Lane Garrison

Lane Garrison is a young actor who was a rising star in Hollywood until very recently when he made the ill-fated decision to drive while heavily intoxicated.

Garrison was born in Dallas, Texas on May 23, 1980 and raised in Richardson, Texas. He was a troubled youth and admits to having been a thief. He stole items such as cars and stereos. He had a troubled relationship with his mother and moved out of his mother's house at age seventeen. As luck would have it, his family's minister was a nice man who took Garrison under his wing and let Garrison stay at his house with his family until Garrison straightened his life out. Surprisingly, the minister was Joe Simpson, the father of pop stars Jessica and Ashlee Simpson.

In 1998, at the age of eighteen, Garrison drove to Los Angeles to become an actor. His first acting job was in backpack commercial that paid $3,500. Garrison struggled to make it for several years until he finally got his big break and was cast as David "Tweener" Apolskis on the hit TV show Prison Break. His character was a punk who was sent to the Fox River State Penitentiary. His character earned the name "Tweener" because he acted like a wigger when he arrived at Fox River and neither the black inmates nor the white inmates would associate with him. Tweener was immediately a mark for some of the gay inmates on the show, such as Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell. In one of the episodes Tweener cried himself to sleep because T-Bag kept threatening to molest him. A sadistic prison guard, Brad Bellick, quickly arranged for a large inmate to share Tweener's cell. The large inmate eventually raped Tweener. As a result of the abuse, Tweener was eventually included in the main plotline involving several inmates escaping the prison.





The Tweener character was killed off the show in 2006. However, Garrison's character built a loyal following of fans and he was eventually cast in a minor role in the 2007 major motion picture Shooter. Garrison must have felt like he was on top of the world as he was undoubtedly on the path toward bigger and better movie and/or TV roles.

Unfortunately, Garrison's world and career imploded on December 2, 2006 when he was involved in a fatal car crash. On that fateful day Garrison had been drinking and ran into some teens (one 17-year-old boy, and two 15-year-old girls) at a grocery store. Although he didn't know the teens, they recognized him from Prison Break and asked him to accompany them to a party. Garrison obliged them and showed up at the party where he had at least one drink with his underage fans. According to some sources, Garrison was doing several shots with the group of high school students when he crashed his SUV on the way to the liquor store to restock on his particular brand of vodka. In the crash, Garrison lost control of his SUV, jumped a curb and ran into a tree at a high rate of speed. His 17-year-old male passenger died in the crash and the two 15-year-old girls were also injured, one critically. It was later reported that Garrison's blood alcohol level at the time of the crash was more than twice the legal limit (i.e., greater than .16%) and that was under the influence of cocaine.

On March 8, 2007 Garrison was charged with vehicular manslaughter for his role in the crash. Garrison has accepted responsibility for his actions and on April 11, 2007 it was reported that Garrison would plead guilty to the charge of vehicular manslaughter.

Garrison faces up to six years and eight months in prison for his crime. Garrison is a small man and he had better hope that life doesn't imitate art when he is sentenced to prison time because he sure won't want to experience the kind of abuse that his character Tweener did at the hands of horny aggressors at the Fox River State Penitentiary in Prison Break.

For the many reasons discussed above, Lane Garrison is one washed-up celebrity!

** I take no pleasure in this blog post because someone died in Garrison's crash and Garrison seemed to be a decent guy until his accident.

*** Update - August 2, 2007 ***
Lane Garrison was sentenced to 90 days in California state prison today. Liberal judge Elden Fox infuriated the parents of the kids killed in Garrison's DUI accident by sentencing Garrison to a 90 day stint during which psychiatrists and others will evaluate him to determine whether he is a suitable candidate for straight probation. The odds are that the judge will let Garrison go free after a mere 3 months in prison. Garrison should thank his lucky stars that he was not assigned the judge from the Paris Hilton trial. If he had that judge, he would have been looking at years in prison.


*** Update - November 1, 2007 ***
Lane Garrison was sentenced to 40 months in California state prison for his DUI accident. Before the sentencing, an emotional Garrison told the familes of his victims that he was "'genuinely remorseful' and 'sickened' by his bahevior that night." Garrison will be credited for the time he has already served while undergoing the psychological evaluation discussed above. Garrison was also ordered to pay about $300,000 to the families of his victims.