A celebrity facialist’s murder-for-hire case was worthy of a Hollywood thriller. Now it is one

(CNN) — When former “facialist to the stars” Dawn DaLuise received a sudden stream of text messages in late June, it triggered memories of the months-long stalking campaign that derailed her beauty career and landed her in jail charged with soliciting murder.

A decade earlier, the messages might have contained threats from unknown senders, or responses to fliers offering “free” sex that had been printed with her contact details (alongside images of her and her daughters’ faces superimposed onto X-rated photos) and distributed on Santa Monica Boulevard.

As it happened, however, the texts were from friends and clients informing DaLuise of the latest chapter in a life story that came to resemble a Hollywood thriller: She was being portrayed by Elizabeth Banks in a new movie.

Hitting theaters today, “Skincare” tells the semi-fictional story of LA esthetician Hope Goodman (Banks), who becomes convinced that rival salon owner Angel Vergara (Luis Gerardo Méndez) is out to ruin her. Her tires are slashed, she receives creepy videos and nighttime phone calls, and a man shows up at her clinic after a classified ad invites strangers to fulfill her workplace rape fantasies.

“My phone was a receptacle for all sorts of harassment… during my ordeal, so when (all these messages) popped up, and the first thing I see is a trailer about my life, it caused me to revisit a bit of that trauma,” DaLuise told CNN in a video interview ahead of the movie’s release.

“Reputation is everything in this business,” Goodman observes in the movie, and hers is left in tatters by an explicit sexual email sent to her entire contact book from her account. Once-loyal customers flock over the street to Vergara’s booming salon, while an increasingly hysterical Goodman buys a gun for self-defense and follows her rival to his home. A friend’s offer of protection then takes a dramatic turn — as does her suspicion of who is really behind the harassment.

Art imitates life

Described in the movie’s opening credits as being “fictional” but “inspired by true events,” the story shares significant similarities with DaLuise’s.

Now 65, the esthetician once counted Jennifer Aniston and Sarah Michelle Gellar among the clients at her Hollywood clinic, Skin Refinery. Best-known for “galvanic” facials, which use small electrical currents to help beauty products penetrate the skin, DaLuise — much like the character Goodman — launched a skincare range and developed a media profile of her own.

In addition to the aforementioned fliers and texts, DaLuise’s tires were also slashed. She received hundreds of unwanted calls and multiple Craigslist ads were posted in her name claiming she was seeking a man to satisfy her sexual fantasies.

She, too, came to (erroneously) believe that an esthetician who opened a clinic next to hers, Gabriel Suarez, was behind the unsettling incidents.

“I was stunned and in awe of how precise everything (was), from the location (to) the mannerisms and the way in which our salons were both decked out,” DaLuise said of the production. “Somebody really did their homework and did it well.” (Banks, meanwhile, told Entertainment Weekly last month that she didn’t know the movie was inspired by a true story until “way later into the process.”)

But the movie’s plot subsequently deviates from reality in crucial ways — particularly when it comes to the crime DaLuise was accused of committing.

In March 2014, DaLuise was arrested and accused of a murder-for-hire plot against Suarez. The case centered on a text she sent to then-friend, Edward Feinstein, saying she had “found someone who is going to take Gabriel out.” DaLuise argued that the message had not been serious (she described it to CNN as “venting”).

The man she was accused of approaching about the hit, former NFL player Chris Geile, testified in court that he barely knew DaLuise and she had never asked him to kill Suarez. The jury took less than an hour to acquit her —  but not before she spent 10 months in prison awaiting trial, during which time she developed colorectal cancer. (She later sued the LA Sheriff’s Department for wrongful imprisonment, among other things, and settled with the county for failing to diagnose her cancer while in custody.)

DaLuise believed she had been framed, and attention soon turned to the police’s informant, Feinstein. Authorities suspected that he and his friend (and one of DaLuise’s clients) Nick Prugo, a member of the infamous “Bling Ring” thieving gang that had targeted high-profile celebrities’ homes, were behind the nefarious acts, not Suarez.

In 2016, Los Angeles County Superior Court sentenced Feinstein and Prugo to 350 hours of community service and three years of probation each on stalking misdemeanor charges. The pair were ordered to stay away from DaLuise and her two daughters, and to cease contact with one another for 10 years.

Feinstein and Prugo were also accused of posting an online ad soliciting men to visit DaLuise’s home to rape her, though the judge dismissed that felony charge, saying there was insufficient evidence.

The pair’s conviction followed a plea deal, and an alleged motive for their crimes was not published by the court. Offering her explanation in a 2015 episode of “Dr. Phil,” DaLuise said of Feinstein: “I just think it’s pathological, I think it’s sadistic and I think it’s psychotic.”

Setting the record straight

Despite DaLuise’s praise for the production, she is “disappointed” not to have been consulted by the writers or director, Austin Peters — or even invited to a preview screening (though she said she managed to “tag along” with other invitees to see the movie twice ahead of the release). Having explored the possibility of taking legal action against the studio, IFC Films, the still-practicing esthetician said she is now of a “if you can’t beat them, join them” mindset.

“I have no choice but to accept it, because the various attorneys who were vested in trying to assist me said there’s no real legal foundation for me claiming any kind of harm was done.”

“I feel like a mother figure wanting to shake my finger in (the writers’) faces and say, ‘You should have asked me for help, (the movie) would have been better than it is,’” she added.

IFC Films declined to comment on why it did not involve DaLuise in the project.

DaLuise hopes revived attention in her case will help her sell a documentary to a major network or streaming service, telling CNN she signed a “top director” for the project within days of the “Skincare” trailer’s release. (She has previously leaned into the controversy, making her 2018 comeback to the beauty industry using the brand name “Killer Facials”).

And while the various court proceedings have long concluded, details of the case continue to be debated online. Various social media accounts have been set up in DaLuise’s name claiming to expose the “truth” about her. Feinstein, who at the time reportedly told investigators that DaLuise was faking the harassment to discredit Suarez, continues to question the esthetician’s version of events, saying in a 2021 YouTube video he regrets taking a plea deal and claiming she fabricated stalking incidents.

DaLuise said she chose to remain “silent” over Feinstein’s claims, adding “I want him just to go away.” But seeing “Skincare” also left her wanting to set the record straight again, saying of the movie: “It was a bit of a rollercoaster ride, and it was enjoyable, but it wasn’t fact-based in any real way.”

“That movie was probably about 20% of my whole ordeal,” she added. “The audience has no idea about the follow up — the incarceration and whatnot. So, I’m a little bit more comfortable knowing that when my documentary comes out, people won’t even recognize it from the movie they saw. That’s my hope, because it’s so different.”

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