Back in 2019, The Cut published a bombshell investigation into a pattern of concerning student behavior at Sarah Lawrence College. It all traced back to Larry Ray. Ray is the father of Talia Ray, one of the undergrads in question, and was already an ex-convict at the time. He pleaded guilty to securities fraud in the early aughts and was sentenced to five years probation. As The Cut investigation recounts, he later spent six months in jail after refusing a court order to surrender custody of his two children. Ray was arrested again in 2006, per the magazine, after a domestic violence incident with his then-girlfriend. Both were violations of his probation, which led to more jail time. But shortly after being released in 2010, Ray moved into his daughter’s on-campus dorm and took control of the roommates’ home life, manipulating teenagers who later characterized themselves as “directionless” and “fragile” in conversations with The Cut. Several of Talia’s former roommates told The Cut that Ray psychologically, physically, and sexually abused them for years, corroborated by friends and family members. Their accounts of Ray’s tactics align with the typical structure of a cult, including sexual coercion, threats of violence, humiliation, and sleep deprivation paired with one-on-one “therapy sessions” — during which Ray would convince the teens they were schizophrenic, for example, or survivors of child abuse, without any medical training. Those who spoke to The Cut said Ray methodically severed their tethers to reality and connections to their loved ones. Ray also convinced the group of kids to pay him money — approximately $1 million over the years, according to his federal indictment viewed by Business Insider — for fabricated property damage and trivial mistakes, which he painted as intentional acts of sabotage. Sources who had known Ray earlier in life described him to The Cut as highly paranoid and a “psychotic con man,” despite close ties to law enforcement officials and past work as a federal informant.