The exploitative manipulation of a group of Sarah Lawerence pupils by Larry Ray is the subject of the new Hulu documentary series Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawerence.
Ray was sentenced to 60 years in jail for sex trafficking, extortion, conspiracy, and forced labour last month after the case was made public in 2019 through a feature article in New York Magazine. The three-part documentary includes first-person stories of Ray’s assault throughout a ten-year period.
What is Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence about?
The book Stolen Youth presents first-person stories of Larry Ray’s ten-year terror campaign and abuse of a group of Sarah Lawrence College students in New York. Ray, a former financial advisor who had just been released from jail, visited his daughter Talia at Sarah Lawrence during the fall 2010 semester and started sleeping on her couch. Ray developed a good friendship with her daughter and her friends during his stay and earned their trust.
After a few months, he persuaded his daughter and several of her friends to move into his Upper East Side, one-bedroom apartment, where he started to form the foundations of a cult by physically abusing them, isolating them, and using love bombs and other methods to coerce confessions.
He recorded video and audio footage documenting his encounters with them and even forced one of the victims into sex work for nearly five years. Ray allegedly earned about $1.7 million from the money she made.
Who are the victims of Larry Ray?
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When they moved into the Slonim Woods 9 housing during Talia’s sophomore year at Sarah Lawrence, her friends Daniel Levin, Isabella Pollok, and Claudia Drury knew that she had a very close relationship with her father. Eventually, Santos introduced Ray to Felicia and Yalitza Rosario, his sisters.
In order to maintain control over the tiny group of buddies, Larry utilised grooming and brainwashing procedures. He allegedly started dating Felicia, made her have sex with random people, and forced Claudia to perform sex acts. Ray beat Yalitza, Santos, and Daniel physically and verbally. According to reports, Isabella encouraged Ray’s suffering and helped him along the way.
While some victims, like Yalitza and Daniel, were able to flee Larry’s fear by 2016, other victims persisted until his capture in 2020.
How was Larry Ray apprehended?
2019 saw the publication of an article exposing Ray’s crimes with quotes from the victims and their families in New York Magazine. He was taken into custody by the FBI in February 2020, several months later. Ray was found guilty on a number of counts, including extortion, sex trafficking, and racketeering, in April 2022. He received a sentence of 60 years in prison in January 2023, according to New York Magazine.
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