A Celebrity Skincare Queen Accused a Business Competitor of Harassment. She Later Found Out Her Friends Were Involved

NEED TO KNOW

• Esthetician-to-the-stars Dawn DaLuise accused a business competitor of harassment for months and later discovered two of her friends were guilty

• ID’s The Curious Case Of… dives into the case in the two-part episode “The Skincare Queen and the Hitman”

• The episode premieres Feb. 2 at 10 p.m. ET on ID

Esthetician-to-the-stars Dawn DaLuise thought she was being harassed by a business competitor, but found out the culprits were much closer to home.

ID’s The Curious Case Of… series dives into the tangled saga in the two-part episode “The Skincare Queen and the Hitman.” The first part, which aired on Jan. 26, introduces the skincare guru as a dedicated worker who thinks she’s being terrorized by a competitor. But part 2, out on Feb. 2, shifts the focus to her close friend Edward Feinstein and Bling Ring leader Nicholas Prugo, as seen in a clip exclusively shared with PEOPLE.

DaLuise ran a competitive business in Los Angeles, where she gave facials to many celebrities. She says in the documentary that her clinic, Skin Refinery, “erupted” in 2000 after she was named Best Facialist in the city.

In July 2013, DaLuise noticed that a new skincare business opened next door. She was bothered by the construction noise, so she went to speak with the owner. That’s when she was reacquainted with Gabriel Suarez, a man she had turned down for employment in 2009. DaLuise was skeptical of Suarez, and she says her doubts grew as her clients told her he was giving them his business card.

Later that year, DaLuise became the victim of targeted harassment. In the documentary, she recalls her car tires being slashed multiple times in her parking lot and her parking spot being defaced with profanity. The esthetician also claims she was getting mysterious text messages filled with insults.

A business partner then told DaLuise that they found flyers outside her business with her face photoshopped onto the bodies of women performing “lewd” sex acts. The flyers, which were distributed in different places, including her home in North Hollywood, encouraged men to contact her. The public harassment escalated when someone posted that she “likes to get raped” on a website, according to the documentary.

“Everywhere I go I’m being accosted,” DaLuise recalls, adding that she felt as though Suarez was “responsible for it.” She claims she went to the local police department about 16 times, and the police suggested she move or quit her job.

DaLuise met former NFL player Chris Geile at a bar, and she shared her problems with him. She also confided in a fellow church volunteer, who put her in contact with a detective from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department named Steve McCauley.

In an unexpected twist, on March 5, 2014, police arrested DaLuise at her home and charged her with solicitation to murder Suarez. McCauley claimed that during his investigation, he discovered, through Feinstein, that DaLuise had texted Feinstein telling him Geile offered to “take Gabriel out.”

McCauley said he learned that DaLuise had allegedly asked witnesses, including Feinstein, to lie about Suarez while giving their statements, former district attorney Christine Von Helmolt recalls in the documentary.

According to McCauley’s report, DaLuise told him that Geile offered to “take care” of Suarez, and she didn’t decline the offer. McCauley also claimed she said if she could have lured Suarez to her home, she would have shot him. Geile was never charged or under suspicion, PEOPLE reported in 2015.

Suarez says in the documentary that he was “in the dark” about how DaLuise felt about him, and calls her “the original Karen.” He also claims that his car was keyed and he received “violent text messages” about DaLuise around the same time.

Despite being painted as a suspect by DaLuise, Suarez was cleared after Feinstein and Prugo were arrested and charged with stalking DaLuise and soliciting a man to rape her, per a September 2015 release from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

DaLuise had met Prugo after the much-publicized Bling Ring controversy, and she became his manager as they pitched a reality show. He was on parole at the time and had allegedly introduced DaLuise to his parole officer. She claims she had a falling out with Prugo after she told his parole officer that he violated his parole by traveling out of state with Feinstein, whom he had met through a mutual friend — which she alleges led them to plot the harassment.

Feinstein, who was previously convicted of fraud, claimed DaLuise offered him and Prugo free facials if they made the suggestive flyers to frame Suarez, but the evidence didn’t match that claim. DaLuise’s attorney Jamon Hicks says his team went through about 600 texts on her phone and didn’t find any evidence of her being involved in a harassment hoax.

DaLuise heard about Feinstein’s and Prugo’s arrest while she was in jail awaiting trial. In January 2015, a California jury took only 40 minutes to find her not guilty, PEOPLE previously reported.

Feinstein and Prugo pleaded no contest to the count of stalking, and the felony solicitation for rape count was dismissed due to lack of evidence. They were sentenced to 350 hours of community service and three years of probation after accepting a plea deal, per another release from the attorney’s office. “They also were ordered to stay away from the victim and her two daughters and to have no contact with each other for 10 years,” the release stated.

When asked about the incriminating texts in the documentary, DaLuise says she wasn’t thinking “clearly” and was just “blowing off steam.”

Prugo did not participate in the documentary. Feinstein, after telling his side of his conflict with DaLuise, reveals that he is currently being accused of stalking his neighbor.

Part 2 of The Curious Case Of… The Skincare Queen and The Hitman premieres Feb. 2 at 10 p.m. ET, on ID, with new episodes of the series airing weekly. Episodes are available to stream on HBO Max after premiering on ID.

Read the original article on People