Man convicted of exploiting daughter’s friends in Sarah Lawrence College sex cult case

NEW YORK — A person who moved into his daughter’s school dorm and charmed her schoolmates with tales about his knowledge was convicted Wednesday of fees that he exploited the close-knit group, utilizing threats and violence to counterpoint himself with hundreds of thousands of {dollars}.

Lawrence Ray, 62, was convicted at a trial the place weeks of testimony chronicled his psychologically manipulative relationship with younger individuals he met in fall 2010 at Sarah Lawrence Faculty, a small New York liberal arts faculty. Ray moved into his daughter’s dorm after ending a jail stint for a securities fraud conviction.

Sentencing was set for Sept. 16 on fees together with racketeering, conspiracy, compelled labor, intercourse trafficking and obstruction of justice. Ray, who stood together with his arms at his aspect and confronted the Manhattan jury as responsible verdicts had been returned on 15 counts, might resist life in jail.

After the decision was learn, Ray was returned to custody, the place he had been since his early 2020 arrest.

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His attorneys declined remark exterior court docket and didn’t instantly return electronic mail messages searching for remark.

In an announcement, U.S. Lawyer Damian Williams stated Ray had modified “a bunch of buddies who had their complete lives forward of them.”

“For the following decade, he used violence, threats, and psychological abuse to attempt to management and destroy their lives,” Williams stated. “He exploited them. He terrorized them. He tortured them. Let me be very clear. Larry Ray is a predator. An evil man who did evil issues. Immediately’s verdict lastly brings him to justice.”

Jurors concluded deliberations lower than a day after receiving the case following a monthlong trial that featured testimony from quite a few victims who often referred to Ray simply as “Larry.” Some testified that Ray had made them consider that they had poisoned or in any other case harmed him they usually wanted to pay him again.

One lady testified that she grew to become a intercourse employee to attempt to pay reparations to Ray after turning into satisfied that she had poisoned him. She stated that, over 4 years, she gave Ray $2.5 million in installments that averaged between $10,000 and $50,000 per week.

Ray’s attorneys maintained he was victimized by former buddies who fabricated their tales.

Ray didn’t testify. Twice, the trial was interrupted as he was taken to the hospital in an ambulance for undisclosed sicknesses.

A number of college students testified that they had been drawn into Ray’s world as he instructed them tales of his previous affect in New York Metropolis politics, together with his position in ruining the profession of former New York Metropolis Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik after serving as the most effective man at his marriage ceremony years earlier. Ray had, the truth is, been a determine within the corruption investigation that derailed Kerik’s nomination to guide the U.S. Division of Homeland Safety.

A number of the college students agreed to stay with Ray in the summertime of 2011 at his Manhattan one-bedroom house, the place his sinister aspect emerged as he began to assert that the scholars had poisoned and harmed him or his property.

To make amends, they testified, they did what he requested, together with turning over cash. One man stated he gave Ray over $100,000.

Prosecutors stated the cash was by no means sufficient. Via threats and violence and videotaped “confessions,” Ray tightened his maintain on the younger individuals, together with forcing them to to landscaping and different work on the Pinehurst, North Carolina residence of his stepfather for weeks in 2013, they stated.

The abuse culminated in October 2018 when Ray for hours repeatedly abused the lady who gave him her proceeds from intercourse work, forcing her to be tied bare to a chair whereas he berated her, choked her with a leash and made her worry for her life by placing a bag over her head, prosecutors stated.

Ray carried out his crimes with assist from his daughter and Isabella Pollok, a girl who has pleaded not responsible to legal fees, prosecutors stated. Her trial is about for later this 12 months. The daughter has not been charged.