Accused Sarah Lawrence Faculty intercourse cult chief Lawrence Ray as soon as handcuffed a unadorned girl to a chair, then repeatedly suffocated her with a plastic bag as a result of he felt her slipping from his sadistic management, a federal prosecutor charged Thursday.
The sordid particulars have been specified by Manhattan federal court docket by Assistant US Legal professional Lindsey Keenan as she informed jurors concerning the alleged abuse Ray inflicted on his victims to additional a legal enterprise she known as the “Ray Household.”
The horrific scene allegedly occurred in a New York Metropolis resort room in 2018, Keenan mentioned.
“He took the bag off of her face. He towered over her as she was handcuffed to that chair, gasping,” Keenan mentioned in opening statements. “She was helpless. Unable to maneuver, unable to breathe, unable to scream for assist.
“For hours he tormented her, placing it over her head time and again and once more,” Keenan went on. “The defendant’s message was clear: He informed her to behave. Hold earning profits.”
Inside hours, Keenan mentioned, the lady whom Ray had pressured into prostitution had gone again to assembly johns. The cash she earned, which ultimately totaled some $2 million, was handed as much as Ray and used to fund his legal operation, Keenan mentioned.
“He ruthlessly threatened and extorted his victims to get what he needed — intercourse, cash and energy,” Keenan mentioned.
Ray is charged in a 17-count indictment for allegedly forcing a gaggle of younger women and men to carry out unpaid labor, extorting cash from them and forcing one among them into prostitution for greater than a 12 months.
The accused madman started his legal operation after transferring into his daughter’s dorm room at Sarah Lawrence Faculty in suburban Westchester County, prosecutors cost.
On the faculty, he enticed a gaggle of his daughter’s buddies with wild tales about his life, which he claimed included hobnobbing with a former Soviet president and disgraced ex-NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik.
He satisfied a gaggle of the scholars to maneuver into his one-bedroom residence on the Higher East Facet and started asserting management over them by coaxing them into making false, video-recorded confessions about them making an attempt to poison him and harm his household, prosecutors cost.
Over the course of 10 years, Ray extorted greater than $2 million from his victims whereas he additionally bodily abused them at instances in his pursuit of his targets, the feds allege.
The primary former Sarah Lawrence pupil to testify on the trial, Santos Rosario, informed jurors Thursday that Ray began to bodily abuse him after he started spending time on the Higher East Facet residence in the summertime of 2011.
“He would hit me. He slapped me. He held a knife to my throat. He held a knife to my genitals,” mentioned Rosario, who dated Ray’s daughter, Talia.
Prosecutors performed an audio clip of Ray berating Rosario as he smacked and hit him.
“F–king little brat. How does that really feel?” Ray might be heard saying in a menacing voice within the clip.
“You wish to see me go to jail? You’re losing my time. Losing my f–king time,” he mentioned on the recording.
However Ray’s protection group declare prosecutors’ case towards him is extra nuanced than introduced within the indictment towards the 62-year-old former Wall Avenue inventory dealer.
“This was not a legal enterprise. This was a gaggle of storytellers,” legal professional Allegra Glashausser informed the jury in her opening assertion on behalf of Ray.
When Ray first enticed the group of scholars with fantastical tales of his life, they have been captivated by the unusual, fascinating man, she mentioned.
“Larry’s tales have been stuffed with thriller, intrigue and pleasure. They needed to listen to extra,” Glashausser mentioned, including that jurors must peer “by way of the wanting glass” in the course of the trial.
The scholars ultimately created their very own tales, a few of which included tales of poisoning Ray on the behest of Kerik, the previous NYPD commissioner who had fallen out along with his former buddy.
Ray believed the tales, Glashausser claimed, and documented them in his video recordings of the scholars, which the protection plans to make use of as proof of his innocence.
“You'll hear a few of these tales as a result of Larry recorded them. Larry filmed it,” she informed the jury.
One of many college students Ray met on the campus, Isabella Pollok, is now charged alongside the accused intercourse cult chief.
Pollok, the one-time greatest buddy of Ray’s daughter, will face a separate trial in Manhattan federal court docket this summer time.
Ray is charged with counts together with, racketeering, intercourse trafficking and cash laundering. If convicted, he faces life in jail.
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