The former friend of the conman father charged with setting up a cult in his daughter’s college dorm room says he ‘deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life’.
Lawrence Ray, 60, was charged on Tuesday with physical and psychological threats and coercion, extortion, forced labor, sex trafficking and money laundering after moving into his daughter’s apartment at Sarah Lawrence College and dividing her group of friends by sexually manipulating them.
Ray served as the best man at former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik’s wedding, who tells DailyMailTV that his former friend is a ‘predator’.
‘He’s a conman. He is somebody that’s a detriment to society. Hopefully, justice will take its course and he’ll be held accountable for his crimes,’ Kerick says.
Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik tells DailyMailTV that his former friend Lawrence Ray ‘deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life’ and called a ‘detriment to society’
Ray was Kerik’s best man (shown) at his wedding and was friends with him for years until a dispute led him to exposing Kerik for corruption
Kerik met Ray 25 years ago through mutual friends and they men ultimately became close.
Kerik says the last time he saw Ray was about 21 years ago when the conman asked for his help in his criminal trial.
‘Larry evidently got in some problems with the justice department and came to me and wanted my help with his criminal case and I told him I could not get involved.
Ray, 60, pictured in his mugshot that was released on Tuesday, allegedly tortured victims over 10 years and subjected them to ‘unspeakable’ abuse through psychological , sexual and physical manipulation
‘Back in 2000, Larry was angry because I would not help him in his criminal case and he went to the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI and made several complaints about me which ultimately turned into a long term state and federal investigation,’ he explains.
The former commissioner calls the crimes ‘repugnant by nature that it defies description’ and says he’s happy with the indictment.
‘It tells a story about Larry Ray that I was saying to the federal government 20 years ago.
‘And that is that he was a conman, he was a liar, he deceived the FBI, he deceived the Department of Justice.’
Without going into detail, Kerik also claimed Ray ‘deceived every friend he had.’
‘I didn’t know this Larry Ray that’s portrayed in this story but I believe it based on things I found out later in my own friendship with him.’
Ray was indicted in 2000 along with 19 others for his part in an alleged security fraud scheme and was sentenced to five years probation.
Four years later, when Kerik was nominated by George W. Bush to Secretary of Homeland Security, Kerik withdrew after admitting that he had once hired an undocumented worker as his nanny.
Days later, Ray lashed out against him in the press, sharing stories of his impropriety and corruption.
Years later, Kerik was convicted of tax fraud. When the allegations against Ray first emerged last year, Kerik said: ‘Larry Ray is a psychotic con man who has victimized every friend he’s ever had.
‘It’s been close to 20 years since I last heard from him, yet his reign of terror continues,’ Kerik said.
United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman read the indictment at a press conference on Tuesday where he said his conduct ‘shocks the conscience’
Pictured is the home where Lawrence Ray lived in for several years in Piscataway, New Jersey
Authorities say Ray managed to extort $1million from five of the victims’ families for over a period of nearly a decade.
Of that money, $500,000 came from forcing one of the girls intro prostitution.
He also instructed another of the students to drain $200,000 from their parents’ savings account, and told others to open lines of credit for him or borrow from people they knew.
When he was arrested in New Jersey on Tuesday, two of the alleged victims were in the home with him.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, and William F. Sweeney Jr., head of the F.B.I.’s New York office, announced the charges.
Berman said Ray ‘ensnared’ his victims when they were teenagers then ‘preyed’ on them for nearly a decade.
He went on to describe how his conduct ‘shocks the conscience’.
‘There was no limit to the abuse his victims received,’ Sweeney said, later describing his behavior as ‘outrageous’ and saying: ‘Frankly, it makes me angry.’
Last year, Ray denied all of the allegations against him and said the kids who had turned on him had been poisoned.
The issues began in September 2010 when Ray was released from prison after six months.
The group of students were college sophomores when Ray moved in with them into their shared on-campus apartment at Sarah Lawrence College (above) in 2010
‘Ray targeted a group of college students for indoctrination and criminal exploitation,’ the indictment reads.
‘Ray lived with some of the victims, first in on-campus hosing at a college in Westchester County, New York, and thereafter at locations in Manhattan, New York, Pinehurst, North Carolina and elsewhere.
‘Over the course of nearly a decade, between in or about 2010 through the present, Ray subjected the victims to sexual and psychological manipulation and physical.’
Not only is he accused of abusing his daughter’s friends but also manipulating them into thinking they had done him wrong.
He told his victims they had damaged his property or were in debt to him then convinced them to work in forced labor or prostitution to give him all of their earnings.
The forced labor included him forcing three female victims to install an irrigation system on his property in North Carolina, the indictment alleges.
The indictment also claims he also extracted false confessions from seven of them that they had caused him harm.
He extracted them, the indictment claims, ‘through tactics that included sleep deprivation, psychological and sexual humiliation, verbal abuse, threats of physical violence, physical violence, and threats of criminal legal action.’
He starved some of the girls, the indictment claims, by placing a lock on the refrigerator, while forcing them to carry out labor to ‘repay him’ for purported damages they had caused to his home in Manhattan.