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Lindsay court ‘papers’

Thanks for reading us, Lindsay!

The “Mean Girls” actress tried to call in sick to an LA court yesterday, citing a Post story as evidence that she and much of Gotham are stricken with the flu.

Lohan, facing charges of reckless driving and lying to cops, ultimately showed up at LA Superior Court and endured a comical tongue-lashing from a snarky Judge Stephanie Sautner. “Glad to see you’re feeling better,” the jurist quipped.

“Thank you,” Lohan sheepishly said in reply.

Defense lawyer Mark Heller had earlier written to the court, explaining that Lohan was too ill to travel from New York to Tinseltown.

Heller, as his proof of Lohan’s illness, included a photocopy of the Jan. 11 Post’s front page, headlined: “FLU YORK CITY.”

Heller told Sautner yesterday that Lohan — before her miraculous recovery — had been suffering from an “upper respiratory condition,”

Sautner clearly didn’t buy it and snarked, “Is that like a cold?”

“Yes, in New York City it’s the flu,” Heller said.

Sautner, a former NYPD Special Victims Unit detective, called out the defense’s half-baked excuse.

“I still have New Yorker in me; The flu is the flu,” she said. “It’s a whole different illness.”

Lohan was required to show up yesterday to sign off on hiring Manhattan-based Heller as her new lawyer. The 26-year-old actress recently canned her longtime Southern California defense lawyer, Shawn Holley.

Lohan doesn’t have to show up for her next pretrial hearing March 1, but she will have to attend her trial, set for March 18.

The misdemeanor charges, pending from her June 8 fender-bender on the Pacific Coast Highway, are the least of Lohan’s worries.

Even if she’s not convicted, she could still be found in violation of probation and sent to jail for up to 245 days. The probation is for walking out of a jewelry store with a $2,500 necklace she didn’t pay for.

“She could have her trial on the misdemeanor and be acquitted, and the judge could still find her in violation of probation because the level of proof in a probation violation is much lower,” Sautner told Lohan and her lawyers.

In court yesterday, Lohan looked as run down as the Porsche she allegedly totaled this past summer.

She wore a dark-colored dress, just over the knee, and black and white Louboutin stiletto heels.

Additional reporting by Kirstan Conley in New York