Roselyn Keo

Roselyn Keo is a former exotic dancer, who joined in a team of friends she met at work, who enhanced their income by tricking men into overspending in strip clubs.[1]

Roselyn Keo
Born1984 (age 35–36)
New York State
NationalityUSA
Occupationauthor, dancer
Known forConvicted of tricking men into overspending in strip clubs
Criminal charge(s)credit card fraud
Criminal penaltyfive years probation

Keo, who was raised by her grandmother, in a small town outside New York City, started working as an exotic dancer when she was just sixteen or seventeen years old.[2]

In 2007 Keo became friends with Samantha Barbash, someone who had been working in the club scene longer than her. Through her friendship with Barbash, Keo was able to boost her income. It was explained that women who worked together made more money. A high-roller being entertained by just one woman found it easier to keep his spending within limits. However, when two or more beautiful women were paying attention to him, it was easier to distract him. And, through being able to distract him, they could get him to authorize more credit card payments without keeping track of his spending.

Many of Keo and Barbash's regular big-spending clients worked on Wall Street, and the 2008 financial crisis curbed their spending. Keo was away from the club scene, for several years, after giving birth to a daughter. When she returned to working the club scene, in 2012, she found that her friend Barbash was making more money than ever, while the clubs and dancers weren't. Barbash was using a ploy, where she would contact one of her old clients, and arrange to meet him for an ordinary date. When the target had enough female attention, and alcohol, to be suggestible, several beautiful confederates would show up, and cajole him to taking them to a strip club.

Several New York City strip clubs had arrangements with Barbash's team to pay a kickback from the target's credit card charges, at the club. Barbash and her team would guide the target into a private room, and then proceed to make sure he spent heavily.

Law enforcement started tracking their activities in September 2014, and, in December 2014, Keo, Barbash, and three other individuals were arrested. Law enforcement officials could document that, during the investigation, they tricked or cajoled four men into spending $200,000.

Keo and Barbash pled guilty, and were given five years of probation. They were allowed to keep all the money.

In 2015 Jessica Pressler interviewed Keo and Barbash for an article in New York magazine.[1] The expose earned Pressler a National Magazine Award nomination.[3] A team of producers that included Will Ferrell "snapped up" the film rights in February, 2016.[4] The story was adapted into a 2019 film by Gloria Sanchez Productions titled Hustlers, with Constance Wu playing the character based on Keo.[5][6][7]

Keo has scheduled her memoir, The Sophisticated Hustler, to be published in late 2019.[2]

Keo, like her former colleague Barbash, claims aspects of the film the inspired are inaccurate.[2] Keo claimed that she and Barbash were essentially equal partners, saying Barbash was the CEO, while she was the CFO.[8]

See also

References
  1. Jessica Pressler (December 2015). "The hustlers at Scores". The Cut. Retrieved 2019-09-18. Samantha, born Samantha Barbash, was one of Hustler’s top moneymakers. A single mother from the Bronx, she’d started dancing at 19, 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.
  2. Brie Schwarz (2019-09-13). "Roselyn Keo, the Stripper Who Inspired Hustlers, Has One Problem With the Movie". Oprah magazine. Retrieved 2019-09-18. The daughter of Cambodian refugees who abandoned her to live with her elderly grandparents at a young age, Keo walked into her first Queens, New York gentleman’s club at 16 hoping to earn enough cash to support herself.
  3. Arana Gabriel (2016-01-14). "New York Mag Leads Pack With 9 National Magazine Award Nominations". The Huffington Post.
  4. "Adam McKay And Will Ferrell Snap Up Rights To "The Hustlers At Scores"". Tracking Board. 2016-02-16. Retrieved 2019-09-18. The Big Short writer-director Adam McKay is preparing to take on the underbelly of financial intrigue from a slightly different angle. Sources confirm that McKay and partner Will Ferrell have picked up the film rights to Jessica Pressler’s New York Magazine article, THE HUSTLERS AT SCORES, McKay, Ferrell, and Jessica Elbaum will produce under their Gloria Sanchez Productions.
  5. Dave McNary (2016-05-10). "Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Megan Ellison & Annapurna Team on Hustlers at Scores". Variety magazine. 'The Hustlers at Scores' was published as a modern twist on the Robin Hood tale, in which a crew of savvy former strip club employees band together to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients. The first sentence reads: 'In another life, Roselyn Keo might have liked to work on Wall Street.'
  6. Rebecca Ford (2016-02-29). "Stripper Robin Hood Story 'The Hustlers at Scores' in the Works at Gloria Sanchez". The Hollywood Reporter.
  7. Zemler, Emily (2019-07-17). "See Jennifer Lopez, Cardi B Scam Bankers in Trailer for 'Hustlers'". Rolling Stone magazine. Retrieved 2019-07-21.
  8. Rachel E. Greenspan (2019-09-11). "The True Story Behind the Movie Hustlers". Time magazine. Retrieved 2019-09-18. Around the same time, in the spring of 2014, The New York Post ran a story about a cardiologist who “refused” to pay the $135,000 bill charged to his credit card at Scores, another New York City club in circulation for Keo and Barbash.
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