Mohamed Hadid, father of supermodels Gigi and Bella, was sentenced on Thursday for illegally building a 30,000-square-foot mansion in Bel-Air. Hadid has to serve three years of summary probation (a lighter form of probation supervised by the court rather than a probation office), pay upwards of $3,000 in fines plus over $14,000 for costs he's imposed on the city's building department, and complete 200 hours of community service, The Los Angeles Times reports. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power will also charge him additional fees.
The city's prosecutors claimed that the mansion exceeds the city's size limit and that Hadid kept on building it after officials took away his permit and asked that construction be stopped. His neighbor Joseph Horacek called the mansion the "Starship Enterprise," The Los Angeles Times reports, and the neighbors have also expressed concern about the dirt the towering mansion was pushing down onto their properties.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
Another part of Hadid's sentence requires him to work with a developer to figure out how to undo the damage he's been inflicting on the hillside. "It’s not fair to have mud and water running through a neighborhood for years on end," said Superior Court Judge Eric Harmon.
That doesn't mean he's given up on the mansion, though. He's still trying to get it to meet the city's standards so it won't have to be torn down. "We’re interested in one thing and one thing only…bringing this building into compliance,” his lawyer Robert Shapiro told reporters after his hearing. “I can assure you that when this building is complete, it will be one of the most beautiful homes in Bel-Air, if not the country."
Hadid similarly told Town & Country earlier this year, "This house will last forever. Bel Air will fall before this will."
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT