Bounty Hunting With the Girls of Lipstick Bail Bonds
Twin sisters deliver a little style with justice, pink handcuffs and all.
Aug. 28, 2009 — -- It looks like a scene straight out of "Cops" -- the wanted man makes a break for it and everyone's in hot pursuit on foot. The chase ends just minutes later with the man pinned to the ground, but then, to anyone watching, something looks off. Pink handcuffs. Pink shoes. Pink Hummer. Pink, well, everything.
It may look odd, but it's just the way the ladies of Lipstick Bail Bonds do business, and business is good.
Twin sisters Lisa and Teresa Golt, 42, started the bail bonds company in Los Angeles after serving 10 years with the Los Angeles Police Department. Now licensed bond agents, the ladies help pay suspects' bail to get them out of jail for a 10 percent fee, but then keep an eye on them to make sure they make it to their next court date.
If the suspects skip out, the ladies take care of business to drag the fugitives back, pink handcuffs and all.
Lipstick Bond Girls Bring 'Em in Smiling
Richard Young, one of the ladies' customers, pleaded "no contest" to assaulting his girlfriend and the court found him guilty. The Golts freed Young on $50,000 bond but then he missed a court date.
They tracked Young down, but to recapture him, the Golts sent in a girl to act as a decoy, to delay him while they got in position. But Young sensed something was wrong and took off.
That's when the Golts bolted after him, brought him down and slapped their now-famous pink cuffs on him. Even Young had to smile at that.
"[It's] a little embarrassing, but they did a good job," Young said. Young saw the irony in a man guilty of assaulting a woman being brought down by two women. "I guess it's, uh, payback. Bad karma," he said.
The pink cuffs are even a little embarrassing to the Golts, but they say it makes their targets smile because "pink is a happy color."
From Shoes to a SWAT Truck, Everything Pink
In fact, everything they use is pink, including two dozen vehicles from the Smart Car to a SWAT truck.
So far, the twins have bailed out more than 5,000 suspects, collecting 10 percent of whatever the bail is. They keep pink lists of their clients in their -- what else? -- pink office.
The twins don't have any men on their staff, other than a few who help them with the vehicles' logistics, they said. But they wouldn't be against it.
"If we have a guy that wants to be a Lipstick Bond girl, we'll hire him," Teresa Golt said. "They just don't happen to want to wear pink -- that's a requirement -- and drive a pink car and wear pink lipstick and pink shoes."