An investigation prompted by an April 2019 article in New York Magazine, “The Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence,” resulted in the arrest and formal indictment of Larry Ray on charges of conspiracy, exploitation, forced labor and sex trafficking, according to the New York Times.
Prosecutors claim the systematic abuse of several of his daughter Talia’s housemates at Slonim Woods 9, on the campus of Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, NY, continued for nearly a decade. Three of his alleged victims still live together and remain loyal to Ray.
Other former roommates, who claim that Ray sucked them into a cult of his own making, have spoken openly about his intensifying manipulation, control of their schedules and contact with family members, coersion into writing forced confessions for wrongs they never committed, sexual humiliation tactics, forced sexual acts, prostitution, and extortion. Talia’s boyfriend even broke up with her in order to break Ray’s influence over him.
Ray, at one point, forced several of the victims to perform manual labor at his Pinehurst, North Carolina house installing a new drainage system in the yard. After the work was complete, Ray claimed they damaged the property. These claims fall in line with other forced confessions that range from property damage to poisoning, according to the two male roommates that contributed to the April article.
“His most classic tactic was to claim that people had either stolen things from him or ruined things of value and therefore owed him money,” Daniel Barbara Levin said in the New York article.
Ray allegedly once forced another roommate, Santos, to write a 5-page email detailing over 50 items he had damaged, the costs totalling over $47,000. As a result of Ray’s intimidation, Santosasked his parents for the money, threatening suicide. According to Santos’s father, Ray would not allow him into the apartment to seethe damages that his son supposedly incurred.
Extortion of money from the parents of the students continued, with Santos’s parents estimating that they paid more than $200,000 to Ray. According to a Feb 11, 2020 article on New York’s Intelligencer webpage, “Ray extorted [victims] for about $1 million collectively, including $500,000 from one victim whom Ray pressured into doing sex work in order to repay debts he claimed that she owed him.”
Initially, Ray moved into the house in 2010 after his release from prison, under the auspices of his daughter’s claim that he was a “truth teller” who was unjustly conspired against and needed someplace to start over. Ray then allegedly began infiltrating their personal lives by conducting unlicensed individual therapy sessions with several roommates.
Ray progressed to nightly group therapy sessions he called “family meetings,” where individuals were put in the “hot seat” and interrogated by all housemates, often pushing the target into a confession of something they were not guilty of in order to stop the pressure and resulting cognitive dissonance.
Psychologists who work with recovering victims of cults say this is a predictable outcome stemming from what Robert J. Lifton termed “The Cult of Confession,” on his list of characteristics of high-control groups outlined in “Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism.”
Other characteristics from Ray’s control over the housemates, as described in both the April article and the indictment, could fall under Milieu Control (communication control tactics resulting in isolation from family and other outside contacts), Loading the Language, Doctrine Over Person, and the Sacred Science.
Ray presented himself to the housemates as a sugar daddy-like figure possessing vast wisdom and experience from his exploits as a CIA operative, one claim in a long list of supposed attributes. He often took them out to expensive dinners or had them picked up in limousines, always paying from a roll of cash that had no discernable source.
Ray’s history is difficult to pin down, but several sources report that his ties to military personnel, politicians, mobsters, and even the FBI can be substantiated, and he was, in fact, an FBI informant at some point. His claims to association with the Marines, however, is apparently a matter of networking, not service, as Ray’s actual military service record reflects that he served less than a month in the Air Force and was never a Marine.
Lou Manza, in his 2016 article “How Cult Leaders Like Charles Manson Exploit A Basic Psychological Need” on theconversation.com, explains that charismatic characters like Ray begin with establishing a particular form of intellectual or spiritual authority, then use that commanded respect to begin their manipulations.
Manza writes, “…Cult leaders employ mind and behavior control techniques that are focused on severing followers’ connections to the outside world. These methods can actually deepen members’ existing emotional insecurities, while encouraging them to become completely reliant on their cult for all their physical and emotional needs.”
The Freedom of Mind Resource Center expounds upon this concept in “The Cult: the Meaning of Undue Influence.” The article explained that “undue influence is any act of persuasion that overcomes the free will and judgment of another person. People can be unduly influenced by deception, flattery, trickery, coercion, hypnosis, and other techniques…There are also personality cults, particularly if one person exerts undue influence over another (or a small group of people, such as in a family).”
While definitions of what specifically defines a group as a cult vary, the indictment makes clear that Larry Ray fits the profile. Students at colleges across the country could be at risk from similar predatory behavior if they remain ignorant of predatory tactics.
Manza recommends relying on rationality over emotionality, and paying attention to what a charismatic person of influence is actually asking of a prospective victim. If it doesn’t line up, get away from that person because the noose will always tighten over time.
While Ray is facing prison time over his alleged crimes, his victims may be impacted for life regardless of the court’s determination of his guilt or innocence on the charges.
