updated
60 years in prisonViolence and forced prostitution – this is how “monsters” manipulated female students
New Yorker Lawrence Ray was sentenced to 60 years in prison on Friday. As a self-proclaimed guru, he had made young students dependent on himself, sexually abused them and stole huge sums of money from them.
He has now been sentenced to 60 years in prison.
REUTERS
At earlier court hearings, like here in March 2022, he had claimed illness.
TNS
That’s what it’s about
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63-year-old Lawrence Ray has been sentenced to 60 years in prison for a number of crimes.
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For almost a decade he had manipulated, tormented, exploited and made compliant with threats and violence students.
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He got at least one woman into prostitution practically 24 hours a day, raking in the proceeds.
«Larry Ray is a monster. For years he inflicted brutal and lifelong harm on his innocent victims, young students with their lives ahead of them. He lured her into an addiction from which only he benefited, and sexually abused her. Through mental and physical abuse, he took control of them and got millions out of them. The verdict handed down today should ensure that he can never again abuse anyone.”
It was harsh words that prosecutor Damian Williams found when pronouncing the verdict for Lawrence “Larry” Ray. On Friday, the 63-year-old, born Lawrence Grecco, was sentenced by a jury to 60 years in federal prison. His list of offenses includes human trafficking, sexual exploitation, extortion, organized crime activities, money laundering, forced labor and other charges. Ray was arrested in 2020 and found guilty in April 2022 – now the sentence has been handed down in a New York state court.
Dependent on unstable students
According to judge Lewis J. Liman, Ray used his “malicious genius”, as the judge called it, for his actions. The 63-year-old moved in with his daughter for a few nights in 2010 at the posh Sarah Lawrence College, but judged himself there home soon. Under the pretext of wanting to mentor the young students and help them improve, he gradually gained the trust of his daughter’s classmates and began to manipulate them. Some of his victims had mental problems, which Ray exploited uncontrollably for his scam. According to witnesses, the alleged community that Ray created with his “therapy sessions” had cult-like features.
Ray soon put young people under pressure through practices such as sleep deprivation, sexual degradation, and verbal and physical violence. He coerced them into false confessions—that they might have harmed him financially or tried to poison him—and made them tell him their most intimate secrets. He then blackmailed her with these statements. The victims paid for it, drawing on their parents’ savings, borrowing money themselves, or even selling real estate. Ray later moved with some of the group to an apartment on the Upper East Side where he could exercise even more control.
Prostitution and forced labor required
Some members of the group were forced to work long-term on property owned by one of Ray’s relatives. Ray caused some to cut ties with their families. He also used physical violence on a number of occasions, such as when he elicited a “confession” from a student with a knife to his throat that he had caused financial harm to Ray.
But that’s not all: at least one of his female victims forced Ray to prostitute herself for him. she is said to have earned more than $ 2.5 million – all of which he bagged. He is said to have laundered the money he took from the students via an Internet company and thus smuggled it past the tax authorities.
For his actions, Ray was sentenced to 60 years in prison and also to pay around $2.4 million. However, that will not undo the damage he inflicted on his victims. Several of them were in the courtroom at Friday’s sentencing hearing, including the young woman he forced into prostitution and who attempted suicide in 2014. “He wanted to banish all light from the lives of his victims,” said Judge Liman. “It was simply pure sadism.»
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