In Hustlers, Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu play a pair of savvy New York City strippers who hatch a criminal plot to turn profits after the 2008 financial crash. The plan? Lure men out to drinks, slip a combination of MDMA and ketamine into their co*cktails, and—when they’re zonked out of their minds—max out their credit cards. The movie was written by Lorene Scafaria and inspired by two real-life hustlers profiled by Jessica Pressler in a 2015 feature for New York magazine.
The woman who inspired Ramona’s character is Samantha Barbash. “A single mother from the Bronx, she’d started dancing at 19,” writes Pressler, “and, like an ornamental plant purposefully stunted to conform to a certain ideal, she’d been shaped by the industry in which she grew up. Her body was Jessica Rabbit curvy, her lips Angelina Jolie puffy; her hair, which concealed tattoos of a cascade of stars running down her neck, was Cleopatra black. Buried within this ultrafeminine package was a mercenary streak worthy of Gordon Gekko.” Though Barbash claims she never actually stripped, her story—in Pressler’s telling, at least—sounds very similar to Ramona’s arc.
Barbash assembled a phalanx of beautiful younger women—foot soldiers in stilettos—whom she dispatched in small groups to “entertain” her high net-worth clients. She had a soft spot for designer clothing and a bullish business strategy—preferring to max out credit cards in one fell swoop rather than taking smaller amounts over a longer period of time. Barbash has denied she was trying to enact some modern Robin Hood story: “Robbing bankers because they robbed Wall Street or whatever—that never crossed my mind,” Barbash said recently. “What crossed my mind is I’m a single mom and I need to support my son.”
Her partner in crime was Roselyn Keo. “I would like to think Samantha was the CEO and I was the CFO,” Keo has explained of their small-business setup. As for the morality issue: “What’s an extra $20,000 to them?” Keo told Pressler, noting that their targets had a history of visiting strip clubs. “It wasn’t like we pulled them off the street…. They’d been to Hustler, they’d been to Rick’s, they’d been to Scores. They all walked in ready to party. And yeah, we slipped an extra one that they didn’t know about. But all of it goes hand in hand—sex, drugs, and rock and roll. You know?”
Eventually, the women grew tired of the hustle. “That’s why I think we got greedy,” Keo told Pressler. “Because of the amount of stress we had to endure. We’re just like, You know what, these people are f*cking pissing me off. Just for that, I’m going to max out his credit card, like a penalty. You’re going to be left with a zero balance. Zero credit line. Just for being annoying. We needed to make it worth it.”
The scheme came to a halt after one victim managed to record one of his perpetrators admitting what she had done while he was drugged. Per Pressler: “‘I just want to know what happened to me,’ the guy begged, until the woman on the other end of the line finally gave in and told him what had happened: He’d been fleeced by a gang of ex-strippers who had spiked his drink with narcotics. Just a sprinkle.”
The woman on the tape also made a confession. And after what appeared to be a failed DEA sting, Barbash was arrested in 2014 at an ATM in her neighborhood. The New York Times reported shortly after that the hustler ring was accused of stealing at least $200,000. Barbash, Keo, and two of their colleagues were “arraigned in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on multiple counts of conspiracy, grand larceny, forgery, and assault. All pleaded not guilty and were released on bail.”
Three years later, Barbash pleaded guilty to conspiracy, assault, and grand larceny in exchange for five years probation. At the sentencing, according to the New York Post, Justice Bonnie Wittner asked if she had anything to say. Barbash’s reply? “I’m glad this is done.” Outside the courthouse, Barbash gave photographers the finger.
Keo, meanwhile, pleaded guilty to grand larceny and attempted assault in exchange for no jail time, according to the New York Post. “I’m a single mom,” Keo explained of her decision. “I had a child to take care of…I decided not to go to trial. I decided to just make it all stop. By taking a plea deal and taking five years’ probation and staying at home and focusing on my daughter and just being the mom that I should have been to her. The outcome could have been worse.”
