Hulu’s new true crime docu-series examines the crimes of Larry Ray and the impact his actions had on the students who were subjected to sexual, physical and emotional abuse by him.
Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence, a three-part series premiering on February 9, sees Ray’s victims speak out about his 10 years of abuse, explaining in their own words how Ray damaged their lives.
Viewers may be wondering exactly what happened to Ray, born Lawrence Grecco. Here is everything that you need to know.
What Happened to Larry Ray and Where is He Now?
Ray moved into his daughter Talia’s dorm room at Sarah Lawrence College, an elite liberal arts college in New York, in September 2010. At the time her roommates were not fazed by her request to have her father stay with them for a short time following his release from prison. However, things soon took a very dark turn, The Cut reported in 2019.
During his time living with Talia and her friends he began engaging in “therapy” sessions with individuals, in which he convinced them to share details of their lives, and also acted as their purported spiritual advisor.
Ray later began using interrogation sessions to extract false confessions from the students about their supposed actions against him, the publication reported.
In 2011, Ray moved into a one-bedroom apartment with several of the students where he continued to subject them to physical and emotional abuse. He was also said to have extorted money from the families of the students, and made some of them take part in forced labor or prostitution.
The details of what he did to the students were first explored in The Cut’s 2019 report, which broke the story and prompted authorities to investigate Ray.
He was arrested in February 2020, and following a four-week trial, in April 2022 he was convicted of 17 counts including sex trafficking, extortion and forced labor, court documents revealed at the time.
In the court reports, it was detailed how Ray used “fear, violence, and coercion” to make one student engage in prostitution to “pay damages to [him] that she did not actually owe.”
He was also said to have used “sleep deprivation, psychological and sexual humiliation, verbal abuse, threats of physical violence, physical violence, threats of criminal legal action, alienating the victims from their families, and exploiting the victims’ mental health vulnerabilities” in order to exert control on his victims.
At the time, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “Twelve years ago, Larry Ray moved into his daughter’s dorm room at Sarah Lawrence College. And when he got there, he met a group of friends who had their whole lives ahead of them.
“For the next decade, he used violence, threats, and psychological abuse to try to control and destroy their lives. 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. Today’s verdict finally brings him to justice.
“This verdict would not have been possible without the victims who testified in court. We are in awe of their bravery in the face of incredible trauma.”
On January 20, 2023 Ray was sentenced to 60 years in prison for racketeering conspiracy, violent crime in aid of racketeering, extortion, sex trafficking, forced labor, tax evasion and money laundering offenses.
One of Ray’s victims, Daniel Barban Levin, told Newsweek how he felt about Ray’s conviction and sentencing.
“To be in that room where Lawrence Ray is walking out of it into incarceration for the rest of his life, where he won’t be able to harm my friends ever again, that was a really profound feeling of safety that I haven’t felt for a decade,” he said.
“And I do feel like justice has been served and that’s a relief. I feel really grateful and lucky to get to feel that way because I know that there’s a lot of people who deal with abusers like Larry Ray, who live in fear of them and hiding, like I did, for years, who are being actively harmed and they don’t get the kind of justice that we’ve managed to get, so [I feel] very lucky.”
Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence is out on Hulu now.
The post What Happened to Larry Ray and Where is He Now? appeared first on Newsweek.
