Hulu’s new docuseries Stolen Youth: Contained in the Cult at Sarah Lawerence brings the story of Larry Ray’s manipulation and exploitation of a bunch of Sarah Lawerence college students to the small display screen.

The story was delivered to mild in 2019 in a New York Journal function story(Opens in a brand new tab) which led to an FBI investigation leading to Ray being sentenced(Opens in a brand new tab) to 60 years in jail for intercourse trafficking, extortion, conspiracy, and compelled labor final month. The three-part docuseries options first-hand accounts of Ray’s abuse that spanned a decade. This is the true story behind the documentary:

Who’re the victims?

Ray first met the group of sophomores at Sarah Lawerence by means of his daughter Talia, herself a scholar on the New York liberal arts faculty. After his launch from jail within the fall of 2010, Ray moved into Talia’s dorm, inserted himself into her mates’ lives, and gained their belief by means of “remedy classes” he carried out. Ray’s victims included Talia’s boyfriend on the time, and her roommates Santos Rosario, Daniel Levin, Isabella Pollok, and Claudia Drury. Later Rosario launched Ray to his sisters Felicia Rosario and Yalitza Rosario, who additionally fell below his affect.

After changing into a confidant of the younger individuals, he satisfied Talia and her mates to maneuver right into a one-bedroom condominium on the Higher East Aspect of New York the place his relationship with the scholars escalated. He mentally and bodily tortured them, coerced them into confessing to crimes they did not commit by means of sleep-derivation, verbal abuse, and sexual humiliation, and extorted a whole bunch of 1000’s of {dollars} from them and their households. He compelled one younger girl into intercourse work and pocketed the a whole bunch of 1000’s of {dollars} she earned from it.

Who’s Larry Ray?

Ray’s sphere of affect and skilled manipulation prolonged past the Sarah Lawerence college students. Previous to his involvement with them, the Brooklyn native turned near former NYPD commissioner Bernie Kerik, a connection that result in a stint as an FBI informant for a pump-and-dump inventory scheme operated by a capo within the Gambino household.

“Larry Ray is a psychotic con man who has victimized each buddy he is ever had. It has been shut to twenty years since I final heard from him, but his reign of terror continues,” stated Kerik within the New York Journal article.

FBI studies revealed that Ray was an unreliable informant and should have actually used the position to cowl his personal complicity within the Gambino inventory fraud scheme. In 2000, he was charged for his involvement within the scheme and was sentenced to 5 years’ probation. By 2007, Ray would once more serve time on account of a baby custody dispute, which prosecutors argued was a violation of his parole. It was upon his launch from that cost that he preyed upon the Sarah Lawerence college students.

The place is everyone?

In line with New York Journal, it was Levin who first put the items collectively that Roy’s therapy of the group was attribute of a cult. By 2016, Yalitza and Levin had escaped from Roy’s management, however the others remained below his dominance till his arrest in 2020. What started as a standard faculty expertise led to unimaginable horror for this group of scholars.