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Man Convicted Of Sex Trafficking After Living In Daughter’s College Dorm Room

(Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

Kay Smythe News and Commentary Writer
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The father of a Sarah Lawrence College student has been convicted of sex trafficking and other offenses, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York announced Wednesday.

Lawrence “Larry” Ray, 62, was convicted of racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to commit extortion, extortion, sex trafficking, obtaining forced labor, conspiracy to obtain forced labor, violating the Travel Act, four counts of tax evasion, and money laundering.

Ray moved into his daughter’s dorm twelve years ago, “and when he got there, he met a group of friends who had their whole lives ahead of them. For the next decade, he used violence, threats, and psychological abuse to try and control and destroy their lives. He exploited them. He terrorized them. He tortured them. Let me be clear very clear. Larry Ray is a predator. An evil man who did evil things,” US Attorney Damian Williams said in a Department of Justice press release.

Ray’s victims described draining their family savings accounts, opening credit lines and selling real estate ownership to pay Ray after he forced them to make false confessions about causing damages to him. He also forced his victims to engage in prostitution and kept the earnings for himself, according to the press release.

One of his victims was tied to a chair and repeatedly suffocated with a plastic bag, the attorney’s office stated. The same victim was forced into prostitution and paid Ray millions of dollars. (RELATED: Sarah Lawrence College Dad Who Ran Sex Cult Out Of Daughter’s Dorm Room Charged With Sex Trafficking)

Another victim was forced into “extreme sexual situations,” including having sex with strangers in Walmart and Home Depots, The Guardian continued. She said that her encounters with Ray made her feel “disgusting, ashamed, embarrassed, not human, used, trash, small,” the outlet noted. Ray also punched, slapped, and pulled the hair of the same victim, according to the outlet.

Prosecutors alleged that Ray’s behavior created a “cult-like criminal enterprise,” the Guardian reported. “The techniques of manipulation, control, coercion, abuse, isolation and humiliation are so similar to more formal cults where one person makes all the rules. We used to go, wow, how did 900 people die as a result of one man [as at Jonestown in 1978]? But now I think we’re becoming aware of all sorts of variants of that,” clinical forensic psychologist Joni Johnson told the outlet.

After the guilty verdict was handed down, Ray was returned to federal custody, according to the DOJ. Ray faces potentially 140 years in prison, according to the statement. The jury deliberated for less than a day before finding Ray guilty, CNN reported.