According to the US Department of Justice, a father who psychologically and sexually manipulated a group of student students for years after moving into his daughter’s college dorm room in New York was sentenced to 60 years in prison on Friday.
In accordance with a news release from the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Lawrence Ray, 63, was convicted in April on racketeering conspiracy, extortion, violent crime in aid of racketeering, tax evasion sex trafficking, forced labour, and money laundering charges.
Authorities claim that Ray began sexually and psychologically manipulating and physically abusing college students and other victims as early as 2010 employing multiple tactics.
They included “sleep deprivation, mental and sexual humiliation, verbal harassment, threats of physical violence, physical abuse, threats of criminal legal action, alienating the innocent people from their relatives, and exploiting the victims’ mental health vulnerabilities.”
Prosecutors said Ray, who lived in his daughter’s room at Sarah Lawrence College, forced yet another woman to engage in commercial sex acts – defined by the government as any sex act for which something of value is handed to or received by any person – in order to pay damages she didn’t owe.
Ray allegedly collected sexually explicit photos of the victim and used them to coerce her into continuing commercial sex acts.
According to the government’s press release, he also used violence. Prosecutors claim Ray once tied the victim to a chair and nearly strangled her with a plastic bag over her head.
Ray, who lived in his daughter’s home, was sentenced to a lifetime of supervised release in addition to the 60-year sentence.
Ray was also ordered to forfeit $2,444,349 from the sale of his GoDaddy portfolio and his Pinehurst, North Carolina home.
The court has not yet decided how much restitution the victims will receive.
Williams thanked the victims who testified in court in April, saying the verdict would not have been possible without their testimony.
Prosecutors stated in 2020 that the investigation was prompted by an April 2019 magazine article titled “The Stolen Children of Sarah Lawrence,” which appeared on The Cut of New York magazine.
Yonkers’ private liberal arts college has approximately 1,700 students.
