“Twelve years in the past, Larry Ray moved into his daughter’s dorm room at Sarah Lawrence School,” US Lawyer Damian Williams mentioned within the information launch. “And when he obtained there, he met a gaggle of pals 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. 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.”
Williams thanked the victims who spoke in court docket, noting the decision would not have been attainable with out their testimony. “We’re in awe of their bravery within the face of unbelievable trauma,” he added.
CNN has reached out to Ray’s lawyer, Marne Lenox, for remark.
- Racketeering conspiracy
- Conspiracy to commit extortion
- Extortion
- Intercourse trafficking
- Acquiring pressured labor
- Compelled labor trafficking
- Conspiracy to acquire pressured labor
- Violating the Journey Act
- 4 counts of tax evasion
- Cash laundering
The intercourse trafficking conviction comes with a compulsory minimal sentence of 15 years and a most of life in jail.
Over a interval of years, Ray sexually and psychologically manipulated and abused a gaggle of school college students and different victims, in accordance with the Division of Justice.
He extorted funds from victims after getting them to make false confessions about inflicting damages to him, his household and associates, in accordance with the indictment. Victims drained their mother and father financial savings, opened credit score traces and offered actual property possession to pay Ray. He additionally directed the victims to do unpaid labor for him and earn cash for him via prostitution.
Ray pressured one lady to interact in business intercourse acts to pay damages to Ray — cash she by no means owed, in accordance with the US Lawyer’s Workplace. Ray groomed her when she was a university pupil and picked up sexually express images and different data to coerce her to commit extra business intercourse acts, the workplace mentioned.
In a single occasion of Ray’s alleged brutality, he tied the girl to a chair, put a plastic bag over her head and practically suffocated her, in accordance with the indictment. He collected tens of millions of {dollars} of pressured prostitution proceeds from this sufferer, in accordance with the US Lawyer’s Workplace.
Prosecutors mentioned in 2020 that the investigation was prompted by an April 2019 journal article titled “The Stolen Children of Sarah Lawrence,” revealed on New York journal’s The Reduce. The personal liberal arts school has about 1,700 college students and is situated in Yonkers, New York.
CNN’s Steve Almasy contributed to this report.