Who Is Larry Ray? Everything to Know About the Sarah Lawrence Sex Cult Leader

Lawrence 'Larry' Ray was convicted of 15 crimes in relation to his physical, psychological and sexual abuse of his daughter's classmates and friends

Lawrence "Larry" Ray is commonly known as the leader of the Sarah Lawrence "sex cult;" however, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams described him in much starker terms in an April 2022 statement following his conviction: "Larry Ray is a predator. An evil man who did evil things."

Larry was convicted of 15 criminal counts — with charges including sex trafficking, extortion and racketeering conspiracy — after moving into his daughter's dorm at Sarah Lawrence College and psychologically, physically and sexually abusing several of her classmates and other acquaintances for nearly 10 years and in three different states. Larry reportedly forced some of his victims into prostitution, threatened to dismember another and recorded coerced and false confessions from each, admitting to crimes and offenses they never committed.

In January 2023, Larry was sentenced to 60 years in prison — per the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York — with the judge in the case applauding Larry's victims' courage to face their abuser in court. Additionally, that November, two former students filed a lawsuit against the college for not protecting them against Larry, whom they alleged had "emotionally, physically and sexually" abused them, according to The New York Times.

The story of Larry's reign of terror was first reported by The Cut, sparking a police investigation into the allegations against him. Since his arrest and conviction, the cult has been the subject of Law & Crime's Devil in the Dorm podcast, the 2023 Hulu docuseries Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence and the Lifetime film Devil on Campus: The Larry Ray Story, premiering on June 23, 2024.

Here's everything to know about Larry Ray and his disturbing crimes.

Larry has roots in New York City

Larry, also known as Lawrence Grecco, was born in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y. According to New York Magazine, he worked on Wall Street in the 1980s and as a consultant for various industries, including insurance, construction and gambling. He doesn't have a college degree.

He served in the military very briefly

Larry served in the military, but not for long. The Cut reported that Larry served just 19 days in the United States Air Force, but he remained in contact with prominent military officials, including the late Marine Gen. Charles Pitman and retired Marine Commandant Gen. James L. Jones.

He also claimed to have worked for the CIA, though there is no evidence Larry was ever employed as an intelligence agent for the United States government in any branch.

Ray was instrumental in the downfall of a N.Y.C. police commissioner

The New York Times reported in 2020 that Larry had owned bars and nightclubs in New Jersey in the 1980s, including one called Club Malibu and JJ Rockers in Scotch Plains, N.J. During his tenure with the venues, Larry met numerous politicians from New Jersey and New York and befriended Bernard Kerik, with whom he worked out and rode motorcycles.

In 1998, Kerik was named commissioner of the New York Department of Correction. That November, Ray was the best man in Kerik's wedding, which Larry and a fellow Club Malibu partner helped pay for. The following year, Larry introduced Kerik to Frank DiTommaso of the Interstate Industrial Corporation, where Larry worked as a security director.

DiTommaso hired Kerik's brother for a position at a related company, Interstate Materials, per a 2006 New York Times report, and illegally gave Kerik $165,000 in free renovations to his Bronx apartment. The scandal surrounding the renovations led Kerik, who was named New York City police commissioner in 2000, to withdraw his nomination as the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in 2004.

Larry reportedly cooperated with investigators looking into Kerik's dealings with DiTommaso. In 2006, Kerik pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of accepting illegal gifts and failing to report a loan — according to NYT. He later pleaded guilty to federal tax fraud and making false statements to officials in 2009. (Then-President Donald Trump later pardoned Kerik in 2020.)

In addition to cooperating with investigators into Kerik's case, Larry also aided in criminal investigations into DiTommaso, testifying against the contractor in a 2012 perjury trial. In retaliation, Larry was badly beaten by DiTommaso, resulting in neurological damage.

DiTommaso can be seen on video (via The New York Daily News) punching and beating Larry in the lobby of the now-defunct Hudson Hotel in N.Y.C. in September 2015. DiTommaso was later charged with felony assault; Larry's attorney said his client sustained a skull fracture and permanent neurological and speech problems following the attack. Prosecutors dropped the charge to a misdemeanor, and in 2017, DiTommaso pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and was sentenced to one day of anger management.

Larry was previously convicted of fraud

Prior to Kerik's own apprehension and conviction, Kerik introduced Larry to FBI agent Gary Uher. Larry promised to act as an informant for Uher on a "pump-and-dump" scheme tied to Eddie Garafola, a capo in the Gambino crime family, The Cut reported. Uher met with Larry several times a week, and, believing he may be in danger of a Mafia hit, the FBI installed a $10,000 security system in Larry's home.

However, instead of acting as an informant, Larry reportedly was trying to cover his own involvement in the same scheme. He and 19 others were charged with securities fraud after he offered a $100,000 bribe on Garafola's behalf. In 2003, he was sentenced to five years of probation.

He claimed to have aided a ceasefire in Kosovo

According to The Denver Post, Larry claimed to have been a key player in some foreign policy decisions. In court files obtained by the outlet, Larry had a letter from NATO expressing appreciation for Larry's "efforts to ensure good communication and understanding between ourselves and the Russian leadership" regarding ending the 1999 bombing in Kosovo.

However, Chris Donnelly, the NATO official who wrote the letter, downplayed Larry's potential role, telling The Cut: "I remember him being around. He was connected and may have made some calls for us, as many other people did at the time. I wrote a letter for anyone who was involved."

Ray credits himself for a meeting between Mikhail Gorbachev and Rudy Giuliani

Larry reportedly befriended late Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev's interpreter, Pavel Palazhchenko. He claimed he arranged a meeting between then-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Gorbachev in December 1997, saying Kerik had requested the gathering.

"At first, I told him there was no way," Larry told The Denver Post. "Gorbachev met world leaders, not city mayors. But Bernie kept insisting, and eventually I made it happen."

Larry didn't just link Gorbachev with Giuliani. The Cut reported that he also introduced him to Robert De Niro in Los Angeles.

He had a bitter divorce from his daughter Talia's mother

In 2004, Larry's wife, Teresa Ray, filed for divorce from him and called the police, alleging that he'd hit her, The Cut reported. When police arrived, Larry and Talia accused Teresa of abusing the children, and Larry was granted temporary custody of the girls. The local police department reportedly received numerous anonymous complaints of Teresa's relatives abusing the girls, and Larry allegedly wrote blogs detailing abuse, with some claiming to be written by Talia.

Authorities found no evidence that Teresa, nor anyone in her family, abused the girls, and a forensic examiner determined that Larry coached his daughters on what to say to authorities to accuse their mother of misconduct.

After several years of custody disputes concerning their daughters, Larry was charged with interference with child custody, bail jumping and contempt of court after he refused to turn his daughters over to a maternal aunt for a Thanksgiving visit in 2005. According to The Star-Ledger, he pleaded guilty to the charges in 2010 and spent six months in jail for the offenses. Per The Cut, Talia chose to live in youth shelters instead of with her mother.

Ray blamed all of his legal problems on government conspiracies

In 2006, Larry was arrested after a girlfriend called the police accusing him of imprisoning her in their apartment, pinning her down and putting his hand over her mouth and nose, causing breathing difficulty. The case was dismissed when his girlfriend declined to press charges.

Larry claimed his domestic violence arrest, the entire custody case and the securities fraud cases were all the result of a vast conspiracy tied to Kerik, The Cut reported. At times, Larry alleged that Kerik sought revenge for Larry's cooperation with corruption inquiries against Kerik; other times, he alleged that former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney and Giuliani sought to silence him because he knew too much about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The domestic violence incident was considered a probation violation, leading police to arrest Larry in 2007 with his daughter Talia in the same room. At the time, he reportedly blamed "police corruption" for his legal troubles, per The Cut.

He was diagnosed with personality disorders

According to New York Magazine, Larry was diagnosed with histrionic and narcissistic personality disorders, citing a report from his defense team that claimed Larry "has characteristics that are strongly suggestive of pseudologia fantastica or Munchausen's disorder."

A psychological examiner's notes from Larry's custody battle with his ex-wife claimed Larry was "able to manipulate and control almost any situation in which he finds himself, including a psychological interview with a forensic examiner, no matter how experienced that examiner may be. Mr. Ray is very good at what he does … [Lawrence] can be utterly charming, and one can be disarmed by his childlike simplicity and smile. But Mr. Ray is no child; he is a calculating, manipulative and hostile man."

Ray moved in with his daughter, Talia, at Sarah Lawrence when he left prison

After serving time for the probation violation tied to the securities fraud sentence, Larry moved in with Talia at her dorm at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, N.Y. Talia believed her father had been in prison because he was trying to protect her from her mother and that a corrupt system punished him for it, The Cut reported.

Larry ingratiated himself with Talia's roommates and friends, cooking and ordering elaborate meals and having deep conversations with them. Larry acted as a self-help "guru" and counselor for the group of students, which included siblings Santos, Yalitza and Felicia Rosario. Rosario lived in L.A., while the others eventually moved in with Larry into a one-bedroom apartment in N.Y.C.'s Upper East Side neighborhood.

"I met Larry because he was helping my brother, Santos," Rosario told PEOPLE exclusively in 2023. "He was happier and doing better. And then he was helping my sister, Yalitza, and she was happier. I'd also met Talia when she was dating my brother, and I loved her. So I had a lot of other people vouching for him. He was like a friend of a friend of a friend — cool, trustworthy, reliable. It didn't occur to me he would be the person he ended up being."

Rosario claimed that Larry began to "love bomb" her with gifts and messages and deprived her of sleep. Once the exhaustion began to set in, he regaled and frightened her with stories about how powerful individuals wanted him — and, by extension, her — dead and that he was the only person who could protect her. Not knowing what else to do, she moved in with him in New York.

Once in New York, Rosario discovered that Larry had forced the women roommates to have sex with him — and with strangers — and that he would record the sexual encounters and threaten to post the videos online and send the files to their families. He claimed it would help them overcome past childhood sexual trauma — even though Rosario said she had never been abused as a child.

"He did this with everyone," Rosario said. "He rewrote everyone's childhood, and he said all kinds of horrible things happened to me. He had me saying that my dad had prostituted me and that I was sexually abused by him. All sorts of horrible things that just were not true."

Most of Larry's victims eventually escaped his clutches, but Rosario and another woman, Isabella Pollok, remained in his grasp for 10 years until the New York Magazine article came out — and Pollok was later charged as a co-conspirator in the sex trafficking and extortion case in 2021. Though she had maintained her innocence, Pollok — described as Larry’s "lieutenant" — pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering in 2022 and was sentenced to 54 months in prison in February 2023 (via The New York Times).

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.

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