Skin guru sues county cops
After being acquitted of murder plot, she says sheriff’s officials botched investigation.
A skin-care guru to the stars acquitted of plotting to kill a rival has sued Los Angeles County sheriff ’s detectives, alleging they conducted a shoddy investigation that led to her being jailed for more than 10 months before her trial.
A jury in January took only an hour to find Dawn DaLuise not guilty of solicitation of murder and solicitation of assault charges.
The lawsuit filed last week says that investigators said they had a “solid case” but actually relied on a witness who was later arrested on suspicion of stalking DaLuise.
Sheriff ’s investigators arrested DaLuise last year, saying that text messages she sent showed she was serious about having her West Hollywood business rival, Smooth Cheeks owner Gabriel Suarez, killed. Authorities accused her of approaching a former NFL player to carry out the task.
But according to the lawsuit, a search of her 6,000 messages by authorities yielded only two text messages related to Suarez, one of which ended with the acronym “LOL,” meaning “laugh out loud.” The messages were not intended to be taken seriously, the suit says.
The texts mentioned “taking out” Suarez but actually referred only to “hurting his hands (tools of his trade) not to kill Suarez,” the suit says.
Her attorney has previously said DaLuise was just venting to a friend and never intended to hurt her business competitor. The man she was accused of asking to carry out the killing, the suit noted, later told a detective he was never asked to kill anyone.
DaLuise, whose clients have included celebrities Nicki Minaj, Jennifer Aniston and Alicia Silverstone, says she was actually the victim of stalking.
According to the suit, she began noticing lewd emails, fliers and at least one Craigslist posting targeting her in 2013. The Craigslist posting said she wanted to be part of a rape fantasy and resulted in several men knocking on her door in response to the ad.
According to the lawsuit, the stalking was the work of a then-friend, Edward Feinstein, who also told detectives that DaLuise was colluding with him to make it look like Suarez was targeting her. Feinstein, the suit says, provided detectives with the texts that were ultimately used as evidence against DaLuise.
Feinstein was arrested and released last year on suspicion of stalking DaLuise but has not been charged. Feinstein could not be reached for comment Monday.
The lawsuit accused sheriff ’s officials of failing to properly investigate Feinstein before they arrested DaLuise.
Sheriff ’s Capt. Shawn Mathers on Monday said he could not comment on the lawsuit because he has yet to see it. Mathers, along with the sheriff and two other investigators, was named in the suit. In January, after DaLuise’s acquittal, he defended the investigation, saying the department believed it had a strong case despite the jury’s verdict.
The lawsuit noted that prosecutors had offered DaLuise a deal before the trial: Plead guilty to felony solicitation for assault and go free. DaLuise turned down the offer, insisting on her innocence.
The suit seeks unspecified damages for DaLuise, saying she suffered financially and emotionally as a result of her arrest and prosecution. She says she lost two businesses and endured humiliating strip and body cavity searches while she awaited trial in the county’s jail.