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'Bling Ring' Ex-Con And Friend Tried To Get Men To Rape Celebrity Facialist, Prosecutors Say
An already bizarre story gets weirder: a member of the 'Bling Ring'—a teenage gang that broke into and burgled celebrity homes, including that of Paris Hilton and Orlando Boom—and his friend are accused of harassing a celebrity facialist—including trying to get men from Craigslist to go to her house and rape her.Nicholas Prugo, 24, who previously spent a year in prison for being part of the infamous 'Bling Ring,' was arrested yesterday for allegedly stalking a West Hollywood woman and her two adult daughters. Prugo's friend, Edward Feinstein, 31, was arrested on September 15 for the same charges and has since been released on a $450,000 bail, the L.A. Times reports. The pair have been charged with stalking and solicitation of rape. If convicted, Feinstein faces up to seven years in prison and Prugo could get 14 years due to his previous convictions.
Prosecutors allege that Prugo and Feinstein conspired to harass Dawn DaLuise, a former model and a celebrity skin care expert whose clients included the likes of Sarah Michelle Gellar and Christina Ricci. They say that between December 1, 2013 and April 1, 2014, the pair stalked DaLuise as well as put up a Craigslist ad that featured DaLuise's home address. The ad said that she was a woman who had a rape fantasy, and she was looking for men to come over and fulfill it. DaLuise said that numerous men began showing up at her door. She also said she had her tires slashed, and that large amounts of pizzas and sandwiches no one ordered were being delivered to her home. She said that someone also posted photos of her adult daughters with captions stating they enjoyed incest with their mother.
While all this was going on, DaLuise wrongly suspected it was the work of rival skin care expert Gabriel Suarez, who had just opened his own shop near hers in West Hollywood. DaLuise made headlines last year after she was accused of attempting to hire former Detroit Lions player Chris Geile to kill him. DaLuise had allegedly sent a text to Feinstein, claiming that Geile was going to "take [Suarez] out," a text she later said was just venting.
The way they all met was an interesting one. DaLuise was having a drink with journalist Nancy Jo Sales, who is famous for writing the book The Bling Ring, and that drink ran into a meeting between Sales and Prugo, according to L.A. Magazine. DaLuise offered Prugo a ride home later and the two became friends. DaLuise helped him come up with an idea for a reality show where Prugo and another 'Bling Ring' member would act as break-in specialists who could expose security risks in fancy houses. Prugo had met Feinstein in jail, and introduced him to DaLuise. Feinstein fueled DaLuise's suspicions of Suarez, and when the police finally got involved, Feinstein told them DaLuise had asked him to fake the harassment to frame Suarez and showed them texts indicating DaLuise wanted to find someone who would kill Suarez.
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DaLuise spent ten months behind bars after her arrest, but was ultimately acquitted by a jury after less than an hour of deliberation in January of 2015. Prosecutors admitted as evidence texts and emails where she insulted Suarez, but her attorneys said she was just venting because she suspected it was Suarez who had been harassing her. Geile testified that DaLuise had complained to him about Suarez, but did not ask him to kill or hurt him, according to ABC7. Plus, it turned out that Feinstein had a history of conning and harassing people.
DaLuise is suing L.A. County Sheriff Jim McDonnell and L.A. County for believing Feinstein without first looking into him more thoroughly.
DaLuise told PEOPLE that her life had been 'decimated' after her arrest and that she has been diagnosed with colorectal cancer—which she claims was advanced while she was in jail because her jailers ignored them when she told them she was experiencing rectal bleeding. Suarez told PEOPLE it hasn't been great for him either, and that his car has been vandalized and people have set up fake Craigslist ads for him, too.
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