theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/03/torture-sexual-abuse-new-york-cult-trial
But the trial of Lawrence “Larry” Ray, on federal charges of sex trafficking, extortion and conspiracy has caused revulsion and horror, and raised troubling questions that go far beyond criminal justice.
Over the past three weeks, jurors have heard how Ray, 62, spent years psychologically manipulating and abusing college students who were roommates of his own daughter at the prestigious liberal arts college Sarah Lawrence.
Ray’s methods echo the abuse described in other notorious recent cases such as the Nxivm sex cult and the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell sex-trafficking cases. It certainly rivals them for allegations of abuse of the victims. The court heard how one graduate, Claudia Drury, was forced to prostitute herself to pay the ex-convict Ray $2.5m in compensation for what prosecutors call their imagined crimes against him.
“I became a prostitute,” Drury said during testimony.
Drury alleged Ray had tortured her for hours, suffocating her with a plastic bag after binding her to a hotel chair. At one point, she said, he stopped to have burgers and fries. Ray has pleaded not guilty to 16 charges against him, including sex trafficking and violent crime in aid of racketeering.
Harvard medical school graduate Felicia Rosario testified that after being introduced to Ray by her brother Santos, a Sarah Lawrence student, she began a relationship, before he urged her into extreme sexual situations, encouraging her to have sex with strangers in Walmart or Home Depot and to consider becoming an escort.
Rosario testified that the encounters had made her feel “disgusting, ashamed, embarrassed, not human, used, trash, small”.
