Sex, Lies and the College Cult (2022)

[bunniefuu]

[ Suspenseful music plays ]

[ Camera shutters clicking ]

Good morning.

I'm Jeff Berman,

U.S. attorney

for the Southern District

of New York.

Today we announce criminal

charges against this man,

Lawrence Ray,

who, for nearly a decade,

exploited and abused

young women and men

emotionally, physically,

and sexually

for his own financial gain.

Kerik:

Who is Larry Ray?

Nobody really knows.

Ray has been charged

with nine counts,

including sex trafficking,

extortion,

forced labor,

and money laundering.

Kerik:

He was a master manipulator,

a master con man.

But every single relationship

he had was based on a fraud.

Melendez:

Larry, has filled this void

for the kids

of having a parental figure

that was there for them

and wanted to listen to them.

Reporter:

Investigators claim that Ray

groomed the roommates,

conducting therapy sessions.

He would talk about how to be

the best person that you can be

and some weird theory called

Quest for Potential.

He manipulated them

into making their worlds

smaller and smaller,

until they were totally

dependent upon him.

How could these

bright young students

have gone along with this?

Marcus:

Larry tells them they have

to work all day.

Figliuzzi:

They become profit centers.

He has them literally drain

the bank accounts

of their parents.

Reporter:

Ray initially befriended

his victims,

moving into their own campus

housing before encouraging them,

the summer

after their sophomore year,

to move in with him

to a Manhattan apartment.

He would begin to instruct them

to have sex with each other

and do various things that they

weren't comfortable with.

Larry has to force her

to continue being a prost*tute.

Figliuzzi:

We're dealing with brain

control, mind control.

We're looking

at a con artist on steroids.

[ Thudding ]

Spit them out.

[ Birds chirping ]

I was looking for a story

I could work on.

A friend of mine had gone

to her five-year reunion

at Sarah Lawrence.

People at the reunion were

gossiping about these rumors

about what had happened

to some of these kids

who they'd gone to school with.

And somebody had found

this website.

It was pretty unsettling.

It had a lot

of different headers

that were called things like,

"I poisoned people

because my mother told me to,"

or "I am a liar and I am working

for the government,"

and there was a link

to this video.

Sunday, March 22nd

Please talk audibly Claudia.

It's Sunday, March 22nd

This girl was sort of

being interviewed.

Start from the most

current time backwards.

The most current time

And first, you making this

by your own free will?

Yes.

Anybody pay you?

No.

Anybody thr*aten you?

No.

Anybody coerce you?

No.

It begins with Claudia saying,

"I'm making this

of my own free will,"

which is, first of all,

like, "Hmm,

if you have to say that,

you're probably not."

Okay, so when did you

poison last?

And a man is off-camera,

asking her questions

in this deep voice,

an older man's voice.

So you're saying you

put mercury on where?

On the doorknobs

in the hospital?

Yeah

your food.

Other things I touched

or anybody touched?

Yeah.

It was clear that something

weird was going on.

My thinking about it

turned from,

"Oh, is Claudia this like,

you know, evil poisoner?",

which was how the website

presented her,

into, "Something wrong is being

done to her by this guy."

And, you know,

that's the first time

I kind of encountered Larry Ray.

I just started reaching

out to people

that were named on the website

to talk to them about what had

been going on with Claudia

and what had happened to her.

And I pitched it

to New York Magazine

on the initial striking thing,

which was that a man moved

into his daughter's dorm room.

Sarah Lawrence is a small

liberal arts college

in upstate New York,

where people are really

dedicated to learning

and are extremely intelligent.

It's a very hard school

to get into.

It seems to attract young people

who are interested in the arts,

interested in literature,

interested in theater, maybe.

I wanted to study literature,

so I went there.

It was a beautiful,

leafy, green campus

and it was not too far

from the city.

Talia Ray grew up in New Jersey.

She was a really driven student.

She had this group of friends

that she moved in with

sophomore year,

into campus housing.

And they were

freestanding houses

all kind of arranged in a row,

a pathway

from this little forest.

They were going to have fun,

hang out, make food together,

throw some parties.

Classic sophomore year

of college stuff.

Marcus:

Daniel Levin was

from New Jersey.

He was kind of a shy kid,

but he was excited

to make new friends.

He wanted to be a writer,

I believe.

Then there's Santos Rosario,

which was Talia's

former boyfriend

turned friend and roommate.

Marcus:

His parents owned a travel

agency in the Bronx,

small family business.

It was the American dream.

Claudia was from Los Angeles.

She was super creative.

She liked to tell stories.

You know, her friends

from high school

thought of her as gregarious

and, you know,

she'd also had a really

sheltered kind of childhood.

And then there's

Isabella Pollok.

Marcus:

She was from San Antonio,

very far away from home.

She was pretty shy,

also pretty sheltered.

She and Talia quickly,

really bonded

and became like

really close friends.

The group of students

who were Talia's housemates

were, you know,

18, 19 years old.

Most of them from good families,

good academic backgrounds.

What's important to remember --

the human brain

is not fully developed

until you're 25 years old,

so, that's a very

vulnerable period.

They definitely were trying

to figure out who they were

and where they belonged

in this world at college,

kind of leaning on each other

to try to figure out

what they were supposed

to be doing.

When Talia showed up

at Sarah Lawrence

and met this group,

her dad was a central part

of her conversations.

She would describe how he was

this amazing, smart person

that she idolized.

He is an extremely

important person

who had all these important

connections in New York.

She painted him as someone

who had been wrongly pursued

by law enforcement

because he had powerful enemies.

She described him

as some political martyr

who'd taken on corruption

and been punished

and was in jail.

When she was seven,

Larry and Talia's mother,

Teresa, got divorced

and the custody dispute

quickly turned extremely nasty.

Years later, Talia refuses

to live with her mom

and, at a certain point,

Larry and Talia essentially go

on the run.

They're tracked down

by U.S. Marshals

and, you know,

they burst through the door

and arrest Larry.

Larry Ray goes to jail

for the child custody dispute.

The way that Talia

describes her father

to her friends at Sarah Lawrence

is that he has been

wrongfully accused

of this child custody dispute

and shouldn't be in jail.

Hates her mother

for putting him there.

Talia is obsessed with Larry.

He is the perfect dad ever

and he has been

wrongfully convicted.

One day she basically says, "My

dad is getting out of prison,"

and he needed a place

to kind of land

after getting out of jail.

She was like,

"Yeah, my dad's going

to come visit

and maybe, you know,

spend the night and," yeah.

It's totally not unusual

for parents to drop by colleges

and even spend

the night sometimes.

And then he kind of stayed.

I think the initial reaction

was probably their gut reaction

and should've been one

that they listened to,

was like, "Why is this grown man

in our college dorm room?

This is weird."

Marcus:

But he sort of installed himself

in the common room

as like a father figure

for the dorm.

I thought he was very cool,

very smart,

very composed,

and very inspirational.

As Claudia:

He was very friendly

and he seemed, you know,

sort of very different

from anyone,

like very magnetic,

charismatic kind of personality.

He'd make dinner for everyone

or he'd order food,

these kind of lavish meals.

You know, you're a college

student. That's awesome.

So kids would kind of hang out

with him and listen to him talk

and he'd give these

almost sort of like lectures

at night in the common room.

So, I think that, while their

immediate reaction was like,

"Talia, why did you just bring

your father into our house?",

quickly transited into, "Talia,

I can't imagine your father

not being in this house."

Being in college is a uniquely

vulnerable point

in the life of a lot of people.

You're away from home

for the first time.

You're in a strange place,

not exactly sure

what you're doing.

It was --

It was really hard for me.

I-I was not really prepared

to live alone.

I had like never done laundry

before going to college.

I had a lot of separation

anxiety from my parents.

I just felt very sort of

anchorless and anxious

and didn't really have

a good handle on myself.

Larry sold himself as an expert

in self-improvement,

some sort of combination

of a life coach and therapist.

Somebody tells you,

"I got the answers,"

and can do it

in a confident way,

is in a position

to exert undue influence.

"I have exactly the answer

and I am the bridge

to mental health for you,"

and that can be powerful.

I'm having anxiety

and all these problems

and Santos was like,

"Why don't you talk to Larry?

He's great.

He's been helping me."

I ended up confiding

in him a lot

about issues that I have

with my family,

my depression that I struggled

with in high school.

Larry really listened

and really, really seemed

as though he actually

very much wanted to help me.

I shared a lot

of very personal things.

He spoke a lot

about inspirational things,

like honesty, principles,

science, and philosophy.

I considered him a very honest

and truthful person.

And, initially,

I felt it was important to me

to be a good person,

you know, be like him,

be honest and be truthful.

Marcus:

He would talk about how to be

the best person that you can be

and how everybody has

a potential

that they can achieve.

Some weird theory called

Quest for Potential.

As Felicia:

He framed it

as helping them optimize

and helping them get

over their insecurities

and become happier,

more effective people.

Larry promised young people

who were very confused

and felt alienated

that he was the person who was

going to pull them out of it.

He's helping them reveal

hidden truths about themselves

and changing the programing

that their evil parents

and evil society,

all these things that were

sort of done to them.

He is intentionally

changing their mind-set.

Larry said that he had

extensive m*llitary training

in the mind

and human behavior,

from different departments

of the government,

so, DOD, FBI, CIA,

DIA, Marine Corps.

Marcus:

The sort of climax of it

would be these stories

about his heroic past.

Larry claimed to the kids

that he helped negotiations

to end the w*r in Kosovo.

He claimed to be related

to Al Capone.

The list goes on.

He was very good

at mythmaking about himself.

I think, if you were

to sit Larry Ray down

and ask him the question,

"Larry, who are you?"...

...I think he'd con you

in his own answer

because I'm not sure Larry Ray

knows who he really is.

Larry Ray is someone

who can become

whoever you want him to be

and whoever he needs you

to think he is.

Larry Ray is Larry Grecco,

one thing.

That's the name

he was born under.

Melendez:

Larry grew up in Brooklyn.

I mean, if you hear him,

he's a quintessential

Brooklyn boy.

At a certain point,

his parents divorced

and Mom remarried

a man named Gordon Ray...

...and Larry took

his stepfather's last name.

He served in the m*llitary

for 19 days.

He was discharged

for reasons that are unclear.

He married his high school

sweetheart, Teresa.

Jacobs:

He's known a lot of people.

He's known

a lot of connected people.

He seems to sort of fit in

where he goes,

whether that be law enforcement

or, reportedly,

he had some Mafia connections

in Brooklyn.

Melendez:

He seemingly knew everybody.

Really good friends

with Bernie Kerik.

Bernie Kerik was

the New York City

police commissioner.

And he was somebody Giuliani

had brought up

from just being

an undercover cop

into being like, you know,

a high-ranking member

of the administration.

Kerik:

In 1995, I met Larry Ray.

We would work out together.

We'd have coffee, have lunch.

He was extremely charismatic.

He was very smart.

Very, very smart.

Marcus:

It's this sort of like

mutually beneficial

business relationship,

but it's also a real friendship.

Larry's the best man

at Bernie's wedding.

Kerik:

Looking back, it's kind of

strange, you know.

You get married, you have

all these wedding photos

and I've got a thousand

wedding photos

and not one

has my best man in it.

They've all been discarded.

And Larry Ray helped Kerik

broker an introduction

between Rudy Giuliani

and Mikhail Gorbachev.

[ Speaking foreign language ]

Larry was flying into JFK

and he comes out of the

international terminal

and he says, "Bern,

I want you to meet

President Gorbachev."

I said, "Okay, alright."

I told him the mayor.

I said, "Gorbachev is here.

He'd love to see you,

if you have a minute,"

and Giuliani said, "Absolutely.

Bring him down."

[ Flashbulbs exploding ]

For a politician

like Rudy Giuliani,

that kind of photo op

[ Flashbulb explodes ]

is worth more

than its weight in gold.

It was pretty slick.

[ Flashbulb explodes ]

Lalich:

You've got this guy who just

spent years in prison.

He lands in this dorm

with these young, vulnerable,

eager roommates of his daughter,

who adores him,

who basically set them up

to like him.

And so, for him, you can see

where his little wheels

are turning and thinking, "Oh."

Marcus:

Isabella was clearly

the closest to Talia

and the closest to Larry.

And Larry would often sleep

in Isabella's room.

Ray told residents of the

apartment that she needed help,

she needed supervision,

essentially, you know.

Instead of it being

something sexual,

he was really just there

to supervise her

through the night.

I was pretty freaked out,

at first.

I didn't really know what

to think.

I thought it was weird.

He got her like this coat

that she really loved,

that was like significantly more

elegant than her other clothing.

So, she seemed to like actually

open up more after meeting him.

He just said

that he was helping her

through some

psychological issues

or emotional issues

she was having.

Marcus:

And then, at the end

of that semester,

Isabella's parents

get a phone call from Larry.

He said, "If she comes home

for Christmas,

she's going to be

reliving trauma

and she's going

to k*ll herself."

He told them that, you know,

Isabella didn't feel safe

with them.

That was a complete shock.

Lalich:

He was breaking her

from her family.

The purpose is separating you

from friends and family,

any support system

you may have had.

And, obviously,

making the decision for her

that she wasn't going

to go home

and Isabella

isn't protesting that,

so, the family gets

completely flummoxed,

like, "What the hell's

going on here?"

Marcus:

But their hands

were kind of tied.

I mean, you can't take an adult

away from a situation

she wanted to be in.

And so it's the beginning

of breaking everyone off

from anyone else.

My name is Lee Chen.

I'm a businessman based

primarily here in Manhattan.

I first remember meeting

Larry Ray,

he was a person

with a commanding presence.

We had engaged in several

business dealings.

He seemed like

a very kind person.

I thought that he was caring

and he exhibited signs

that he had a lot of compassion.

[ Horns honking ]

There was a time

during Christmas break

Larry had brought back

to my apartment,

not only Talia,

but also Isabella Pollok.

Marcus:

Larry would take them out

to these like lavish dinners.

He'd often pay in cash.

He had all this cash

in his backpack.

Larry's in control

of everything --

what they eat, where they go,

what they do.

And there's a really odd

kind of dynamic

between Larry and Isabella

which seems really sexual,

even though it's supposedly all

about helping her.

What he was doing was

establishing full control.

He's away from the campus,

any like people saying, "What

the hell is going on there?"

And so he is reinforcing

that separation

from the outside world.

Often, I wasn't there

because I'd been traveling

for business.

When I came back from a trip,

he had moved himself

into my bedroom.

But it wasn't just him.

And it wasn't just him

and Talia.

I only had one bed

[ Chuckling ] in my bedroom.

It was him, Talia, and Isabella.

And they were sleeping

in my bed, all together!

Larry's stroking Isabella's hair

on the bed

and calling her his baby girl.

She's, what, 19, maybe 20?

This man's in his 50s.

You know, she's sleeping

in his bed every night,

so he can help her,

whatever that means.

It was methodically

choosing one person

who became totally

dependent on him...

...and then could sort of

systematically work

through the rest of the people.

[ Suspenseful music plays ]

Larry has filled this void

for the kids

of having a parental figure

that was there for them

and wanted to listen to them

and had time for them.

Daniel was coming to him

with some of his insecurities

and he had a pretty

normal question,

which was he was struggling

with his sexuality,

you know,

"Am I straight or gay?"

Larry, in a very definitive way,

said, "You're not gay.

You know, you're straight."

And, once Larry knew that,

Larry was able

to really use that

against Daniel

and use that

in Daniel's relationship

with his family and his father.

Daniel's dad wrote to him

in an email,

"It's like you're hypnotized

when I talk to you.

It's like, 'What's up

with you'", you know?

There was a real shift

in these people's

outward personalities.

Isabella's aunt and her mother

flew to New York

and they had dinner

with Isabella and Larry

and Larry just seemed very much

to be kind of in control

of the conversation

and Isabella seemed

to just kind of go along

with whatever he said.

So, you know,

they went back to San Antonio.

The history of this case

is replete

with people trying their best

to draw the attention

of authorities.

Some 50-year-old guy's living

in the dorm.

It's strange.

Marcus:

Some of the parents thought

it was pretty weird,

especially as the situation

progressed.

The parents said

that they made complaints

to the school administrators.

Parents writing to,

speaking with,

Sarah Lawrence officials.

At least one student

communicating

with the dean of students,

"We've got an issue here."

The next summer,

Larry had started to bring more

and more students into my home.

Marcus:

Dan, Claudia, and Santos were

kind of like the newer acolytes,

the ones who were kind of

more recently falling

under the sway of Larry

and seeking him out

for guidance

and so they sort of all end up

living there.

Larry, Isabella, and Talia

shared the bedroom

and, in the living room,

we got

two king-size,

blow-up mattresses,

which we would put

on the ground

and they would completely

cover the ground.

And then there were two --

there was a longer couch

and a shorter couch.

It's a one-bedroom apartment,

but there's multiple people

sleeping there.

There's not enough space

for everybody.

Many times,

when I'd come back from a trip,

whether it be business

or personal,

I'd find all these people

in my living room.

And Larry standing there,

like a general talking

to his assembled troops.

They're really now what I call

a self-sealed system.

You're closed

to the outside world.

You may be living

in the middle of Manhattan,

but you're

in an altered reality.

Figliuzzi:

Larry Ray took it upon himself

to study cults.

He wanted to hone

and refine his con skills

and turn them

into cult development skills.

He would start every morning

by playing the song

to wake them up

and it would be like,

"Okay, you know,

Larry's in charge."

[ Upbeat rock plays ]

He was the day in,

day out ringleader

of what this group was doing.

He would talk about how to be

the best person that you can be

and how everybody

has a potential

that they can achieve.

He'd tell you what to do.

He'll tell you

what was wrong with you.

[ Suspenseful music plays ]

The sort of climax of it

would be these nighttime

sort of sessions

where they would

sit around and talk.

It sounded like there was

very little sleep,

sitting around all hours

of the night,

analyzing themselves

and analyzing each other

at nauseam.

He was starting to test them

in ways that would

really push them.

The discussions would become

like focused on one person.

This long, drawn out period

of interrogation,

basically with them,

at first, denying,

and then, eventually,

after hours,

confessing to having done

something wrong.

As Santos:

He kept calling me a liar,

saying that what I was saying

wasn't true

and that I should give him

a list of things

that I did wrong.

And he would periodically

have me affirm

how I harmed him

throughout the day

or throughout the time

that I knew him.

He's brainwashing them

by forcing them to,

over and over again,

under pressure,

admit to doing things

that they hadn't done,

until they either believed it

or said that they believed it.

And then, instead of using

those stories

to help people feel better

about themselves,

he turned them around

and used them

to humiliate people

and to control them.

Lalich:

How could these bright

young students

have gone along with this?

It's the months

of indoctrination,

to the point where they have

internalized the beliefs

and the behaviors that Larry

has been imparting to them.

Pressure would ratchet up...

...where it wouldn't just be

about like,

"You know, how can we help

this person's mental health?"

It would be like,

"What did this person do

to disrupt the group?"

Personally, I felt like

everyone only spoke to me

because Larry,

you know, told them to.

He actually told me

they only spoke to me

because he told them to,

multiple times.

So, I felt very ostracized

and on thin ice.

He manipulated them

into making their worlds

smaller and smaller,

until they were totally

dependent upon him.

[ Melancholy tune plays ]

[ Birds chirping ]

Marcus:

Iban Goicoechea was a former

boyfriend of Talia's.

He spent a lot of time

in the apartment.

He was very much part

of the group.

Hines:

Iban was just very,

very easy to be around.

His smile was electric.

He had a gift

for breaking tension

and just making the mood light.

He saw Larry

as kind of a mentor

and a guiding light

who had looked after him.

He believed that Larry

was sort of this example

of this heroic Marine

that he wanted to emulate.

He enlisted in the Marines,

which Larry pushed him to do,

even though Larry was not

in the Marines,

and by the time of the students

living in the apartment,

he's come back

from serving in Afghanistan.

He'd been through some

really traumatizing things

in Afghanistan.

He'd seen some people close

to him die

and he was experiencing PTSD.

I felt that Larry had

placed himself in a position

where Iban saw him

as a factor in his treatment

and I think it's something

Larry took advantage of.

Sometimes I'd be hanging out

with Iban.

He'd just like

pick up the phone,

"Yes, yes," boom, hang up,

and then he's like,

"Got to go."

Like, "Oh, he's got to be ready

at all times."

He often played a role

of sort of like a gofer.

Larry would have him

drive him around.

As I was reporting the story,

I spoke with Iban.

When I talked to him,

it was in 2019.

He's helped me through a lot of

I mean

a lot of emotional battles

that I've had.

Directing me and guiding me

I should say

He was there for me to help me,

sort of

get my bearings again when

I came back to civilian society.

He kind of saw himself

as on a mission for Larry.

And it was his duty to,

if Larry ever needed anything,

in the same way as he would obey

a commander in the m*llitary,

he would do what Larry needed.

As time passed, Larry began

to also test them

with physical v*olence.

In the beginning,

sort of small things

that weren't necessarily scary,

like shoving.

And then as time went on,

these things became

actually violent.

Larry described how like Iban

had come to some sort of

very critical turning point

in his processing or therapy

and, in order to push him

towards the right decision,

Larry like took the edge

of a spatula

and pressed into his neck

and told him it was a Kn*fe

and told him he was going to die

and he should just let go

of whatever psychological thing

he was holding onto.

Larry was an obsessive

documentarian

of what his life

was comprised of

and what the victims were doing

and what they owed him.

Larry would hit them

or make them do things

while simultaneously

f*ring off questions

and forcing them to admit

things that they

didn't even know existed

until that second.

Daniel:

Months ago.

Ray: You're trying

to parse again.

[Indistinct] tongue.

I'm being honest.

Give me your tongue.

[ Laughs ]

[Bleep]

Stick it out.

Stick your tongue out.

Next it's gonna be the

head of your cock.

[Bleep]

You understand?

See this how it feels?

What if I picked you

up like that?

Picked you up by your tongue?

[ Moans ]

Huh?

You're a grown man,

I'm a grown man.

Uh-huh.

I don't like what you did.

[ Muffled ]

I know.

-You hear me?

-Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Now one more time and I'm gonna

split your tongue in half.

You doubting me Danny?

No.

[ Sniffles, clears throat ]

Larry Ray is the epitome

of a malignant narcissist.

He is vengeful,

he is mean,

he is motivated by power,

and he is dangerous.

These narcissists

are so full of themselves

and they want

to record everything

as proof of what they're able

to accomplish.

He was starting to advise them

on their sex lives

and begin to put pressure

on them

to be more open sexually.

And I think a lot of it,

for Larry,

was about using sex

as sort of a tool

to destabilize them,

make them uncomfortable.

It was a tactic.

It's a way to hook someone in,

you know?

How could you be more honored

than to have the revered person

wanting to have

a sexual relationship?

It's one of the deepest,

most intimate ways

to control someone.

Larry came out of the bedroom

and it was just us

in the living room

and like stood over me.

Started grabbing himself like

under his pants

and started talking

about like orgasms

and how he could make me orgasm

without touching.

He also suggested that Dan

and I have sex right there.

And, when he left, we did.

And Iban was like next

to us.

Larry really targeted

and humiliated Daniel

because of his issue

of sexual exploration.

And he told Daniel to go in the

other room and put on a dress.

It's one of the women's dresses.

And so, in front of everybody,

he's making fun of him

in this dress.

And then he asked Isabella

to bring out a sex toy

and then told Daniel to try

and put that into himself,

in front of the whole group.

And they all sort of

stood around,

making fun of him for this.

You can imagine the trauma

for Daniel

to have to go through

such an experience

of shame and humiliation.

Melendez:

He just got bolder and bolder.

As it snowballed,

it became this cult

he could completely control.

Lee Chen is growing

increasingly disturbed

by what's happening here

and it's not just the mental

and physical abuse

he's witnessing,

it's also what Larry's doing

in his apartment.

Larry had asked me to help him

reorganize the apartment

because it was a mess

and repaint the walls

of the foyer

and remodel the bathroom.

And it quickly devolves

into Larry wanting

to fix this

one-bedroom apartment

and it's up to these kids

to fix it for him.

I mean, Santos Rosario

was a 19-year-old kid.

He does not know how

to fix walls

or do manual labor

or home improvement.

Larry had completely changed

the appearance of my apartment.

He took down walls,

painted the foyer pink,

and left electrical wires

hanging in the breeze.

It was the most incredible

thing I'd ever seen.

Larry had never

paid me any rent.

I'd gotten completely fed up

and I told him,

"I don't want to hear it.

[ Laughing ]

You have to get out."

I sent him a ten-day notice

to leave.

That's when he changed

the locks on my apartment,

so I can no longer get

into my own home.

I took Larry

to New York County Civil Court.

It took me over three years

to gain an eviction judgment.

it would never get published

because your publisher

would say,

"It's too much.

It's too much.

That could never happen.

Never!

Nobody's going to believe this.

So go back and do it all

over again

because it's not going to work."

That's the only way to describe

the insanity of Larry Ray's

con ability, if you will.

I think the way that Larry

always wanted to be was

the way that he portrayed

himself to other people.

He really wanted

to be important.

Over the course of the '90s,

we can really see

Larry and Bernie

kind of riding high together.

It's mutually beneficial,

where Kerik gets

Larry's connections

to meet influential people

and kind of advance his rise.

Meanwhile, Larry is using

Kerik's influence

for meeting as many powerful

people as possible

and playing them off each other.

And then things

kind of went south.

Larry Ray does not discriminate

on getting access

to powerful players

and that includes

organized crime members.

Larry Ray served

as a confidential source

for the FBI,

talking about a $40 million

Wall Street scheme.

He's aware of a Wall Street

fraud connected

to the Gambino crime family.

But Larry is putting himself

out as an informant

to cover his own role

in the scheme.

Eventually, the FBI catches on

that, "Wait a minute.

Our informant is actually part

of this crime."

Twenty people arrested,

including stockbrokers

and alleged associates

of the Gambino crime family.

Kerik:

My cellphone rings.

Larry calls me,

tells me he's been arrested

and he wanted to see me

and wanted me to help him.

"No, you don't understand.

The FBI's got it wrong,"

and all this other stuff.

You know, "Can you call

the U.S. attorney?

Can you call a judge?"

I said, "I'm not doing any

of that.

You know, you're indicted.

I can't get involved."

He's sentenced

to five years of probation,

with the caveat that, you know,

if he commits more crimes

during this,

he'll be in prison.

Larry doesn't take that well.

In Larry Ray's mind,

Bernie Kerik owed him.

He made Bernie Kerik.

Larry decides, "I'm going

to take out my revenge,"

and that takes the form

of calling the media.

He starts talking

about ethics violations

that Bernie Kerik

might be involved in.

Reporter:

Ray was a one-time felon

turned FBI informant,

but he turned on Kerik,

telling authorities

how Kerik took $150,000

in free apartment renovations

from a mob-linked

construction firm.

Some of it was checks,

some was cash.

Reporter:

Kerik went to prison.

Kerik:

I blame all of it on Larry Ray.

He started the investigation

that eventually resulted

in me going to prison

and he was very proud of it.

By the time Larry gets

out of jail in 2010,

he's completely alone.

Any sort of connection

he used to have is gone.

He is no longer

of any importance in the city.

But it's fascinating

because the way

that Talia described him

to her friends

her freshman year of college

at Sarah Lawrence is

that he still has that power.

Larry pulls Bernie Kerik out

when he starts telling

the college students

really powerful people

are coming after him.

Jacobs:

Santos Rosario,

he had two sisters.

Yalitza attended Columbia

as an undergraduate.

Felicia's gone to Harvard

and she's now doing her medical

residency in Los Angeles.

She was well on her way

to a successful life

with a meaningful career.

Santos had expressed interest

in connecting Felicia with Larry

because he felt Larry

was helping him

identify his issues

and overcome them

and he wanted his sister Felicia

to get the same benefit.

And, you know,

she's introduced to Larry

and begins talking to him

at length on the phone.

Felicia was essentially

recruited and groomed

long-distance.

We were on the phone together.

Oh, I thought he was really

nice, charming, smart.

We ended up talking every day,

multiple times a day.

So, we were friendly.

We talked

about my siblings a lot

because he was spending

a lot of time with them.

Then it got to be romantic.

And Larry plays off of that

and gets her to

kind of do things that she's

not comfortable with.

At first, he asked about how

many people I slept with.

Then what kind of sex

did I like,

who did I like to sleep with?

That was at first.

He insisted that I was to go out

and have sex with strangers.

While she was still living

in Los Angeles,

working on her residency,

Felicia started fulfilling these

sexual requests for Larry.

She believed she was

in a relationship with him

and she didn't want to do any

of that, and pushed back.

But, ultimately,

he convinced her

that she would do these things,

if she loved him.

Larry also wanted to see me

having sex with someone else

and he wanted me to record it.

Larry wouldn't stop asking.

He was getting more angry

and so I decided I would comply

and appease him.

I didn't want to, though.

It's remarkable that someone

like Felicia...

...with her education

and her life experience...

...that she got sucked in

so completely and so quickly.

You have to ask yourself,

"How does that happen?"

Felicia was most likely

in a vulnerable place

at that point.

She's in her medical residency.

That's tough.

Perhaps learned enough

from Santos

of the things that would make

her more suggestible to his --

whatever he was saying

on the phone to her.

It really shows how good

he was at what he did,

which is what some of the people

in his previous lives

had said about him.

He talked about how he had

helped bring down

Bernard Kerik...

...and basically put him in jail

and that, now, Bernard Kerik

and others were after him

and were trying to hurt him.

He talked about how the people

who were trying to hurt him

would target everyone who he was

associated with or cared about.

I had become extremely paranoid.

I was terrified that people

were going to come and k*ll me.

I was just scared

out of my mind.

I couldn't sleep.

She goes from being somebody

who is like

on a really solid

upward trajectory...

...to somebody who has moved her

mattress into the living room

and installed cameras

around her apartment

that Larry encouraged her

to buy and set up

because she's afraid

that people are out to get her.

He really preys on this

to induce her

to leave her residency

and abandon her dreams

of being a doctor.

She just drops all of this

because she's afraid and in love

and thinks that Larry

can protect her.

And so she moves to New York...

...and moves into the apartment.

Ray:

Do you want

to hurt yourself?

What?

I don't.

I don't want to.

I don't want to.

-What?

-I don't want to hurt myself.

Unh-unh-unh unh-unh!

I don't know, why was it

so difficult to say that?

Is that accurate?

No, no, I do.

I still want to.

And have you been thinking

about hurting yourself?

Um --

These young people were

very much hostages,

in a very real sense.

Melendez:

Santos went through some awful

emotional, physical,

psychological abuse.

So, there's a video of Santos

slapping himself in the face...

...while his sister Felicia

is next to him on the couch...

...and she appears to be

really unwell

and is kind of freaking out.

Santos spends an hour slapping

himself in the face pretty hard.

Stop talking Felicia.

He was doing this

because Larry told him

it was the only way

to get his sister Felicia

to stop talking or to be quiet.

I think Larry was able

to justify in his brain

as someone was helping me.

Can I get up now?!

No Felicia, stop talking.

Larry would pit one of his

followers against another

and use them to shame each other

and police each other,

to just drill feelings

of guilt and shame

into the minds of his followers.

I wanna go change my clothes.

Like, I don't want to be

in here.

So excuse me.

ISABELLA: Do not leave it.

ISABELLA:

Do not leave the room Felicia.

ISABELLA: You're a danger

to yourself and others, clearly.

[ Crying ]

I'm not.

Felicia was favored early on,

which can make you feel

very special, like,

"Oh, this incredible man is

in a relationship with me."

[ Shouts ]

Ray:

[Indistinct]

And then he just

most brutally destroyed her.

Felicia, lay down.

[ Crying out ]

Watching Larry physically

overpower her

and physically restrain her.

And restrained her,

really, in every way --

physically and emotionally.

It was a long, drawn out,

tortured conditioning period.

Are you gonna behave?

I was terrified.

He said he would help me.

I felt it was too much for me.

The concept of being

that bad of a person

was just intolerable.

So I'm going back to bed.

Goodbye, guys.

Good night.

So then I went ahead

and I tried to end it.

Ray: Why are you doing that?

[ Slam ]

[ Water running ]

I was in the bathroom

and I saw a bottle of pills.

ISABELLA:

I hear a pill bottle opening.

ISABELLA: And closing.

[ Thudding ]

And then Larry had gotten up.

He realized I was out of bed.

And he came, slammed the door

open from the bathroom,

and then yanked me by the hair.

Spit them out.

Spit 'em.

And then said to Isabella,

"Don't let this f*cking c**t

k*ll herself in my apartment."

Lalich:

At least three of the women

tried to commit su1c1de.

And that's not surprising,

given what they were enduring.

It's beyond comprehension,

what was being done to them.

And, of course,

it seems only natural

that they would reach a point

where they just couldn't

take it anymore.

su1c1de becomes

an overriding theme,

where Larry tells them,

"All of you are prone

to su1c1de.

There's been so many su1c1de

attempts among you.

You are all uniquely at risk

and only I can save you."

Williams:

To an extent, pretty much all

of us had PTSD.

It's somewhere around 20 guys

since 2011

who committed su1c1de.

Both people who were

more close to me

and then people who were like

in my unit, as a whole.

One of the primary symptoms

in PTSD

and associated

with combat trauma is

paranoia and hyperawareness,

basically.

For Iban, it definitely

didn't seem like

that was the main driver.

It seemed like it was

the thoughts that Larry

had put it in his head

that always somebody was

out to get him.

When I spoke to Iban,

he sounded rational

and coherent

and, yet, he was talking

about something

that seemed very divorced

from reality.

[ Horns honking ]

EZRA: Did you ever see Larry

targeted by governmental forces?

While we were in New York,

were definitely followed.

I was a driver for him

for a while.

And she was being followed

on the streets.

Sometimes we would see them.

Other times we didn't see

anything.

But there were times where it

was obvious that he was

being followed.

He was like,

"Oh, you know, with Larry,

Bernard Kerik's still

out to get him."

It was this paranoid rambling

of people associated with Larry

who don't like him

or out to get Iban as well.

So, in spring of 2013,

a number of these students go

down to North Carolina,

where Larry's stepfather,

Gordon Ray, lives.

And Talia's also living there.

And Gordon has a property.

It's a large, semirural house

in Pinehurst, North Carolina,

which is a small town.

Santos and Dan stay in New York,

but the rest of them --

Claudia, Yalitza,

Felicia, Isabella --

are all down in Pinehurst

and they're doing hard labor.

Cult leaders typically

exploit their followers

in whatever way they can.

So, it's not surprising

that Larry would go that route

of getting free labor.

Marcus:

This property is a total mess.

Essentially,

they rip up all this sod.

They have

to put new sod down.

They have to dig

drainage ditches.

They have to use backhoes

and this machinery,

none of which they have

any idea how to use.

And Larry tells them

they have to like work all day

and they eat

when he tells them to eat

and they can't come inside

until this work is done.

Here we really see

the hierarchy,

even within the group,

where Talia is the most

favored among them.

So, while they're all

outside working,

she's inside, you know, working

on her application

to law school.

You know, she's not

out in the fields.

Ray:

They got to get it

down from the other side

and then get the water

to run inside it.

Would you believe

this overflowed

right onto the lawn?

Look at this.

You've been hurting me

for so long behind my back,

doing damaging things,

destroying property.

I don't want to.

-Don't want to what?

-[ Sniffle ]

I don't want to damage things.

Well, when was the last time

you damaged something?

Larry had a background

of extorting people

and financial fraud.

He created this whole scene

where he convinced them

that they broke

everything of his

and then you've come up

with these amounts,

you know,

like thousands of dollars,

that they supposedly owed him.

I was trying to --

You were trying

to damage it

and do -- and aren't you

doing that?

Yes.

We were talking

about how much damage I did

and I gave him

the estimate of $100,000.

And he said,

"It sounds about right."

And I said,

"It's probably more."

And he looks like,

"Yeah, it's probably more."

The group was firmly

under Larry Ray's thumb

and completely sold on the idea

that they owed him

this massive debt

that they really would never

be able to work off.

And these things they'd done

became a mechanism

for Larry to extract money

from their families.

They began to go

to their family and friends

and tell them that they had

done something wrong

and that they had

to pay him back

and could they help them out?

You know, at one point,

the Rosario parents,

they weren't especially wealthy.

They had managed to

save enough money

to buy a small house.

And they ended up giving

six-figure amounts to Larry.

There was one day when Santos

was on the phone with Talia

about how to get his parents

to give him money

to make repairs

and, occasionally, Talia would

hand the phone to Larry

and Larry would talk to Santos.

It was like a large amount

of money,

like $20,000, around $20,000.

Santos succeeded.

And I remember Larry talking

to him and saying, "Good job.

See, doesn't that feel better,

you know?

Making repairs

is the right thing to do,"

that kind of thing.

They become profit centers.

And Larry Ray

is exploiting that.

He has them drain the bank

accounts of their parents,

in some cases, the life savings,

because they convince

their parents,

"I have done this kind

of damage.

I owe this guy

this kind of money.

I'm in big trouble."

[ Horns honking ]

According to the evidence

that was presented,

Claudia was in a situation

where Larry was demanding

thousands and thousands

of dollars from her...

...and he managed

to convince her

that the only way

she could possibly

make the kind of money

that she needed to make was

to begin selling herself.

So, she began working

as a prost*tute.

Larry convinced Claudia

that she owes him,

which, at this point is,

you know,

into the hundreds

of thousands of dollars

for damaged machinery

in Pinehurst.

She begins sleeping

with men for money.

And Larry is, you know,

intimately involved.

Pushing her to set up a website.

And giving Larry the money.

I wanted to repair what I

believed I had done to Larry.

And it was because I felt

immense pressure from Larry

to get money for him.

She starts living in hotels...

...seeing clients in hotels,

and any money,

except what's required

to pay rent and for food,

is all given to Larry.

Melendez:

She was just turned into this

like money vehicle

and was no longer a person.

She was just going hotel

to hotel, working constantly.

The pressure just to make money

was just constant...

...and extremely intense.

He would thr*aten

to blackmail my clients.

He would thr*aten me

physically.

He would thr*aten

to put me in prison.

Somebody had found this website

that was pretty unsettling

and there was a link

to this video.

Ray:

Speak audibly, Claudia.

I didn't care

about other people.

Okay, so, say again.

I wanted to poison you and I

didn't care about other people.

In that video, Claudia kind of

appears to be on autopilot.

Larry Ray would accuse

Claudia of things

that absolutely made no sense,

like poisoning

or conspiracies to k*ll.

And, first, are you making

this by your own free will?

Yes.

And, if she said anything other

than, "Yes, I did,"

Larry would say,

"But that's not the truth.

You have to tell the truth."

And these conversations

would be recorded.

So the truth really meant

generating blackmail material.

I poisoned you multiple times

with vials of poison.

At the same time, you were

trying to convince me

that you were a good person

and regretted ever doing this

and that you would

never do it again.

Yeah.

Why were you doing that?

So I could continue to have

access to you.

So, I think, by the time

she like admits

to all these poisonings,

she just wants to get out.

She just wants to put distance

between her and Larry

and get out of the situation

as fast as possible.

The money from Claudia's clients

gets transferred to Isabella

and she becomes a crucial part

of Larry's operation.

Everyone in a cult,

to some degree,

becomes a perpetrator.

In Isabella's case,

she really became

sort of the right-hand person

to Larry.

She was, in a sense,

the bookkeeper

for Claudia's prostitution.

There were clear accounting

ledgers kept

that tell us the kind of income

that Claudia was producing

for Larry.

And yet, the amount of money

that he says she owes him

never seems to go down.

[ Horns honking ]

You know, she ends up doing this

for four years...

...no holidays...

...seeing up to five

clients a day...

...and ends up giving him more

than $2 million.

Jacobs:

She didn't really have

anything for herself.

She lived in constant fear

of Larry punishing her

and it seems like

almost everything she did

during that time period was done

in order to keep him happy.

He was committed

to a psychiatric facility,

which, from his perspective,

all that does is reinforce

the "Everyone's out to get me"

narrative, right?

And I'm sure Larry leaned

into that.

You know, "I told you

they'd come for you."

Like I don't know,

"I've been telling you

this was going to happen to you.

Now it's happened

and you can't trust anyone."

He was kind of like

the New Jersey city kid

and I was the, you know,

they would call me

Mountain Goat. [ Laughs ]

And I was always like,

"No, you got to come out

and experience nature,

experience the woods."

And my wife and I

had been having conversations

with him on the phone.

We're like, "Hey,

why don't you come,

move out to Oregon for a bit,

see if you can, you know, do

something different out here?"

He seemed, you know,

pretty enthusiastic

about it and everything

and he got cleared

with his medical staff

to come out and do it.

We kind of noticed,

shortly after him getting here,

you know,

he just seemed like there was

no passion for anything

and there was just like

nothing that he wanted to do.

I was worried.

[ Suspenseful music plays ]

Lalich:

For everyone who's in a cult,

there are always doubts,

but, of course

you can't express them.

You can't say anything

to anybody,

so you put them on the shelf

in the back of your head

and, when that shelf breaks,

you realize,

"This is not healthy.

There's something

not right here,"

and then you may start

to think about leaving.

After a while, Daniel just

reached a breaking point

where he kind of broke through

and realized

like what Larry was sort of

presenting as this,

you know, enlightenment

was just -- none of it was real.

He was making it up

as he was going along.

"This guy doesn't know

what he's talking about,"

and, shortly after that,

he left.

For Santos, I think he had

a really hard time

reckoning with the idea

that Larry,

someone that was there for him,

someone that listened to him,

someone that like justified some

of his emotions

about his family

or his parents or his sisters,

was actually

a really bad person.

At a certain point,

Santos, essentially,

hits his limit

and stops talking to Larry.

He feels abused and he leaves.

He sort of gets

some low-wage jobs,

but he cut off contact.

During the eviction process,

it took over three years

to gain judgment.

Then to get the marshal

to take action,

it took another few years.

It was, finally, a big relief

to get Larry out of my home.

You know, by this point,

he's mostly living,

on a day-to-day basis,

with Isabella and Felicia.

They spend some time in hotels.

They stay in some Airbnbs.

Eventually, they land

at a house in New Jersey

owned by his friend

Scott Mueller.

There were very few spurts

that Talia was not

in contact every day,

but it was practically

every day,

sometimes multiple times a day,

especially with Isabella.

Talia clearly comes out

as a key player in the con.

She bought it to the point

that she sold it to other people

and continued to believe the lie

throughout the history

of this case.

Melendez:

This is already years into her

being a prost*tute.

She ended up telling one

of her clients

in a moment of fear,

but also, I think,

trying to get out of the

situation that she was in.

Larry realized

that something had happened

and he responds by showing up

to one of her hotel rooms.

Larry and Isabella became aware

that Claudia had tipped off one

of her clients

to the fact that they named him

on a website

exposing his involvement

with Claudia,

who was a prost*tute.

Melendez:

And he responds by showing up

to one of her hotel rooms.

Larry and Isabella came

to Claudia's hotel room...

...and Larry tortured her

over the course

of a horrific night of abuse.

He comes in and immediately

starts berating her

and hitting her

and yelling at her

for the simple task

of trying to tell somebody

what was happening to her.

He told me to strip naked.

I was physically bound

to a chair.

I could not leave.

The way that Claudia

described it,

Isabella was in the room.

I remember her saying that, when

Larry was pouring water over me

and lowering

my body temperature,

she at one point was like,

"Claudia, you're such a faker.

This water is room temperature.

It's not even cold."

Jacobs:

Larry repeatedly suffocated

Claudia with a plastic bag.

It was relentless

and it was painful

and it was terrifying.

He ended up smothering me,

choking me to the point

of passing out.

I was terrified.

I was trembling.

Lalich:

And it's just beyond cruelty.

Destroying this perfectly

normal student,

force her to become a sex worker

and then not only take

all the money,

but t*rture her in between.

At a certain point, they even

ordered burgers and fries

and, you know,

they were eating dinner

while she was tied naked

to a chair in front of them.

And then the t*rture

started all over again.

And, at the end of it,

he finally unbound her

from the chair, let her go.

She slept for a few hours.

Then she woke up

and went back to work.

And it wasn't very long

after that

Claudia showed signs of finally

becoming fed up

with what she was being

put through

and she confided in the same

client about what was going on

and he provided her the escape

that she desperately needed.

He got her a train ticket.

And she left the city.

She got away.

I mean, this is somebody

who was giving, in some cases,

over $100,000 a month directly

to fund Larry and Isabella.

They sent her a series of emails

and trying to guilt trip

and intimidate her

into returning,

but she didn't.

And that's the beginning

of the end of this story.

I just started reaching out

to people

and people that knew Claudia

really well,

her family and friends,

and they were like,

"None of us have talked to her

for six years."

I pretty soon was put in contact

with Daniel Levin.

He agreed to talk to me

and that was when it really

became clear like

this was like something

really bad and really abusive.

I felt like I had to get

the story out there

to try and get these people

some help.

So, James Walsh and I

published the article

at the end of April 2019.

Almost a decade from the time

that Larry first walked

into the dorm at Sarah Lawrence,

this piece comes out

in New York Magazine,

this unbelievably wild tale.

The story came out

and we were all in the newsroom

and all of us kind of started

freaking out

because it was

a very weird story.

And another repercussion of the

publication of the article

was that Isabella's mother

and aunt and Felicia's mother

went to New Jersey

and they knocked on the door

and they essentially tried

to rescue their daughters.

Larry apparently hid

in the back of the house

and the daughters refused

to come out.

You know, even then,

there was nothing

that they could really do.

These are still adults.

So that New York Magazine

article,

thankfully, made its way

to an FBI supervisor

in the New York FBI Field Office

and that supervisor said,

"I think we need

to look at this."

And they proceeded to knock it

out of the park,

determining how much

income Larry Ray had

that was from sex trafficking,

from depleting the bank accounts

of the kids' parents.

They acquired cellphone records.

Their emails show them

being controlled, confessing.

Now, all kinds

of things happening

and references to v*olence.

Then comes a search warrant

of the residence

in Piscataway, New Jersey.

[ Siren wailing ]

Early in the morning,

Larry is in bed

and a team of federal agents

and NYPD officers come

into the house,

place him under arrest,

and begin interrogating him

and going through everything

in the house

and seizing recordings

of thousands of phone calls,

videos,

several dozen hard drives,

several dozen cellphones,

laptops,

as well as handwritten ledgers

and handwritten journals

he'd seized from the students.

And it is an agent's dream

to have a search

where that much documentation

of illegality exists.

The same documentation used

to control and humiliate

these kids

was the same documentation used

in court

to absolutely nail Larry Ray.

[ Camera shutters clicking ]

Good morning.

I'm Jeff Berman,

U.S. attorney

for the Southern District

of New York.

Today we announce criminal

charges against this man,

Lawrence Ray,

who, for nearly a decade,

exploited and abused

young women and men

emotionally, physically,

and sexually

for his own financial gain.

[ Camera shutters clicking ]

The indictment contained

sex trafficking,

sex trafficking conspiracy,

racketeering conspiracy,

extortion, money laundering --

a vast set of charges.

[ Camera shutter

clicking continuously ]

I heard about Larry

being arrested

on just a like

a Google News alert.

Just popped up

and said he was arrested

and so I was worried

about what Iban might do.

Just because of his level

of devotion towards him,

that this looked like,

in Larry's world,

the culmination of,

"Everyone's trying to get me."

Now, they got him

and I had no idea, you know,

what he had put in his head,

what he should do.

I went to bed and, about 10:30,

11:00 at night,

[ Siren wailing ]

hear, you know,

a knock on the door.

And it was a Linn County

sheriff's deputy.

He initially asks if I know

someone named "Eye-ban,"

because he, obviously, doesn't

know how to pronounce his name.

And I was thinking,

"Oh, crap, what did he do?"

But then he is asking

about his tattoos

or if he has

any identifiable markers.

So, now, I'm like, "Okay, like

[ Laughing ] wha--

what's going on?"

And I guess the point is like,

"Oh, he was found dead."

To my knowledge,

Iban tried to slit his wrists

and was unsuccessful

and then got up

and walked into traffic

and laid down on a highway.

[ Melancholy tune plays ]

And it seemed like Iban created

like a rabbit hole for himself

that he couldn't get out of

with that paranoia.

At the end of the day,

I think that it's all on Larry.

I think that,

if it wasn't for him,

Iban, you know, he might still

have mental health struggles,

but not to that degree.

I absolutely blame Larry 100%

for Iban's death.

[ Suspenseful music plays ]

Felicia was talking

to the government,

but she still, essentially,

was on Larry's side.

And then, at a certain point,

she kind of came

to a realization

and began actually cooperating

and turned on Larry.

Santos, he was played videos

of what Larry had done to him

and then he just realized like,

"I'm being abused,"

and he began cooperating

as well.

So, Felicia, Santos, Yalitza,

Claudia, and Dan,

they all handed over documents

and spent innumerable hours

talking to the government.

Isabella was initially

described as a victim.

The government was hoping

that she would also flip.

Probably expecting

that she would

and she didn't.

Reporter:

Headlines for you.

This out of New York --

A dad accused of running

a sex cult

from his daughter's dorm room.

Remember this?

He's due in court

in the next half hour.

Reporter #2:

Ray's charged with nine counts,

including extortion,

money laundering,

and sex trafficking.

The prosecutor called Ray

a flight risk

and a danger to the community.

The government described Talia;

and Gordon Ray,

Larry's stepfather;

as coconspirators,

but neither have been charged.

Talia is the ultimate

true believer

because not only

has she continued

to stick by her father,

her father is a blood relative

and I think that

may have figured

into the prosecutive

decisions here.

The idea of charging a daughter

for believing her father's lies,

going back all the way

to childhood,

it could be too much for a jury,

just distracting

from the case at hand.

Larry appears to have

essentially insulated

his immediate family

from the most incriminating

parts of what he was doing.

But he had Isabella

recording information

about the money coming

from Claudia,

which makes her

a direct accessory.

Where there's a trial

and people have

to get up on the stand and talk

about what they experienced,

what they saw,

what happened to them,

I can't think of anything

that could be harder, really.

First of all, you have to sit

there in front of your abuser.

You probably haven't seen

that person in, perhaps, years.

To have that person

looking at you,

trying to shut you up

with their eyes.

They deserve awards

because they're helping

bring these people down.

Larry Ray's trial was

a jury trial,

so, you've got to convince

a group of citizens,

beyond a reasonable doubt,

that these cult members were

truly, against their will,

unable to consent

to what was done to them.

Larry recorded everything

and we got to watch it.

And it was really hard to watch

because Larry's physically

b*ating them.

The more I heard,

the more I realized

that Larry Ray was far more

of a demon

than anyone ever imagined.

I think the problem

for the defense was,

no matter how you spin this,

you're facing incredibly

damaging videos

of your client

physically harming people.

The witnesses were

remarkably composed,

considering what they

had gone through

and the nature of what they were

describing for the jury --

the t*rture,

the humiliation, the shame.

So, imagine this incredibly

vulnerable person

who was part of this and having

to talk about what happened,

what was done to you,

and to say that publicly.

That's hard.

That's tough.

Claudia really had

a pretty high burden

because she was

a sex trafficking victim,

so, it was not easy, I'm sure,

for her to sit there

and recount,

in laborious detail,

all of the things

that had happened to her.

All of a sudden,

as Claudia is describing

being a forced prost*tute,

one of Larry's lawyers stands up

and asks for a break

and, usually, during testimony,

that doesn't really happen.

He seems to go

through some kind of seizure

in the courtroom, right there.

[ Siren wailing ]

And he has to be carried

out of the courthouse

on a stretcher.

And he's making like

eye contact with people,

like he's trying to like see

who's there,

how many people are around him

as he gets put

into the ambulance.

In the witness room,

you can audibly hear

Claudia crying

as we're all walking out,

trying to figure out

what's happening.

And I said, "I know him.

I know exactly what he's doing.

He's trying to influence

the jury.

He's trying to create

this self-pity thing."

I said,

"He's doing it on purpose."

As with anything related

to Larry,

you have to expect some kind

of curveball.

I mean, is he going to be able

to like, somehow,

at the last minute,

like prolong this

so that the victims

no longer want to testify

or they're unsettled,

and what happens?

You know,

it didn't end up working.

There were two seizures

and then there weren't any more.

[ Siren wailing ]

In all, the jury only

deliberated for four hours,

which, for a trial

that lasted a month

and for as many counts

as he was accused of,

kind of speaks

to where the jury was

before they even got

to the verdict room.

It didn't take the jury

very long

to come back

with a unanimous verdict

that Larry was guilty

on all counts.

Kerik:

He knew it was coming.

The court testimony

was overwhelming.

I knew he would be convicted.

Marcus:

There is justice

for the victims.

They wanted Larry

to get arrested

and indicted and convicted

and I think it was

really powerful for them.

They could now

resume their lives.

They see justice

has been served for him.

There's nothing harsh enough

that could happen to him,

based on what he did

to those kids.

There certainly have been

other evil cult leaders,

but the extent of what he did

and the amount of time

he was allowed to do it,

with such concentration

and precision...

...that was almost

beyond anything I've heard of.

I don't think there's

an ounce of regret.

He just destroyed

people's lives.

He loved feeling powerful.

And I almost call him

a power addict.

The way that you can judge

other people is

how they treat other humans.

Just a horrific individual.

There's this

inevitable question

of why nothing was done earlier.

The guilt that must be felt,

not only by Sarah Lawrence

administrators,

but the guilt of the victims'

parents must be painful.

I have no trouble

blaming Sarah Lawrence

for letting somebody move

into the dorm.

What was Sarah Lawrence to do?

They could've made sure he got

out of the dorm.

But I'm not sure,

had they gotten him

out of the dorm sooner,

anything would've

been different.

The really troublesome stuff

happens later,

at the apartment

on the Upper East Side.

Larry Ray was one of the most

skilled con artists

I've seen in 25 years.

There may not have been much

more that you could've done.

I think the biggest question

about this case is

why Larry Ray did what he did.

In terms of what drove him,

I don't know if it's as simple

as he wanted money and sex,

although I think

he certainly did.

He was like somebody who,

for decades,

was able to carve out a space

for himself

outside of the typical rules

where he could exploit

people's vulnerabilities.

And it was these exact

same tools

which eventually led

to his downfall

because he recorded

his own crimes.

Part of his defense was that he

really believed the conspiracy

and that these kids were bad

actors working for Bernie Kerik.

Whether he believed it or not,

it's hard to say

why he would ever,

and how he could,

t*rture these young people

so extensively,

in the ways that he did.