According to The New York Daily News the actress, 44, was arrested at 7:30 p.m. a few blocks from her Lower East Side apartment charged with buying crack cocaine.
After searching O'Neal the police found bag of crack, a bag of cocaine and an unused crack pipe. Police said that she claimed she was "doing research for a part" as a junkie.
"I've been clean for a long time," the Daily News quoted her telling police. "Today was the first time I was relapsing, but you guys saved me. Can you let me go?"
According to her memoir "A Paper Life," her 1995 drug addiction was a result of losing custody of her children. In 1996 she went into rehab.
At 10, O'Neal became the youngest person to win a competitive Oscar for her supporting role in "Paper Moon" along side her father Ryan O'Neal. She later starred in "Bad News Bears" and currently plays Dennis Leary's sister on "Rescue Me."
In 1986 she married tennis player John McEnroe, with whom she has three children. The couple divorced in 1992, with McEnroe gaining custody over their three children.
