On January 20, 2023 Larry Ray, 63,  of New Jersey has been sentenced to 60 years in prison for accusations of being the ringleader behind a New York college sex trafficking cult. Ray had been found guilty in a previous trial held in April of 2022, there have been two trials due to an unprecedented sudden illness that came over Ray during the trial in April.

In 2010 Ray found himself acting as a professor at the local Sandra Lawrence college for Liberal Arts in New York. He would lure his victims by posing as a protective father figure over the young students. He would lead “therapy” sessions with students going into intimate detail about both his personal life and theirs. He would tell them they were “broken” and the only way they could be fixed was by him. 

In one particular incident Ray became angry and hostile, he accused a male student of attempting to poison him, which was not true. After the student reassured him that there was no such thing that had happened Ray held a knife to the students neck forcing him to confess to the untrue wrongdoing. With his life on the line the male student reasonably confessed which led Ray to put the student in a choke hold and slam him to the ground. Ultimately the student lost consciousness. 

In another incident Ray convinced student Claudia Drury to force herself into prostitution around the campus and neighboring communities. Then telling her he had to take any money she had made to repay him for previous “property damages” he claimed she caused yet there was no evidence to back this up. Claudia found herself doing this from 2014 to 2018 in order to “properly” repay him.

According to The New York Times in an interview Drury told reporters, “I became a prostitute, It was Larry’s suggestion”. Ray ended up pocketing around $500,000 from Claudia in the course of these four years. 

Multiple victims came forward during the trial and read victim impact statements. While each student got a chance to come forward and given the time to read their statements Ray stared at them “attentively, though showed no sign of emotion.” Says TheGuardian. He also wore headphones throughout the entire trial and kept becoming “distracted” by things on the table in front of him. 

Even though evidence had been piling up around Ray for over a decade his lawyer convinced Ray to plead guilty to all 15 counts of misconduct and request 15 years in prison with the option of parole after 10. His lawyer claimed Ray had been abused physically, emotionally, and sexually throughout his childhood and adolescent years. Which turned into trauma and he developed serious mental troubles from it. Claiming it to be the reason Ray feels little to no remorse for what he had done. 

After his lawyer suggested a lesser life sentence the defending side stated how nobody was there for Ray defending him and how that “spoke volumes” for what he had done, said TheGuardian. 

Since Ray has been in prison he has made multiple excuses to go to the hospital and has been in out of the local emergency room 20+ times. Claiming things such as numbing and tingling in his extremities, ear-ringing, and “very frightening” lesions. Despite all these visits no doctor has been able to figure out what is wrong.