A disturbing new case has emerged where the father of a former student at Sarah Lawrence
College in New York was found to be running a sex cult right on campus out of his own
daughter's dorm, dormitory.
What's more, he managed to extort her friends and her classmates into pony up heaps of money
while subjecting many of them to prostitution.
Here to talk us through this case is Mollye Barrows, a journalist for trial lawyer magazine.
Mollye this, this is beyond crazy.
It is.
You know what gets me, all of this is taking place on the college campus.
The college campus is trying to cover it up, make act like it's not a big deal.
The same reason that they coverup rape cases that take place on campus.
Yes, that's what stuck out to me about this story as well.
You know, sad as it is, it's not unusual to have a master manipulator, which is what prosecutors
say this Ray, Lawrence is the father of this former student that went to Sarah Lawrence
College, but what is crazy to me is that he moved in with his daughter in her dorm with
eight other students.
There were seven females, one male student, he was there for two months.
That's where he formed this relationship under the guise of a father figure.
And we're talking about on campus?
On campus in the middle of campus.
Now he lived in campus and made these connections, made the, the foray into these relationships
to manipulate them for a couple of months and then he eventually moved off campus.
Many of the students followed him.
He was living in an apartment with a man he'd met in prison because, mind you, this began
in 2010 he moved in straight out of a prison cell into his daughter's dorm room.
Yeah, yeah.
And parents at the time, we'll get into some of the details, but basically parents of some
of his victims have said that they did come forward to the school at the time he was living
on the campus and say, what's going on?
Why is this man living here?
And one individual that was representing the school told this couple, these, these parents.
Well, we'd had complaints about him, but our hands are tied because he's visiting his daughter.
Oh wow.
Okay.
So here's the deal, here's the story you and I've done so many times.
College campuses don't want any bad press.
Right.
They don't want to have to report any bad things like prostitution is taking place on
our campus.
Sorry about that.
Yeah.
Sorry, it's happening in our dormitories.
They don't want to tell that story.
They don't want to talk about prostitution.
They don't want to talk about extortion.
They don't want to talk about this freak who happens to live at, right in the middle of
campus.
The reason they don't is they have a dis, they have a, they have a duty to disclose
and the duty to disclose on anything sexual on a campus is you can't, you can't shake
that duty.
That's why they don't report rape cases.
I believe it.
This is the same story.
Yeah.
They don't want mud on them.
It's passing the trash.
Yeah, yeah.
Is what a lot of organizations do when they know or are aware of or, you know, someone
who is basically committing crimes or alleged to be committing crimes.
We saw it with Penn State, with Jerry Sandusky.
We saw it with Dr. Strauss over in Ohio State accused of abusing, you know, 177 students
on that campus as well and, and the number is still rising.
But in this particular case, it started in 2010 he moved onto campus, made these relationships,
moved off campus.
Basically extorted, prosecutors according to, in the indictment, he was just a reign
of terror is how they described him.
Well.
He manipulated these kids.
He had them confess their deepest, darkest secrets.
He then put it on camera, had them confess to crimes they didn't commit.
Got sexually explicit videos of them and then used it to extort money from them as well
as singlehandedly pimped out one young woman and for $500,000.
So it's like a total of $1 million between money from her activities, if you will, and
then running and extorting.
Well prostitution.
He's running her, she's a sex slave.
He did.
He ran her as, she was a sex trafficking victim.
She has, he has a sex slave ring.
Yes.
Taking place in the middle of the, middle of the campus at Sarah Lawrence College.
Yeah.
Well, the sex didn't start until after he moved off campus.
The relationships were there, but, still.
Well this is where it all started.
100%.
It all started there.
And the school knew he was there.
Yeah, and they say, and their response is, oh, we couldn't do anything about it?
Well, and it gets even more interesting because the only reason he's even been indicted on
these federal sex trafficking, forced labor and extortion charges is because of an article
that New York Magazine did exposing his alleged crimes in April of last year and they went
to Sarah Lawrence College at the time and said, hey, we're investigating this story.
This is what we've come up with.
And at the time the school looked into it and basically released a statement to them
saying, you know, we did our own investigation internally and we didn't find any evidence
to substantiate those claims, which again is going not our problem.
So he's a prison thug?
Yes.
Okay.
He's obviously a cult leader.
Yes.
And Sarah Lawrence College in New York knows all of that.
The parents who have kids there, they don't know what's going on.
And it's heartbreaking because he cut their ties, their children's ties.
He drove a wedge deliberate.
And, and rather than leadership at Sarah Lawrence College doing anything, they ignore it.
It's infuriating.
Because it bad for the college.
Thanks for joining me.
Okay.
Thank you.