his home computer. Testimony showed the images had been downloaded and then deleted, jurors explained after their verdict that they couldn't be sure that Atkins had personally downloaded the images.

He remains held in lieu of $250,000 bail. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro set Feb. 15 for his next court date, during which both sides will discuss a possible retrial on the molestation counts.

The five pro-conviction jurors found the boy credible despite the troubled kid's furious responses to a defense lawyer's grilling on the stand last month. "Shut up!" the kid had snapped at the defense lawyer. "And stop being a bully!"

"He was provoked," one male pro-conviction juror told reporters after the verdict. "He didn't like authority and his buttons were pushed. But that doesn't matter," the juror said. "For me, it was an open and shut case."

The boy had told consistent accounts of the molestation from the day he reported it until his time on the witness stand a year later, the juror noted.

But defense lawyers had argued that the boy's trouble with authority extended to Atkins himself -- and that the boy manufactured a molestation tale to get back at the strict school aide.

The pro-acquittal majority agreed that the boy's emotional and authority problems, along with a lack of corroborating evidence, raised reasonable doubt as to Atkins' guilt, said one female juror from the not-guilty camp.

"It was a very tough judgement call," said another female, pro-acquittal juror. "There wasn't enough evidence."

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Miami startup that turns text to video receives $1 million in seed funding

Guide, a new technology startup based in Miami, announced Tuesday it has closed a $1 million round of seed funding from investors including the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Sapient Corp., MTV founder Bob Pitman, actor and producer Omar Epps, and early Google employee Steve Schimmel. The Knight Foundation is supporting Guide through its new early-stage venture fund, the Knight Enterprise Fund.

Led by CEO and founder Freddie Laker and COO Leslie Bradshaw, Guide’s team of seven is focused on turning online news, social streams and blogs into video for users who may be cooking, exercising, commuting or getting ready in the morning. The free application offers consumers a selection of about 20 “anchors” — including a dog, a robot and an anime character — that will read the article and present the accompanying photos, pull-out information and video clips in its video presentation. Revenue drivers for Guide could include in-app purchases, advertising-based anchors and customizations from publishers, said Laker, a former vice president at SapientNitro.

Laker and his team plan to launch a public beta next month, which they plan to do with a splash at the huge technology conference South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas.

Read more about Guide here on the Starting Gate blog. Follow Nancy Dahlberg on Twitter @ndahlberg

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6 Miami-Dade cops fired or suspended for loafing

A Miami-Dade police sergeant and two officers have been fired, and three others have been suspended, capping a two-year investigation into accusations that they ignored emergency calls, filed false police reports and lied about calls they handled, Miami-Dade police spokeswoman Nancy Perez said Tuesday.

The Miami-Dade Internal Affairs Bureau launched the investigation into the Kendall District police squad in 2010. The discharged officers are fighting to get their jobs back.

The officers — who worked the 2-to-10 p.m. shift — were followed, captured on video and tracked with GPS devices. More than 130 violations of department policy were documented.

Fired were Sgt. Jennifer Gonzalez and officers Dario Socarras and Jose Huerta. The other three — officers Jeffrey Price, Fabian Owens and Ivan Tomas — were suspended without pay in September and are back on the job.

Gonzalez was caught shopping, loading purchases into her patrol car and visiting her parents — all while on duty — according to CBS 4’s Jim Defede, who first reported the investigation and its outcome. Socarras ignored emergency calls, including a robbery, instead having a romantic rendezvous with his girlfriend at the Dadeland Mall.

A video captures him making out with the woman while in uniform. He also ignored a call involving a 5-year-old boy who was unconscious and locked inside a car, telling dispatchers he was on his way when, in fact, he was having a cup of coffee with Gonzalez and Huerta, who also ignored the emergency call.

The child was tended to by paramedics.

Price, Owens and Tomas were given suspensions of from five to 20 hours without pay. They, too, ignored a number of emergency calls.

Although police internal affairs investigations of individual officers are not uncommon in an agency as large as the Miami-Dade Police Department, a probe of an entire squad is unusual.

The boundaries of the Kendall District are Bird Road to the north, Coral Reef Drive to the south, Biscayne Bay on the east and Florida’s Turnpike on the west.

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Jessica Chastain Reveals Her Oscars Date Will Be Her Grandmother

Who will arrive arm-in-arm with Jessica Chastain on Oscar Sunday?

The 35-year-old beauty, who is nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her work in Zero Dark Thirty, tells ET she plans to bring a very special date to Hollywood's biggest night!

"I'm going to take my grandmother to the Oscars," beamed Jessica at The Hollywood Reporter's award season bash at Spago in Los Angeles on Monday. "We did that last year and it was one of my favorite days of my life."

Pics: Fierce Fashions at the Oscar Luncheon

The star, along with many of her fellow nominees that morning, came straight to the festivities after attending the Academy's annual Oscar luncheon.

Amy Adams, who is no stranger to attending the star-studded class photo, opened up to ET about the experience which she still feels is a bit surreal.

"Just to be on the bleachers with everybody and to hear everyone's name called, it's always overwhelming to realize the company you're in," said Amy.

Like Jessica, The Master star is mixing it up, as far as her dates go, during the award show hoopla.

Related: Five Things You Don't Know About Jessica Chastain

"I'm bringing my friends," disclosed Amy. "My fiance's been taking some time off-- he's working on an art show he's doing-- so it's fun to infuse some new energy into it."

For more with this year's Oscar nominees, click the video above!

Visit ETonline for complete Oscar coverage Sunday, February 24 as the 85th Annual Academy Awards, hosted by Seth MacFarlane, airs live from the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center in Los Angeles.

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Car swiped in Bronx -- with baby in back seat

A car left idling outside a cell-phone store in The Bronx was swiped tonight — with an 8-month-old baby in the back seat, cops said.

The silver Jeep was found a little over an hour later with the little girl inside unharmed, police said.

The perp is still in the wind.

The child’s dad told cops that he had hopped out of the 2005 Grand Cherokee — leaving it running with the mom and his baby daughter still inside — after pulling up to the store at Morris Avenue and East Knightsbridge Road around 6:18 p.m., authorities said.

The mom then got out for just a minute — and the thief hopped in.

The crook then sped off. It's unclear if he knew there was a child inside.

The car — with the baby inside — was later found abandoned at 7:40 p.m. at Goble and Jerome avenues in Inwood.

The baby was taken to Montefiore Hospital to be checked out.

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Report calls Florida business incentives “corporate welfare’’

TALLAHASSEE --
A government watchdog group and a conservative advocacy group blasted Florida’s government Tuesday for the hundreds of millions of dollars it gives to corporations, blaming the state’s public-private jobs agency for “pay-to-play” cronyism and “corporate welfare.”

A new report by Integrity Florida and Koch brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity highlights several problems with the state’s economic incentives program, which gives tax breaks to companies that set up shop in Florida.

“We’re concerned about the appearance of pay-to-play,” said Dan Krassner, director of Integrity Florida, outlining a number of tax breaks that have gone to politically connected companies and other deals that have failed.

Enterprise Florida Inc. and Gov. Rick Scott, its chairman, immediately hit back, claiming that the organization has been instrumental in bringing high-paying jobs to the state. Enterprise Florida CEO Gray Swoope slammed the report as tainted because it was funded by Americans for Prosperity.

“Integrity Florida has claimed to be a non-partisan, non-profit organization with no policy agenda,” Swoope wrote. “However, a report on economic incentives for job creation funded by a group that so publicly opposes these incentives is deeply troubling.”

Martin Dyckman, a former St. Petersburg Times associate editor and a board member at Integrity Florida, resigned after finding out that the report was funded by Americans for Prosperity. He also said it was “deeply troubling” that AFP sponsored the report, stating that it created “the perception that a well-researched report is an attack by Americans for Prosperity.”

Integrity Florida brushed aside concerns about the funding of its report, saying all of its funders are publicly listed. On Tuesday, the good-governance group focused on the findings of the report during a news conference.

Among the findings:

• Enterprise Florida has failed to meet its job-creation objectives, with companies creating only 103,544 jobs after receiving tax breaks, far short of the 200,000 envisioned by the Legislature in 1992 when EFI was created.

• Enterprise Florida has failed to get 50 percent funding from the private sector, instead relying on 85 percent taxpayer funding to support the public-private partnership

• Enterprise Florida has “the appearance of pay-to-play,” since it receives an average of $50,000 from some of its corporate board members. Those board members also get private contracts to do work on EFI’s behalf as well as tax-break deals processed by EFI.

Slade O’Brien, Florida director of Americans for Prosperity, said Florida’s practice of doling out economic incentives amounts to government manipulation of the free marketplace.

“What’s wrong here is the policy that’s in place,” he said. “Too often, we create winners and losers.”

Several bills in the Florida House and Senate seek to demand more transparency from Enterprise Florida and the economic incentives program. A bill voted out of committee Thursday morning would make Enterprise Florida submit to a slew of new performance reviews moving forward.

Enterprise Florida responded to what it called “troubling accusations” in the report by sending legislative leaders a lengthy letter about the virtues of its operation.

“Through the legislation that you supported two short years ago, Florida now has a seamless economic development team focused on creating jobs for Florida families, increasing capital investment in our communities and providing a significant return on the investment made by the state’s taxpayers,” reads a letter signed by the company’s board.

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