62-year-old Larry Ray was declared guilty on Wednesday for 15 counts of crimes that included sex trafficking, tax evasion, extortion and forced labor. It’s the culmination of a decades long story where the defendant stood trial in the manipulation of college students into a lifestyle of servitude.
"Today’s verdict finally brings [Larry Ray] to justice," responded New York prosecutors celebrating the decision.
"He used violence, threats, and psychological abuse to try and control and destroy their lives," US States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, said in a statement about the ruling. "He exploited them. He terrorized them. He tortured them. Let me be very clear. Larry Ray is a predator: an evil man who did evil things."
They go on to say the guilty verdict was only possible through the "bravery" of the victims coming forward to testify.
According to Fox News, Ray’s reaction to the guilty verdict was muted, while his defense attorneys had no further comment on the outcome.
While the trial unfolded over the course of several weeks, it’s estimated that the jury in lower Manhattan only needed five hours to debate their ruling.
Ray didn’t testify on his own behalf. Instead, according to Law & Crime, the defense called Ray’s attorney Glenn Ripa, who testified that he said Ray could accept $2.5 million in prostitution money from student Claudia Drury as "compensation" over claims of her poisoning him.
The defense tried to argue that the students had manipulated Ray, and not the other way around.
However, as explained by the Associated Press, the prosecution had several witnesses who outlined at length how Larry Ray courted several students into his circle in order to psychologically groom them into seeing him as a father figure. Once under his influence, prosecutors said they were exploited in a multitude of ways.
As previously reported, Larry Ray set up a cult out of his daughter’s college dorm room back in 2010. Claudia Drury was one of the victims who testified and recounted to the court a list of high-profile customers that Ray trafficked her out to, and gave the money to Ray, his daughter, and a third associate.
The trial had to pause on two separate occasions for unknown medical reasons that had to have Larry evacuated from the courthouse by ambulance. New York Magazine’s 2019 story about Ray’s activities is widely credited as bringing attention to the story, and his eventual arrest.
The sentencing hearing is scheduled for September 16th, and he’s slated to get anywhere from 15 years to a sentence of life in prison.
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