The weight is over. That is right. Season 5 of the Kardashians is here. Just when you thought
life couldn't get any faster, they're punching it into overdrive. Chris, Courtney, Kim,
Chloe, Kendall and Kylie are back and they continue to defy expectations in all of their
endeavors. So get ready to go behind the glitz and glamour of the most iconic family on television.
The all-new season of the Kardashians is now streaming on Hulu.
Better being better blue. The Department of Justice makes a very public statement, similar
to an Instagram apology, but it feels kind of more like a threat. Please do not reproduce,
share or use this exhibit in any way. If you have downloaded this file, please delete it off of your
device. Naturally, this statement has the opposite effect. If somebody was curious before this
ominous sounding DOJ statement, they're probably fighting their Wi-Fi servers now to read what's on
this document. The government has accidentally released a sealed file and for whatever reason,
they don't want the general public to read what's on that document. So what is the general public
do? They read what's on that file. They download and save the top secret document that is not
supposed to be shared and on it are a long list of names. This is not a random document. This is
a file that isn't been trying to get their hands on for weeks now. The client list to a high
profile sex worker in Manhattan. Her revenue in just two years was in the millions of dollars.
Her hourly rate was starting at $1,500. Just by doing the math, just by running some numbers,
it is very safe to assume that her client list has some of the more powerful names in all of New
York City. Just by who can afford that? High profile businessmen, elite married couples who have
purchased services together, artist, restaurant tours, architects, married men, married hedge fund owners,
a former Supreme Court judge, well, a New York State Supreme Court judge. It is a list that's
going to ruin a lot of people's lives, which is probably why it was sealed until it wasn't.
Some of the names include high-level executives at Apple, other major retailers such as Gap,
a wealthy hedge fund manager, an international diamond dealer, a former New York State Supreme
Court judge. They had all been alleged clients of a sex trafficking business run by a college cult.
10 years ago, a man named Larry Ray had walked onto an elite private college campus to visit his
daughter, who's a student there. He ends up staying on campus, living in his daughter's dorm,
and brainwashing all of his daughter's friends. He starts a decade-long cult. He would turn some of
the members into his wives and others into sex workers. This is the case of Lawrence Ray and the
college sex cult.
We would like to thank today's sponsors who have made it possible for Rotten Mangle to support
sanctuary for families. They are New York's leading NGO for survivors of domestic violence,
sex trafficking, and related forms of gender violence. This episode's partnerships have also made
it possible to support Rotten Mangle's growing team of dedicated researchers and translators.
We'd also like to thank our listeners for your continued support as we work on our mission to be
worthy advocates of these causes. As always, full show notes are available at RottenManglePodcast.com.
Before we get started, today's case does include themes of domestic violence and essay involving
adults as well as children. Additionally, self-exit and disordered eating or EDs are mentioned throughout.
I know you guys hear this all the time, but please watch at your own discretion and take care and
prioritize your health. And just like the previous episode, there are so many different opinions,
discussions, doubts regarding victimhood versus culpability for two young women involved in today's
case is a bellipolic and Taliere. I just want to explicitly state that we are only here to
retell events as they happened and we did our best to present them in a way that is neutral and
unbiased. This is actually part two. The last episode that we uploaded is part one to this cult,
and we covered Taliere, a sophomore college student at Sarah Lawrence in New York. And there's two
things you need to know about Taliere. She's a go-getter. She knows what she wants in life in her
future and she's really aggressive about pursuing it, which is a good thing, right? It's just very
different from what all the other college kids are used to. And second, Taliereere has an obsession
with her dad, Larry Ray. That is all she will ever talk about. If you are alone in the room with
her, she's going to somehow turn your topic of going fishing in California over the weekend
into a conversation about, oh, fish. That's cool. Water, right? Have you ever heard of the Marines?
My dad, Larry, was a Marine. He also worked for the DIA, the CIA, the FBI. He knew the mayor of
New York City, Rudy Giuliani, the police commissioner, Bernie Kerrick, and Gorbachev, the last Soviet
leader. Oh, look, here's a picture of him in Gorbachev. But oddly enough, the great Larry Ray was
thrown in prison. Taliere said it was because he was a truth teller and he knew too much about 9-11
the tragedy. And former George W. Bush personally had it out for her father. They needed to discredit
Larry by taking custody of his two daughters from him and turning him into a felon. When Larry
gets out of prison, Taliere asks her seven roommates on campus if they're all right with her dad
staying with them for a few days. I mean, how can they say no? But a few days turns into Larry
sleeping in Taliere's best friend's room. Isabella's room, cooking up steaks every night,
holding his own little group therapy sessions on the living room floor, and Larry convinces
most of Taliere's friends that they were brought here together by fate. Not coincidence, fate.
Because every single one of them had hidden, repressed traumatic childhood memories of essay,
where they were essayed by their own family members. None of them knew it yet, though,
because they blocked it out of their brains for how painful the experience was. But that's why
they've all contemplated self-exiting. But that's okay, because Larry studied brains in psychology
during his time at the Department of Defense, and he was going to fix them all because they're Taliere's
friends. Now, side note, I will say that he has a very interesting relationship with his daughter.
I mean, I think it's very strange later the cult move into a one-bedroom apartment and Larry
sleeps in the bedroom on a singular king-size bed with his daughter, and her best friend Isabella
that he refers to as his wife. In part one, we covered how Larry would brainwash the students,
and they would start blindly following his commands. Eventually, he got them all to move into the one
bedroom apartment off campus, and he starts running it like a marine-style boot camp. He starts
conditioning the girls to do very bizarre sexual things. He would force them to go to bars. He
would force them to go to Home Depot, or find strangers on the street to have intimate relations
with while they record it all for Larry to watch. He would force them to have intimate relations with
each other while he watched, or sometimes he would join in, or he would just offer up the girls
to his business partners just because. So I'm going to give you a quick rundown of who's still in
the cult and where we are now. We have Larry, then we have Taliere, his daughter. She's on and off
physically in the cult. Sometimes she's with the group, other times she stays with her step-grandpa
in North Carolina, which sometimes the whole cult would stay in North Carolina with the step-grandpa,
Gordon, that's his name. Just wait, North Carolina is going to be a huge saga. So now we have Larry,
Taliere here and there. Isabella is Larry's right-wing woman. He refers to her as one of his wives.
She's Taliere's best friend and out of everybody else, Isabella probably holds the most power in
the group. Some of the group members would say that she was almost like an equal to Larry,
but I don't know if that's the best way to put it. Then there's Larry's other wife, Felicia Rosario.
She was training to be a psychiatrist before she met Larry, but she's... She's going to go through
a lot in this episode. Her entire psyche, her mind basically breaks in half and it's documented
through a series of videos. You've got Felicia's younger siblings, Yelicia, a Columbia student,
Santos, Taliere's ex-boyfriend from Sarah Lawrence, and Claudia, another friend of Taliere's,
and she's going to be a key person in all of this. Daniel has left the cult. Larry forced him to
wear dress and take pictures doing very degrading acts with intimate toys and he's left,
and now most of the kids are graduated or dropped out, and they're still living with Larry,
because this cult lasts 10 years. And almost always Isabella and Felicia are going to be with Larry
at all times. Claudia is kind of always close by. Now, with that being said, that's the recap.
Let's get started. It was kind of a joke that they set up parties. Well, it was partly a joke,
partly a way to cope because it's such a bizarre situation. Oh yeah, our friends, they joined the cult.
What? I went to the apartment once where they ran the cult, and I mean, I'd never seen anything
like that before. I didn't realize at the time before I got there, but all my friends were living
in that apartment with him, the cult leader. I mean, they're piled into this tiny little cluttered
apartment with this guy, this 50-year-old bald man named Larry. It was weird. Everyone at the
dinner table is fascinated, intrigued, but also not really taking it that seriously, because I mean,
the whole thing sounds like a fever dream. What do you mean your former roommates from a private
school college that cost $80,000 a year joined a cult run by their friends dad? Who is saving this, though?
Gabe, Max, Juliana, and Raven, the ex roommates that did not join the cult.
The four people who went away, yes. But they're going to help save them. They're going to be a
pivotal part of taking down Larry Ray soon. There was this woman? Well, I mean, part of her looked
like a girl. She looked like she was in her 20s, but her mannerisms were almost out of a child.
She looks like she's been lost in the woods for the past three weeks. She's clearly not in good
condition. Her curly hair is so tangled and unkept that it's basically one giant knot on top of her
head. Her lips are cracked likely from severe dehydration. The hunger at this point is probably
gone. Her stomach probably feels numb like a dull ache. She's been surviving off of a few
figs a day from the fig tree that she found. Her eyes are on focus. She's just walking around
cutting up the bottom of her feet from the tree branches. Sometimes she would walk in circles.
Other times she would stand there staring up at the sun, squinting her eyes, humming, singing,
hey, hey, hey, what you got to say? Hey, hey, hey, I love you Larry. I want to get married.
Passerbyes would just shake their heads and start picking up their pace to walk faster. There goes
the neighbor again. The woman was not lost in the woods. She's just roaming around the property
of a suburban home in a suburban neighborhood waiting for her husband, Larry, to let her back into
the house. She's sleeping on the sticky porch trying to cover her ears so the North Carolina bugs
don't crawl in, slapping mosquitoes off her legs. All the while, her love, Larry Ray, is inside
the house watching from the comfortable air-conditioned bedroom next to his other, quote, wife.
Watching her suffer. It had been five days since Felicia had been thrown out.
Larry's standing there inside the little house in North Carolina, and Felicia is standing
there screaming for help. She's in distress. Her body language is that of someone who's about to
have a panic attack. But her husband, Larry, is just standing there watching her while another woman
is recording all of this. She inside her outside the house. Inside now. Felicia tries to reach out to
him to ask for help, but he takes her and slams her down onto the ground, puts his whole body weight
on her like some professional wrestler. He's holding her flat down on the cold hardwood floor to hold
her in place. He's gripping the back of her neck while she's crying on the floor. Please don't leave
me, Larry. Please don't leave me. The camera cuts. But if she kept it up, though, it's likely Larry
would have enacted one of his favorite methods to torture his so-called wife. You're acting like a
literal child. Fine. You want to be like this? Larry then turns to his other wife, Isabella.
Go to the drugstore. You know what to buy. 15 minutes later, she'd come back in with this little
plastic bag. Larry rips it open. Isabella, go change Felicia into these diapers since she wants to
act like a child. Ten years ago, this woman Felicia Rosario would have gone on to become a Harvard
and Columbia graduated psychiatrist. She was on track. But now, she's forced to sit on the sofa
in nothing but a diaper, sucking on a pacifier. And Larry would tell her, if you let it fall out of
your mouth, very bad things are going to happen. He would force her to sit there watching kids shows.
If she tried to get up, he would zip tie her ankles and wrist, and she would be stuck there
until her mind went completely numb. Before Isabella and Felicia, there was Martha.
19-year-old Martha's wedding day was coming up, and her mother-in-law Ingrid has her running
an errand that she just does not have time for. Go bring these to Carl's dad, your future father-in-law.
Martha looks down at the little home-baked cupcakes. Carl's parents are divorced and not on good
terms. So why would Ingrid care to bake fresh cupcakes for her ex-husband on the day of their
son's wedding? Hurry before it's too late. He's going to eat a few before the wedding.
I'm sorry Ingrid, I don't think I understand. What are you not getting, Martha? The cupcakes are
going to give him diarrhea. I put X-lax in them, so he's going to get sick and miss the wedding.
I thought you'd be glad when this person would worry about.
That would be the first taste of what Martha's life was going to be like married to Carl.
After the wedding, Martha becomes Ingrid's personal assistant, Housekeeper, daughter-in-law,
punching bag. Every single morning, she would wake up and her long list of to-dos would just
keep getting longer. Clean the panels of the walls. Clean crevices of furniture legs with Q-tips.
Skip lunch, only drink coffee and smoke cigarettes. The last item was the hardest. Martha did not
like the way that the coffee and the cigarettes made her so anxious on an empty stomach. She's
developing insomnia. She can barely keep her eyes shut at night. While Carl next to her, snoring away.
The man has never seen or felt what it's like cleaning between the couch cushions with a Q-tip before.
Martha tries to politely bring it up to Ingrid. Please Ingrid, my heart is racing. I feel like I'm dying.
I think I need to go to the hospital. With what? Money, huh? Ingrid would snatch the cigarette from
her hand and shove a Q-tip in it. Get back to cleaning. Martha's stomach would be grumbling the
entire time she's bent over trying to clean every little crevice of the sofa with a Q-tip.
I mean, she doesn't know what's worse. Being starved by her mother-in-law or being forced to
eat something her mother-in-law cooked. Probably the latter. There was one time Martha was doing
dishes and she overheard this conversation between Ingrid, her mother-in-law, and her mother-in-law's
friend, Nim Nora. Ingrid was complaining about how she needs to do repairs around the house,
but the contractors out these days, they want to get paid for stepping foot into the house.
They're so expensive. Nora interrupts Ingrid. Oh, well, my husband Jesse is really good
around the house and he can help you out. He's a carpenter. A few days later, Jesse the carpenter
shows up and he starts messing with the pipes. When Ingrid walks over, her eyes are trained on Jesse,
like she's going hunting. Martha's kind of nervous for this guy. He always thinks he's looking good,
doesn't he? But I don't think he thinks, I mean, again, it's right, maybe he's just confident.
You know the hair on his head? Transplants. If you ask me, I think he's cheating on Nora
on my dear friend. But it's fine. He's going to get real big soon. I put something in his food.
Blow him up real good, increase his appetite. No one's going to want to sleep with him after that.
Will she want to poison her friend's husband? Yeah, so that he can't cheat on her friend.
Okay. She wings that Martha and just walks off. That night, Martha would try to whisper to
Carl that his mom is maddened poison, okay? But he's not having it. He would shout at her.
Absolutely not. If my mother is putting anything into her food, it's love. She's a great cook.
And you're just jealous. This is not what Martha planned for married life. A poisonous mother
and law. A mommy's boy husband. But now she feels like she dug her grave and she needs to lay in it.
The one thing that she remembered to do though was later when she had kids, anytime they went over
to grandma, she would sit them down. Grandma is nice. You can love grandma, but you can never
eat anything from grandma's house. Are we clear? Even her kids are looking at her like, are you okay?
What is wrong with you? Nobody believed Martha. Nobody took her side. Except her brother-in-law.
Lawrence Ray. Larry Ray. Larry is a good guy. Do you know why they say never to ask
the mafia for a favor? Because now you owe them and they're going to call you to return the
favor whenever they want. That's how Carl describes his brother, Larry. Doesn't matter if you're his
brother or a family member. If he feels like he did something for you, he's going to want twice
back in return. You owe him plus interest. Which is why Carl never asks for a favor. And precisely
the reason that Carl finds it even more insulting when he walks into his bedroom, Carl's bedroom,
and he stumbles on a pair of bright neon speedo-esque underwear. It is so neon that it's practically
glowing in the dark and there is only one person in the whole world that Carl knows that where's
underwear like this. Larry Ray. Larry Ray. He picks it up with the tippy top of his two fingers
and he sees on it on Larry's underwear. Coral lipstick. Martha loves coral lipstick.
Which means either Larry is having an affair with Carl's wife or Larry knows that Carl
is having an affair with Larry's wife and he's just returning the favor like the mob does.
Yeah, they're both having an affair with each other's partners. Okay. Larry's family history.
Wait, I didn't know Larry has wife. Larry had a wife. Oh, how do I know? Oh,
right, right, right, right. Otherwise, got it. So Larry's family history is very complicated.
He married Teresa when he's at the pinnacle of his success. I mean, the height of his career.
His best friend is the New York City Police Commissioner. He's got the mayor of New York City
on speed dial. And when Gorbachev, the Soviet leader comes to town, Larry's helping him arrange
security detail and giving him tours around town. His whole life is put together. Larry is what
you call a man of time management. He's juggling world class leaders, high profile businessmen.
His wife, their two daughters, the eldest Talia, and then their youngest daughter who was born
11 years later. She's not really part of the story. So we're just gonna, right? He's juggling
work as whole family of four as well as a long term, serious girlfriend and all of Larry's
business partners know that Larry has another woman on the side. And it's not even Martha.
It's a different girlfriend. I mean, a lot of the business partners had a girlfriend on the side,
but nobody was as obvious about it as Larry was. They'd be having a normal business dinner
when the door would open in walks this young, beautiful girl. And she would plop down next to Larry
and Larry, this fully married man, father of two children would introduce her to everyone.
Well, this is my girlfriend. I bet anybody wants to fuck her, just let me know.
Just let me know. She does whatever I tell her to do. It's said that many of the guys would
actually take Larry up on his offer. And the long term girlfriend decides, I can't really do this
anymore. I'm not some sort of object that you can just give to someone whenever you feel like it.
On top of that, you're married and I just can't stop thinking about, I don't know, it's just messed
up to Teresa. She tries to leave amicably. I mean, Larry's gonna understand, right? It's not like
she's leaving him alone. He's got a whole family to go back to, but he's just staring at her.
Yeah, okay. That's what you want. She walks out and in response, Larry then proceeds to send
every single explicit photo and video of her doing intimate things with not just Larry, but all
of his business partners sends every single piece of graphic footage straight to her parents.
Just video after picture after video after picture of some of the most graphic sexual encounters.
The Gambino crime family was at its height. One of the most powerful American mafia families.
Annually, they're bringing in at least half a billion dollars in income. They pretty much had
their fingers and every little pot in New York City. They were forcing businesses to pay them a
cut of their profits for security services, racketeering. Okay, it paid me to not kill you and I will
protect you from me. They dabbled heavily in extorting labor unions, illegal gambling,
construction bribes, loan sharking. They interestingly enough would hijack massive cargo shipments to
the port of New York and steal all of the goods on it to sell on the black market. They were really
diversified, but one of the easier ways for them to make money was through pump-and-dumps.
A pump-and-dump scheme. Here's how it works. First, you find a small struggling company with a
low stock price. The Gambino family, they got the funds. So they start buying up the shares at
the low price of let's say a dollar. At first, they'll start off slow so that nobody notices,
but then they'll buy them all up. And once they have controlling interests of this company,
they start spreading rumors. You know, my uncle made 15K in three days off that stock.
Look, you didn't hear it from me, but that company, they're going to be doing the next big thing.
They're going to be doing the next big thing. They're in talks to sign a contract with the
Department of Defense, a military contract. You know what that means, right? Money, profits.
People start talking about the stock, and then there's this crushing feeling of,
well, if I don't buy the stock, I'm going to miss out on getting rich, like everybody else.
Random people start buying up shares because it makes sense. They heard information about the
company's future. The share prices are steadily going up. This is good. Sometimes if the Gambino
family want to take it all the way, they'll even pay off financial stock bloggers, reporters,
anyone who can help bump up the share price. Let's say the family goes in at a dollar per share.
Now with the hype, the news, the attention, everyone else is scrambling to buy into the next big
tech unicorn. Each share is now worth $15. That's when the Gambino family will mass sell all of their
shares, dumping everything, walking away with tens of millions of dollars in profits. Because at the
end of the day, it's all manufactured hype about the company. None of it is true. Larry's best friend,
Bernie Kerrick, the New York City Police Commissioner, he wanted to put an end to the Gambino crime
family's reign of terror. And conveniently, his best friend, Larry Ray, knows a few people on the
inside. He knows everyone. Yeah, allegedly a few higher ups of the Gambino family were in attendance
for Larry and Teresa's wedding, which means, you know, Larry, I thought you didn't meet my good friend,
Gary, you are. He's investigating Erie Garafola's pump and dump schemes from the Gambino family.
Oh, yeah, I heard about that. You have FBI agent Gary officially brings Larry in as a confidential
informant for the FBI to get inside information on the Gambino crime family. The Tuesdays start
meaning three, four times a week where with their little coffees in their hand, Larry would go on
and rant about what's been going on inside the crime. I'm telling you, Gary, I'm risking a lot to
be out here right now to help the good guys. I get nothing out of this. You know that, don't you?
Wait, so this is actually FBI or actually FBI? He was an FBI agent. He actually turned into
well, he was an president then Donald Trump's bodyguard at one point, Gary. Why did he decide
to work with them? Larry, if he knows he has his friends with these, you know, you'll see.
Oh, okay. Yeah. The FBI agents like, yeah, we appreciate it. We know it Larry.
I'm scared because now the Gambino family, they're going to put a head on on me. I think they know.
Gary would request security backup in Larry's house. They equipped Larry's place with a whole
new surveillance system that costs $10,000 courtesy of taxpayer money three to four times a week,
52 weeks of the year for multiple years in a row. Larry would meet up with Gary in his little
unmarked car and start rambling on and on about the happenings of the mob world that week.
Until Gary starts getting a little, I don't know, his senses were going off. It felt weird. Larry
never told them any information that could put anyone behind bars or could prevent something from
happening. Most of his information about the Gambino crime family, it was after they took a profit,
which is also now that Gary's thinking about it. They should run a check on Larry's finances.
Where is he working? I mean, the man never works. He's out here hanging out with the FBI and
the mafia. How is that lucrative? Gary slowly after years realizes that Larry is not an
informant for the FBI. He's an informant for the mob. The FBI is his mark. He's pretending to work
with the FBI to bring back information on what the FBI knows to the Gambino crime family. He's
playing both sides. He's making money off the pump and dump. Is it crazy? He's crazy. In 2000,
Larry is charged with 19 other people with securities fraud. The pump and dump that stole $40 million
from investors. But it's fine. Because Larry's best friend is the police commissioner of New
York City. It's going to be okay. He asks Karek to Bernie to put in a good word for him at the U.S.
Attorney's office and Karek his best friend, the best man at the wedding, who's always signed off
on every single email. Love you. Response, I would do anything for you. In the event that I am
called to testify, I must tell you my recollection of the events is not consistent with what you
remember. This would have a severely negative impact on your credibility. I'm sure you understand.
This time he did not sign off. Love you at the end of his email. And Larry's life was now in
free fall. In 2000, he gets arrested for the pump and dump scheme. In 2004, his wife Teresa
Filesford divorce and custody stating that Larry was abusive. 2005 Larry Filesford bankruptcy.
2005, he loses custody of his daughters. 2007, he's arrested for kidnapping his daughter, Talia.
And the one person that he blames for all of this is not himself. He blames Bernie Karek. That's
so-called scum of a best friend, police commissioner of New York City. And Larry is someone who knows
how to hold a grudge. I don't really like doing chores around the house. I'm going to be honest
with you and I especially used to hate doing laundry. It was just one of my more tedious tasks.
It takes so much time and I often feel tempted to not even bother sorting out my clothes. But I've
been trying to motivate myself to get a lot more organized and I finally found a way to make doing
my chores so much more interesting, so much more engaging. And that's by listening to audiobooks
on Audible. You guys know me. There is nothing like playing a good psychological thriller. So obviously
that's what I've been listening to. I'm currently listening to The Housemaid by Freedom McFadden.
The main character, Millie, is out on parole and she's desperate for her job. She doesn't have any
money. She's living out of her car and she gets this opportunity to be this rich family's housemaid.
Millie agrees. Even though there's just something really strange about the Winchester's.
Especially the wife, Nina. She just seems to love finding ways to make Millie's life very difficult.
The family is hiding something and Millie is hiding something and there's just so much tension
between Millie and the husband. It's one of those stories that you can't stop listening to and
I can't wait to finish it and start the next audiobook in this series. But if the
rillier is not your thing, don't worry. Audible lets you pick from thousands of titles to find the
perfect soundtrack to your day. You can find audiobooks from any genre, fiction, nonfiction, wellness,
self-help. But they also have podcasts like this one. Guided wellness programs, comedy, and
originals. Living life without using Audible is like eating food with no seasoning. Sure,
you still get your nutrients in, but it's missing that extra flavor, you know? So if you want to
spice up your day, I highly recommend Audible. Audible members can keep one title a month to keep
from the entire catalog. New members can try Audible now free for 30 days. Visit audible.com-roughton
or text roughton to 500-500. That's audible.com-roughton or text-roughton to 500-500 to try Audible free for 30 days.
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After being released from prison for kidnapping Talia, breaking custody laws,
Larry was re-arrested for beating his girlfriend. He traps her in her own apartment, holds her
hostage, pins her down and starts strangling her. Larry's technically out on probation for the
pump and dump and for the custody thing, so this is a clear violation of that, and the US Marshall's
office, they put a warrant out for his arrest. They come to collect him, and he is ducking his head,
side to side. He's playing this weird game of dodgeball, and both of his hands are gripping his
daughter Talia and whipping her in front of the Marshall's office's faces. This man is using
his daughter as a human shield. What do you mean? He's like, don't arrest me, and just using Talia as
a human shield. Oh, actually. Actually, as a human shield. Some of the Marshalls have children of
their own, and let's just say they were not delicate when it came to grabbing Larry out from
behind his daughter. They broke his wrist in the process. Talia standing there ready to take a
bolted for her dad, but she doesn't even know why he's being arrested. She still thinks it's all
because of Bernie Kerrick, and because her dad knows too much about 9-11. When Larry gets out of prison,
he joins his daughter at Sarah Lawrence, starts secretly living in the dorms and brainwashing her
friends. By this point in the story, everyone has graduated or dropped out, and Larry has a few
members that he's super focused on. Isabella, Felicia, and Claudia. Even his daughter Talia is
out of the picture, most of the time. They bounce from New York City to Larry's stepdad's house in
North Carolina, and there is a very strange house in North Carolina. All the neighbors avoid it.
There were rumors that the police had to bring out canine dogs to snip around once,
specifically cadaver dogs. That's the one that searches for just one thing. Death.
They thought the house was just weird. I mean, there has craters all over it. It looks like
Mars, the surface of Mars. Just massive holes all over the property lawn. Some of them are so deep.
If you were to fill them with water, they would be deeper than a residential swimming pool.
Others were so big that you could do laps in them. Just holes, dotting all over the property.
If you had a satellite image, it would make you itchy. This is where Larry starts forcing
everyone in his cult to start doing heavy construction work. For no reason, other than he wants to.
This is very interesting. He would spend money renting out massive bulldozers, commercial
grade equipment, tractors. Then he would force the members, typically Isabella, Claudia,
Felicia, Yelizia, and Santos. Talia would be there, but she's just mainly observing.
He would force the members who know absolutely nothing about construction work to dig
literal moats on the suburban property. For the reason that I don't know, it's not helping
the property value. They're not doing it correctly. It's just leaving crater-sized holes everywhere.
The group's time in North Carolina can only be described as a very creative, twisted kind of
hell on earth. If someone were to be high on drugs and figure out a way to torture people,
that is cruel and unusual, this would be that. There's full industrial grade construction
equipment, full-scale bulldozers, tractors. They had to dig trenches, tear up the lawn, lay down
sod with professional equipment that they have no knowledge and expertise on how to use safely.
Their mission was to install a new drainage system in the yard, but in order to do that,
they have to accomplish a few things first. One, cut down a massive 25-foot tall tree in the yard
in the dark. For some reason, Larry would have them work through the night so less neighbors
would see what they're up to. They're in the pitch black outside screaming,
move! Run! Because the giant tree is coming down. All they have is a singular flashlight.
The trunk is probably so thick that you can't even wrap your arms around it when you hug it,
but they're trying to cut it down in the pitch darkness in the middle of the night.
If someone estimated incorrectly or if someone lost their balance, that tree was going to
crush someone to death. In the back, there were just these mounds of mud and dirt because they
had to dig this trench that goes all the way through the property to let the rainfall funnel off
the property. Because the summers in North Carolina, it rains, it pours, there's thunderstorms,
but it doesn't matter to Larry. They better be out there working. If they don't have the equipment,
Larry would make them get on all fours in the thick mud and just dig. Even while it's pouring rain,
even if they're doubling their body weight just by the heavy sticky mud that's clean to them.
12 to 14 hour days, 70s a week, when they're done for the day, they'd be drenched in sweat,
mud cuts all over their faces and legs, mosquito bites everywhere. They would walk into the house,
they're not allowed to sleep, eat, unless Larry okays it. Claudia lost 40 pounds in the first few weeks
there. Every single day, Larry would go out there, see the state of the yard and he would scream
at them. He would lose his freaking marbles that they're ruining the property on purpose because
they want to kill Larry's stepdad. They want to give him a heart attack and you want him to die.
What's the instruction? Just dig holes? That's it? Yes. The end. He wants to tap into the city's
well somehow. I don't know if there was even a well there to be tapped into. What? They're just
digging holes. It was just the New York City apartment torture, but on steroids, he would have
them doing manual labor nonstop. In part one, we went over how Larry would send the girls off to
bars or any other public space to force them to find people to be intimate with. He starts getting
more unhinged in North Carolina. He would bring in Felicia into the car, drive on the highway,
and stop at the most isolated, creepy rest stop there is. Get out. What? Get out.
And don't come back until you find someone that's willing to have intimate relations with you
and you better record it. If Felicia didn't listen, she'd be punched in the face, slapped, pulled by
her hair, punched in the stomach, and choked. A lot of people have a hard time understanding why
these academically gifted intelligence students would even give Larry the time of day. And of course,
a lot of it started with Larry being able to very quickly identify someone's wants.
Whatever it was, you would offer it up on a silver platter for these people. And that's how he
pulls them in. But he gets them to stay first through the black male videos, videos of them having
intimate relations with strangers with each other with Larry, videos of them confessing to all sorts
of bizarre crimes, property damage to poisoning Larry. That becomes a big thing this episode. But
as for how Larry brainwashes them, all of it comes down to Adderall. Adderall, the ADHD medication,
controlled substance, stimulant. Larry would force the members to stay awake for days at a time,
force feeding them crushed up Adderall pills. And by hour 48, they're believing whatever Larry's
telling them. So like sleep deprivation through Adderall. Their brain has no defense mechanism
because of how exhausted they are. They have no time to rest. They have no time to regulate their
hormones. Nothing. And not hormones as in like women are so hormonal. Literally, that's when
your hormones regulate is in your sleep. Larry himself took over 100 milligrams of Adderall a day.
To give you some context, the normal range for an adult man is around 20 milligrams per day.
He would take about 100, 100 to 120 every single day. One retina who takes a lot of Adderall,
about 120 milligrams repeatedly said, shit was bad. I gave myself psychosis from that. I was
tweaking so hard if that's the right terminology. I felt like I was on crack. Not that I know what
crack feels like, but if you haven't done crack, you know what I mean. And he's doing that every day?
Every day. And when he's not losing his mind. I mean, I guess some would argue he's lost his mind,
but not to the point where he's not aware of what he's doing to these people.
Right, right, but he's still like surviving and doing all these things to others.
Yes. And with any drug, especially stimulants like Adderall, what goes up comes down. One
retina said, when you crash from Adderall like that, it was rough. I was depressed on the way down.
I had to call people to comfort me because my dark thoughts were getting to me. I had to distract
myself in any way that I could. There's a video of Felicia where she tells Larry upfront,
I want to go to bed. But he keeps telling her to sit. He will not let her lay down and sleep.
I just want to go to bed. He walks over to her, grabs her and slams her down on the ground. And
Felicia is screaming, stop it. Get off of me. I need to restrain you. Please just get off of
me. I want to go to bed. You're going to hurt yourself for someone else. No, she's not.
Yeah, that's what Larry says after he slams her onto the ground. Yeah. Sometimes the members would
just beg Larry to just let them lay down for an hour. I mean, they can't stay awake. They're
losing their minds. And Larry would argue, no, I need you to stay awake for a long period of time
because when you're really exhausted, that's when you have the raw nerves. It's going to help me
help you advance your emotions. Your brain is more open to creating new,
neural pathways when you're tired. The Adderall contributed to the members starting to lose their
minds. When you are a judge in New York City, it's safe to assume that you've seen a lot that
there is to see. People suing each other for the most frivolous and saying things, witnesses
confessing to felonies on the stand for no reason at all. Claudia is sitting in front of a New
York City judge glancing around the courtroom and she clears her throat. She begins her story.
When I was nine years old, I knew that my entire destiny had already been written for me.
The first time I heard his name mentioned, I was nine, maybe even on the younger side.
Claudia looks at the judge and tells them that her family has hated Larry Ray for the past three
generations. It trails all the way back to her grandfather. Even as a child, she heard her
grandfather talking about Larry. Larry, this Larry's making trouble. Larry's gone off to do that.
Once Claudia was old enough, her parents told her in a very serious conversation, maybe too serious
for someone her age, that she would grow up and go to Sarah Lawrence College in New York because
she needed to kill Larry Ray and Talia Ray. Her family needed her to do this. It was the only way
Bernie Kerrick, the New York City former police commissioner, was going to send them money.
Each week it was a different mission. Once it was trying to poison Larry with cyanide,
then it was arsenic, then mercury, silver, lead. They were just trying to do everything.
Claudia's mom would encourage her. Bernie Kerrick is really happy with your performance.
Claudia, keep it up. At the time, Claudia was just doing what her parents told her to do,
but she told the judge that's before she got to know Larry. Then she realized what a kind
soul Larry is. And for her to do this to him, we're so heinous. And she just wants him to finally
find peace and happiness and she wants to come clean.
The judges speechless. We call to the stand witness, Yolizia Rosario.
Yolizia takes Claudia's place on the stand. I'm here because my parents are drug dealers and
money launders who pimped Felicia, my older sister, out when she was a child. My parents have
been plotting for us to kill Larry since we were young. I would mix poison into Larry's coffee,
and if that didn't work, I went to heroin, fungicide. LSD, at one point I'd smeared fecal matter
onto his bandages because I was hoping he would get an infection and get sepsis from it.
My parents promised to pay me a million dollars if I could kill Larry Ray.
She would turn to the judge, but just like Claudia, I started to get to know the man.
And he is just the most loving father figure guardian of the youth man that I have ever met.
I mean, just the nicest, most compassionate person ever.
Which is why the girls state to the judge that after years of trying to murder Larry Ray,
they don't want to do this anymore. They don't want to kill him. They want to take care of him.
Larry's staring at them in the courtroom with just tears, pooling in his eyes, and the judges' eyeballs
are nearly popping out of their eye sockets. Ma'am, you're testifying against your
eviction notice. This is all happening during eviction court. They're in court, civil court,
for an eviction notice. And they're testifying that for three generations, their families have been
trying to murder Larry Ray. What you're talking about, the one bedroom that they're getting kicked out.
Yes. And what when was this? Like year, like, this is not year 10. 2017.
It was close to year 10. It was near the end. They were in that one bedroom for like five years,
six years. So they're getting kicked out? Yes.
Getting sued. Yes. Like the landlord was like, get these people out of here. So they went to court.
And the these girls are just talking about, no, we try to kill him. And now I love him.
The judges expecting them to provide evidence of payment of rent or some sort of ownership
over the property to prove that they have the right to stay in this apartment in New York City.
The girls go up there because they are listed as witnesses. And instead of proving, hey,
this is what we did to the places is how we fixed it up. This is the money that we paid.
They are confessing to trying to poison and murder Larry Ray.
And what will happen next? The judge does nothing. They get evicted.
The judge is like, no, this is not my job. This is above my pay grade. You guys are getting evicted.
Most people who get out of prison, they cherish every single second that they get once they're free.
I mean, it makes them reevaluate how they spend their time. Lee Chen, the Asian man with the
ponytail from episode one, is standing in his one bedroom apartment in Manhattan,
staring at the group of college kids, eating pizza around the dining table, confused about what
the hell is going on? He brings Larry to the side. Lee Chen met Larry in prison, which
we're not off to a great start, right? But they became buddy buddy. And naturally, when they got out,
Larry told him he was going to be staying in his daughter's dorm room and now that it's summer break,
they got to move off campus. So, yeah. Lee Chen is a prison buddy. And he got out earlier. Yes.
And when Larry got out of the prison, he caught up buddy Lee Chen. Yes. And buddy Lee Chen drove him
to his daughter's dorm room for a while. And then summer break. Summer break. And he's like,
let me move into your one bedroom apartment for a week or two. In Lee Chen's in there too. Yes.
Okay. But it's been a week. And there is no indication that Larry has been looking for a temporary
space to live. Instead, all these college kids are here sleeping in the living room every day,
doing push-ups every single morning. And it's fucking weird. Hey, don't you feel like you're wasting
your precious time right now? You should be out there living. We got out of prison. Lee saying that.
Yeah. To Larry. And with a very serious expression, Larry looks at him. Lee, you and I can only do so
much right now and building an army. Your honor. He was building an army of squatters.
Lee Chen has been trying for the past five years to kick Larry out of his apartment, but he is
refused to leave. So for five years, Lee Chen would have to pay his mortgage. And Larry would rack
up over $7,000 a year in electricity bills. And he would not vacate. He changed the locks,
refused to let Lee Chen back in. Lee Chen thought it'd be two weeks. It's been five years.
Five years. And they tore up the place. Lee said, when I walked into my apartment, Larry had
completely changed the appearance. He took down walls, painted the foyer pink, and left electrical
wires just hanging in the breeze. It was the most incredible thing I'd seen. Larry never paid me
any rent. It's difficult for me to convey to you his coercive abilities, unless you've experienced
it yourself. He has this unusual mannerism. He has this habit of not only changing the subject,
but talking you to death. For example, I told him, look, you've got to get out of my bedroom.
You've got to get these kids out of my home. But then he would change the subject and start talking
to me about how my father and how my father treated me when I was young. And then it would go on
for hours and hours. And every time I even frowned in his presence, he would start berating me
that I was infecting people with my negative mood and that I was sabotaging his work.
That's what they were in court for when Claudia Isabella and Felicia start talking about the great
poisoning, a conspiracy to poison and kill Larry Ray that went beyond the college students.
It went as deep as their own parents, as deep as their own grandparents, their families had set
them up for this. And who set up their parents? Bernie Kerak, the former New York City police
commissioner, Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and associate of Donald Trump,
the former president during the time of 9-11, George W. Bush and his VP Dick Cheney. These are the
people that want Larry dead and they're using college kids to do it. I mean, how do you pay back
attempted murder? What? How do you pay someone back for trying to murder them? I mean, if you
break someone's oven or you scratch someone's pan, you find out the price on William Sonoma,
all-clad, set, stainless steel, tri-ply, $1,800, right? But what about attempted murder? There's no
price for life. Larry said money. That's the starting point, a whole lot of fucking money. Larry
convinces Claudia to start sex work because that's the only way she can afford to pay him back quickly
for emotional distress and fake medical bills. Wait, was Claudia the person that we talked about
from the first episode, the website? Yes. It was Claudia. And Claudia is one of the original
roommates. Yes. Okay. Wow. She's actually the one that called Larry a weird bald man with her
friend Raven. And then she believed she had schizophrenia. Larry made her believe she had
schizophrenia. Claudia had been accepted into Columbia for a PhD program, but Larry forces her to
drop that and start making advertisement on sex work websites. Fix the language here. Use
better keywords and phrases. What are you doing? You have to mention the handcuffs and the crops
and the leach and collar. Do you even think? And what the hell is this picture? It's just a white
tank top. It looks trashy. It's horrible. Change it. This is why you're throwing yourself in with
the cheap girls. Your prices need to be higher and you need to look into breast augmentations. They're
not good. Larry would tell Claudia a specific act that she would need to do in order to keep men
coming back for more. And then she could raise the prices on them. He made her fixated on losing weight
and her exercise. The more weight she lost, the more unhappy about the way that she booked.
Larry was calling her oompa loompa that she could get so much more for her services if she just
lost weight. Geez how hard is that? Claudia's first client ever as a sex worker is about to arrive.
She obviously is nervous, but this is what she needs to do for Larry. She swings open the hotel door
and her whole body tenses. I'm sorry. Do I know you? She knows this guy. This guy would come into
this sex club that Claudia was forced to work at to make money for Larry, a BDSM club where the
workers would engage with customers and have consensual parties. This man was a regular. He had been
known as one of the creeps. He would never participate. He would just watch on this side, which is fine,
but this is all energy. Every time he came in, all the girls would alert security because
even just his presence was off putting. Claudia standing at the door of the hotel room. She knows
this man and she knows that this man knows her from the club, but he pushes into the tight hotel
room. Nope, never seen you before. Eventually the two have intimate relations and he's holding
her, pressing her down so forcefully that she cannot move and he keeps asking her, demanding her.
Tell me. Tell me you love me. Claudia can't move and she doesn't want to say it because I mean it's
weird. If she says it, is you going to freak out and stalk her? I don't know. She decides to just
be honest. I'm sorry. I don't. I can't say that because I don't even know you, but he keeps repeating
over and over. Tell me. Tell me you love me. Tell me. This was Claudia's first experience with sex
work. She got paid $700 for her first session. It was traumatic, but $700 is a lot of money.
Claudia had this whole plan. She was going to keep 500 to help pay for her bills and other life
necessities and then even just funnel back into work, right? She's going to need to spend money
on hotel rooms every day to meet more clients. She would need to purchase outfits to wear,
body care and maintenance cost. Her plan is to keep 500 reinvest into the business and give the
remaining $200 to Larry. So it's going to take a while to pay him, but at least she's making
progress. I mean, this is a sign that she can do it. She can pay him back for trying to kill him.
She shows up and hands $200 over. How much was the session? 700 wasn't it? Yeah.
He blows up in her face. How can you dare even think about keeping any money at all after you
poisoned me and my entire fucking family? He holds her down and forcibly takes the rest of the
$700 from her. He would keep every single penny that she would make from each client.
And that would be the pattern for the next few years. Claudia would keep almost nothing of the money
she made from sex work. In fact, over the course of two years, she made Larry over $2.5 million
dollars. And she kept none of it. One thing she would say about her time as a sex worker was,
at least with the clients, I knew that if I asked them to stop, they would stop. I did not think
that Larry would stop if I asked. Claudia's life starts rapidly deteriorating. So Claudia is no
longer living with Larry. She's living in hotel rooms non-stop paying him for all this sex work.
Felicia is regressing into a child being forced into diapers, just being smacked around all day.
Isabella is physically and sexually being abused and mentally and emotionally, but on surface
level, it doesn't seem as bad because she is the favored one. Now Claudia's life starts rapidly
deteriorating. Every single day, she has to deal with multiple clients that they're never really
great positive experiences. One client choked her from behind and kept telling her that he had a
gun and she needed to hand over all the money she had. He proceeded to rob her after engaging
in intimate relations. Another client she had to see him often just because he paid her well and
Larry was becoming increasingly more demanding about money. Claudia said it was the worst.
Each time he would come in super high on drugs, all he wanted to do is watch explicit videos and
force her to perform orally on her knees for six hours. Six hours. It got to the point where she
would have to beg him and negotiate with him to even be able to use the restroom. She absolutely
hated seeing him, but she had to. Another client was always smoking crack during their sessions,
but the most traumatic incident, the one that likely was a big scar for Claudia. She walked into a
hotel room to meet with the client and there was a one-year-old child on the bed. The man, the
father kept begging her to come into the bathroom so they can do a quickie. Claudia was terrified
and disgusted. She starts walking away and he's just throwing more money at her. 700, 500,
let's do 800. I'll pay you 900. It'll be quick hurry. Claudia ran out of there. Claudia said,
I could feel the warmth fade from my heart. I was scared. I would become the cruel God for
sake and person Larry wanted me to be. I felt myself growing colder every day. With each lie,
I told every time I was forced to prostitute myself. Every moment with every client, I felt myself
getting more and more numb. I believe Larry wanted to watch me break apart the pieces of myself
and give them away. Step by step. Growing closer to becoming whatever awful kind of human being he was,
he wanted to watch me give myself away completely. I knew I was fragmenting. I knew my heart was
breaking. I knew the light inside of me was growing dimmer every day. I knew eventually I would get
extinguished. Claudia just had this tiny little suitcase. That's it. Those were all life. She
just moved this suitcase around from hotel to hotel and should meet with clients seven days a week.
She had no connection with her friends, her family, not a single positive human interaction
throughout the day. The only interaction she had were with clients and Larry and Isabella when
they come to pick up the money. The physical violence had always been pretty bad. Felicia said there
would be weeks that he would beat her face so hard that she would have to lay down with ice on her
face in order for the bruises to start going down. But it was about to get a whole lot worse.
Claudia is going through a range of emotions moving back and forth between the stages of trauma. I mean,
the only time she would feel a little bit better is on the off chance she would meet a client
that was kind of nice. They would talk to her. They would buy her little presents and sometimes they
would talk to her about things that don't involve adult activities. Just life. And when Claudia would
find clients like that, her spirits would lift a tiny little bit. She said it was the only positive
social interaction in my life at the time. And by that point, she's got nobody else. And that's it.
That's a highlight, her nice clients, but Larry has this way of sniffing out happiness and wanting
to extinguish it. He would force her to betray her nice clients when he found out that she had any.
He would force Claudia. Text him right now. Tell them you're going to call all their family members
their wives, their children, and put pictures of them online unless they send you money. Blackmail them.
Threaten to expose what you're doing. The only people that were ever nice to Claudia,
she would have to hurt them. Even they would find her disgusting and vile after her threats.
It was just another reminder for her that she cannot get close to anybody that she doesn't want to
hurt. Not that she is getting close to anyone. I mean, none of her clients even knew her real name.
Most of her backstory were just stories that she told lies. She had no real human connection.
But there was one client that Claudia could not let go of. His name is Stuart. And Larry is almost
staring at Claudia, looking amused. What? Do you have feelings for him or something? Stuart.
Claudia freezes because she knows that she wrote about it in her journal. She would journal.
Meaning Larry could have easily seen it. Did he read it? Did she mention it before? Was it that obvious?
If she denies it right now, but he has proof or he's read the journal, it's not going to be good for her.
Claudia is staring at Larry. I mean, a little bit. Now, why would you do that?
Larry's calm, very alarmingly calm. And then his mood starts morphing, shifting. It goes from
eerily calm to annoyed to just full blown physical violence. Larry would start screaming at her.
Are you trying to hurt my family? Are you trying to hurt me? Aren't you? Take off your clothes.
What? Larry would force Claudia to strip naked. And for the next seven hours, he ties her to a chair.
I'm going to waterboard you. Is that what you want? Her hands are tied behind the chair,
backing her legs are tied to the chair legs. She's completely nude. He starts suffocating her with a pillow,
but it's taking too much time. He grabs the leash and collar that she has in the room. It's for the
clients if they want to explore. And he puts it around her neck, starts choking her until the point
that she passes out multiple times in the span of seven hours. But it's not humiliating or degrading
enough for Larry. He drags Claudia up off the chair, throws her into the bathroom and shoves her
head in the toilet water. He grabs her and throws her back on the chair and he gets one of those
drugstore plastic bags from Dwayne Reed. And every time Claudia breathes, he would put the
plastic bag over her head. And the plastic bag would stick to her mouth and then get stuck.
I mean, she can't get it out of her mouth. It starts sticking to her eyes and her nose. He would
only stop once she was close to passing out. He would take it off of her and then do it again
and again and again. And the whole time he's taunting her, don't be a faker. You're such a liar.
The bag isn't even sealed. You're being over dramatic. You're such a fucking bee-list actress.
Is that what you want to be? Huh? Claudia is in and out of consciousness for hours at this point.
And to make her snap out of it, Larry pours cold water all over her and sticks her right in front
of the hotel AC. She feels like her whole body is vibrating, shaking, trembling. She can feel
herself about to pass out again. And he's just on the side watching with Isabella. Oh stop it,
Claudia. You're such a little faker. The water isn't even cold. It's room temperature.
Claudia said I was suffering, I was suffocating, I was terrified, I was trembling. I couldn't breathe,
but you want to. You want to breathe a lot and it just makes it so much worse. It was terrifying.
After eight hours of torture, where Larry and Isabella took a break in the middle to eat burgers
and fries from a diner nearby, Larry and Isabella would just walk out of the hotel room
as if nothing had happened. Claudia would be left shivering on the floor, traumatized.
And even then, she did not turn in Larry because he had all those videos of her. He had confessional
videos where she confesses to felonies where she's having intimate relations with married men.
She's just quietly sobbing, cleaning up the hotel room and she knew she needed to get to sleep
because the next day she'd be back to work. She would have to see three to seven clients every
single day for two years. Claudia would later say I was so scared the only way I could even feel
a measure of safety was having money in my hand because if she has money, if she has something
Larry wants, then he'd keep her alive, right? The day after torturing Claudia, Larry took Isabella
shopping and they spent almost $1,000. Larry and Isabella and Talia, the daughter, would actually
spend quite a bit of money during the time Claudia was forced to engage in sex work. They were constantly
shopping at Bergdorf's, which is a high-end luxury department store, buying Canada Goose jackets,
which can easily be around $1,500 each. Just a few of their receipts show that they would spend
over $7,000 at Bergdorf's at any given time just dropping thousands of dollars at once. They
would spend $5,000 at a staycation in a luxury hotel in Manhattan and $3,000 of that was just the
nicest champagne from room service. Meanwhile, Claudia is developing and this is a huge ED content
warning here, but during this time, Claudia becomes Belémick, which naturally, according to Larry,
was her trying to sabotage his business. She would try to tell him that the stress of the
occupation was only making it worse. She was getting worse at her job. She said she was becoming
catonic. She was becoming almost comatose with her clients. Whenever a client was on top of her,
she would just go blank and just start melting off, get off of me, get off of me, get off of me.
When they looked at her, she would have to force her face to turn robotics so that she could
animate expressions that they wanted. She wasn't asking for much. She just wanted half a day off a
week to talk to a therapist so that she could fix it, get better, repair the damage that it's
doing to her body mentally and physically, which technically would be good for work, right?
Claudia is trying to tell Larry, obviously I'm not complaining, but my stomach acid has gotten
so bad that it's eaten away at my teeth and that's not good for business and my feelings have
fallen out and I need to get those fixed and because that's not good for business, right?
And just the past few months, I've had seven severe tooth infections.
Remember, so just like half a day to fix it? Larry's staring at her. It's not that bad, honestly.
There are others who throw up their entire stomach contents, like part of their intestines
would come out because of how hard they're vomiting. Is that happening to you? No?
Okay then, it's not that bad. See, that's the thing with you, always complaining.
Claudia would go back to her hotel room before her next client was due to our rife.
Larry's telling her it's not that bad, but she could feel it killing her.
I mean, she would walk into her hotel closet, pull out a towel that she had left behind,
drag it out into the middle of the room and the towel was folded so she would unwrap it,
and inside was just a giant pile of leftover snacks and candy.
And she would stare at it because it's the only way to cope, but she knows it's killing her.
She would binge and then throw it up before the client comes.
She would do this almost in between every single client just to try and cope.
But by the end of the night, she would just be so utterly exhausted and she just knew that
she had to start all over again tomorrow because her life is quite literally on the line.
Also, that Larry Ray can make millions of dollars and buy cashmere sweaters from Loro Piana.
Meanwhile, the groups start taunting Claudia behind her back. Even Talia participates in all this,
by the way. I don't know to what extent she knows about what Larry is having Claudia do.
I imagine she knows quite a bit. There are text messages of them giggling about how they can buy a gift
for Claudia. The gift in question is a link to a giant tortilla burrito blanket from Amazon,
because she has an eating. Isabella would text Talia. Maybe get her something
cheese-related just to be sentimental, winky face? They laugh and even suggest a chocolate factory
umpulumpa costume. Meanwhile, back at the house, Felicia is getting pretty bad. She has fully
regressed into an almost childlike state, unable to take care of herself just going through waves of
emotions. She would try to wear her sweatshirts from Columbia and Harvard to remember who she was
before she was indebted to this madman and to remember how independent and powerful and
intelligent she was, but he would taunt her and rip them up. And when he picks up on the fact that
Felicia was wearing them for emotional support, he would force her to put on her graduation cap and
gown, walk around the house while he degraded her, insulting at her, laughing at her.
It made Felicia feel, quote, completely humiliated, degraded, debased, like I was nothing, nothing.
Like I wasn't even someone just worthless. Larry would force Felicia to look at Isabella
while he compared them. You saw the videos of Felicia in part one. She said that she was becoming
unkept. She wasn't taking care of herself. She just didn't even have the capacity for hygiene
or trying to look attractive at that point. But Isabella took care of herself and would wear a lot
of sexy clothing outside when she went out with Larry. He would tell Felicia, why can you be more
like Isabella? Look at her. Felicia would instinctively touch the scar on the top of her lip.
And early in their relationship, he had kicked her laptop into her face because she was talking too
much. The impact left this scar that he always cruelly pointed out telling her, this is why
I'll never be pretty to me. And it would always stick with Felicia.
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An email blast is what kick starts the investigation into Larry Ray's cult.
A massive email is sent out to a lot of the students at Sarah Lawrence with a link to Claudia's
escort website. She lists her prices, her services, but also uploaded a full confessional video where
she admits to poisoning to all the array and Lawrence Ray. And in the video, you can clearly tell
she's being forced to do this. She's under the rest. The former roommate from slon and woods nine.
The ones that never joined the cult gave Max Juliana and Raven. They're all planning ways to get
Claudia out of this. This is like 10 years later. They're all grown up, graduated college. They've
all moved on with their lives. The email was sent 10 years later. Yes. And they still got it.
They still got it. But who sent the email? Do Claudia's Gmail. It was probably Larry.
I took humiliated her. Claudia, yes. But you ended up saving her. Yes. Wow. Maybe they would
pretend to book a session with her, drag her out of the hotel. No, that's dangerous because
what if Larry's there? He's going to recognize them or maybe they just call her. But what it
seems with Larry at the time and it gets her in even more trouble and then he does something
dangerous to her. So they land on reaching out to the Department of Homeland Security,
getting in contact with detectives specializing in sex trafficking and they do that.
They're telling the detectives how it happened, how it all started. They're bringing it all
the way back to sophomore year. Larry moves in after being jailed for a 9-11 conspiracy. Bush hates
them. Long story short. Okay. Gorbachev makes an appearance on the story. Oh, they would watch
cosmos on the couch. I think at one point they were squatting in the upper east side in this
like Asian man who wears suits and has long ponytail house. I don't know. He brainwashed all of them
into basically being his sexual slaves. When they're done, the detectives are staring at them
and they can almost see one's lip twitch because even as they're saying an out loud,
it sounds unbelievable. The detectives do not say a single thing. I mean,
they just basically get laughed out of there. No way. They didn't believe them. No.
Wow. They're back to square one. Either they can try and find a less skeptical detective or
they can try something else. So they decide to reach out to a former classmate of theirs, Ezra,
who happens to be an investigative journalist. Ezra and James Walsh of New York magazine would
start working on the piece for Larry Ray. The article would go live April 2019. This is the first
time any news of the cult was exposed to the general public. Nobody knew about it. I mean, there were
rumors around Sarah Lawrence that like something weird was happening with Talia's dad, but they were
rumors. They're college rumors. This is the first time it becomes very, very serious. Daniel would
see it and realize that his friends did not get out soon after him. It went on for almost six years
after he left. Elytia would see it from a shelter for those without homes and realize her sister
Felicia was still in the cult. Santos would see it from a shelter for people without homes,
but he would defend Larry publicly online. Santos wrote, Larry has only ever offered his friendship
attention and care to me. He fed us, never skimping on the quality or healthiness of meals. He offered
a listening ear, always making himself available to us no matter the time. He encouraged us to enhance
and educate ourselves constantly, suggesting that we read all kinds of books ranging from philosophy
to science. Without a doubt, I owe whatever independence, clarity, and emotional imbalance and
resilience I have to Larry and the time I spent with him. It wasn't until Santos was brought into
the FBI office where he's still sitting there defending Larry. The agent tells him, we believe you.
Of course you do. Larry is a good man, but do you mind if we just play you a very quick clip?
The investigator presses play and it's an audio clip from years ago between Larry and Santos.
It's Larry threatening to pulverize Santos with a hammer. His voice is menacing and aggressive.
I swear to God I'm going to pulverize you and throw you out the window. I would put this hammer
through your skull. Santos just says, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I understand. I will kill you and I
will break all your bones in your whole body. I swear I will. Santos is sitting there listening
to this clip where he just sounds so scared and in that moment it clicks for him. That is not normal.
That's why he just realized and he looks at the agents. Holy cow, I was in a freaking cult.
But Isabella, Claudia and Felicia are still in deep when the article goes live. I mean,
I guess technically Claudia reads the article and she believes every single word that's in there.
She wants out. But what is the article going to do for her? Is it going to protect her from Larry?
Then Claudia's phone rings. It's Stewart. She hasn't heard from him in a really long time. They
had to stop seeing each other because Larry. I'm sorry I haven't been in touch Claudia, but I read
an article and I want to help you leave. No way. I have a hotel for you in Philadelphia. Go there now.
Claudia buys the first train ticket she can to leave New York City and head to Philly.
The whole ride there, Claudia is looking over her shoulder. She doesn't know if she's scared of Larry,
the FBI, the CIA, the Gambino crime family coming after her Bernie Kerrick. She doesn't know.
For the past 10 years, she's been told all these different stories. She doesn't even know what to
believe anymore. Who the bad guy is? When she finally arrives in Philadelphia, she turns off her phone.
The only people that have contact with her for a little while are doctors, therapists,
Stewart and the attorneys that Stewart helped pay for to go up against Larry Ray.
But she's still getting bombarded with text messages from Larry. And one of them reads, you said
you would never run and hide and I have no understanding as to why you are doing so now. In my experience,
the truth has always been important to you and proper regard for the truth has always helped you.
You asked me to promise to never abandon you and I have not. Claudia does not respond.
Soon after she gets a text message from Isabella, the message reads, you poison me and your history
of hurting innocent people has finally come back to you. Your actions are not evil. They are vile.
You are vile. You poison five innocent people but claim you are the victim.
That it was you who experienced violence at the hand of any one of the people that you victimized.
The sheer length and overindulgence and language hyperbole of that article reads like one of your
conference papers, as well as accusing her of working with the journalist. And it makes it clear
that you were the perpetrator behind the New York magazine article. You will be the same in prison
as you are now. A fat lonely nobody who lives to serve the needs of others. You are not evil,
Claudia. You are a criminal. I know that all your victims will breathe a sigh of relief when
you are put right where you belong. The next time I see you, you will be in a jumpsuit, you and you
alone. And now all Larry has our Isabella and Felicia. Talia has already started her new life as
a paralegal in a different state. April 2018. Talia the daughter. Yeah, she is a paralegal.
She is just living her best life. Getting tens of thousands of... Well, okay, I don't want to say
she is living her best life because she was brainwashed and she was a kid. But I think at the time she
was living a better life than Felicia or Claudia. Yeah. She is making tens of thousands of dollars
where wire to her from Claudia's work. So she is taking the money from... Yeah, Larry would give her a
lot of money. Wow. So that's why I'm saying a lot of Nezans debate when is the line for Talia and
Isabella to become perpetrators? That's not a decision I think I can make but it is definitely
discourse that I've seen out there. Also, side note, the thing with cults though a lot of cult
experts do say that there's almost no cult where the victims don't become perpetrators at one point.
April 2018, they move into a man named Scott Muller's house in New Jersey, just like they did with
Lee Chen. I was supposed to be for a week but they end up staying for three years before Larry is
arrested in that house. They start doing yard work at Scott's house too by the way and they just
got full-sized bulldozers ripping up the carpet. I mean the whole thing is an absolute mess. The property
looked insane. A friend of Scott said, would start it out as them planting 20 trees a year later,
there was like a 20 by 10 foot deep hole in the backyard. All the trees are gone. All the grasses
torn up. Some of the trees were planted but not many. And Scott had to rent commercial grade
equipment to do this. The running joke was they better be bearing bodies in the backyard.
They had a dump truck, an excavator, a backhoe, external generator, concrete mixer, and then
you would show up and Isabella is on the backhoe just naked. But naked doing construction work. So
naturally a lot of middle aged guys start showing up. They said those girls Isabella and Felicia,
they did whatever Larry wanted. Larry would sit there and say things like, do you guys need anything?
Can Isabella help you with anything? February 11th, 2020, Larry is arrested on nine counts of
extortion conspiracy, forced labor, sex trafficking, and money laundering. Isabella and Felicia were
in the house with him when the FBI came. The FBI confiscated about 12 terabytes of data from the
house, a lot of the more videos, pictures, and written letters by the cult members. After Larry
was taken into custody, the two of them, Isabella and Felicia, they stay in the house,
determine to fix things, to get Larry out, to get the truth out there. Isabella would say,
if Lawrence are here in front of me right now, I would tell him how sorry I am that he's going
through this and that he's being put through this and that it's not fucking fair and tell him that
no matter what happens or doesn't happen in no way am I straying from the truth because I know
what happens and I know that he didn't do those things he's being accused of. When I think about
Lawrence, I mean my heart is breaking, he's in prison innocently. It feels like a twilight zone
really. Isabella has zero contact with her mom, her former friends and family, she just has Larry
and she says, Larry is someone I trust completely in all different contexts, personally,
sexually, just in whatever context you can think of I trust him and I care for him very deeply.
Which is alarming because Larry would tell people that Felicia was his common law wife
and Isabella was basically like his daughter. He said he, quote, assumed guardianship over her.
Felicia was on the same page as Isabella when he was arrested. She argued that the padlock
on their fridge, even in this house, is so that strangers can't come in and put poison in their
food. She also stated, I haven't worked as a practicing doctor since 2012 because I was poisoned.
I'm sure they're going to try and blame Larry and for me not practicing, but really, he was always
my support system. People go to the house to interview them and it's abysmal. The house is
horrendous and she says, oh yeah, the grass was taken up multiple times because we didn't put it
down correctly. Isabella and I worked with Larry, like, worked through the day, worked through the
night into the morning and he would take it all back again, the grass if it wasn't done correctly,
but he just always had this, can do attitude. That's why the Marine Court called on him routinely.
That's also why NATO called on him routinely or like that's like Gorbachev. That's why they were so
close. They worked together so well because Larry's like, okay, you need something done?
I'll figure it out. He was always very encouraging. Had it not been for Larry, my husband, I don't
know where I'd be. I love him very much. He is the best. No matter what people say, I don't care.
They don't know him. I do. They say Larry Ray brainwashed me or whatever it is they say.
Like, they asked my parents and I'm like, I've been spoken to them in years, like so many,
many years and for good reason, they participated in poisoning me, my parents. They participated
in hurting me, in hurting me and my family, which is, this is my family. I'm a victim of poisoning.
End of Claudia and Santos and Yolizia and Bernie Kerrick and my parents, that's who I'm a victim of.
I'm not a victim of Lawrence. I'm prepared to do everything I can to make sure that the right thing
happens here. I will not stop until everyone knows the truth and justice is served.
Sutologia, Fantastica. That is what the defense claimed Larry was diagnosed with. Otherwise known.
What is it? It's otherwise known as pathological line. That's what they claim Larry has,
along with narcissistic personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder. The whole trial
was a mess. Larry would claim that all of this was happening because you two was a victim.
His grandfather assaulted him as a child. His grandma would beat him with a catonine tails,
which was like a whip with nine knotted cords at the end, mainly used to flog people.
Larry claims that sometimes whenever he did something that angered his grandma, anything at all,
she would grab him by the collar and kick him out of the house and make him sleep on the porch.
They said his poisoning fixation conspiracy is rooted in the fact that Larry's mom would sneak
laxatives into muffins and cupcakes remember. So he's not being paranoid for no reason.
This is what they're arguing in court. To which prosecutors would argue,
his abuse that he claims he suffered through bears of striking resemblance to the conduct underlying
the offenses he now stands convicted of. His old defense is just all over the place. They try to
argue that the New York magazine article, the one that kick started the investigation is messed up
because the title is stolen kids of Sarah Lawrence, but they argue the alleged victims
weren't even kids. They were adults. Also, the defense argues, for the past several years,
the press has villainized Mr. Ray. The cascade of unflattering photographs and stories demonizing Mr.
Ray has begun before his arrest and has continued long after this trial ended. He also argues that
Felicia was doing everything, harming herself, recording these videos with strangers willingly,
ruining her life to compete with Isabella for Larry's love. At one part, the defense has the
audacity to say and I quote, this isn't a crime. It's not sexual abuse. It's not forced labor.
When the prosecution was puzzled and bamboozled on why Larry continued to live with his alleged
poisoners that he was accusing of trying to murder him, why would he have dinners with them?
Why would he live under the same roof as them? You know, that doesn't make sense. That doesn't fall
under a reasonable line of logic, does it? The defense argued, you know that saying? Keeper friends
close, but your enemies closer? As for the poisoning, there was no conclusive evidence to just
to suggest that any of them were poisoned, but there were pages upon pages of evidence that Larry
sex trafficked Claudia and made millions of dollars off of her. None of that was used for medical
expenses related to poisoning. None of it was used to purchase medicine or medical equipment or
find specialists for poisoning. Most of it was spent on living expenses, food, fancy hotels,
fancy restaurants, and a lot of shopping. Larry would bring Isabella to eat at the nicest
places by the nicest clothing. He also received $300,000 from the Rosario parents and another
$40,000 from Santos personally. There is a Hulu documentary called Stolen Youth and it's
really fascinating because while they're filming, they interview Felicia. The first time they go
to see her, she's in the weird New Jersey house with the giant holes everywhere and she's explaining,
oh Larry loves me, Larry's the love of my life and we're pulling up the grass because Larry is
such a dedicated man, that's why Nita loves him. And the next time they interview her a few weeks
later, she's slowly questioning what's real and what's a lie. Then the next time they see her,
she's going to therapy and realizes that Larry has fully brainwashed her. Felicia would state,
I would say that I regressed. I became more childlike to deal with what was going on around me.
Little by little, Larry had taken over my mind and I didn't even know how he did it. He made me
feel like there were truly people after me, people were coming to hurt me and that people had hurt
me in the past. She said, some parts are complete blanks. I mean, some of the video clips I see,
I don't even remember those things happening to me. It's admirable. I mean, very fascinating how
Felicia is putting together the pieces of her life because she was gaslit to a huge degree. And when
she first got out, it was very hard for her to distinguish what was Larry's lie and what is
reality. And being an intelligent medical student, she created this system. She has a stack of files,
each one are labeled with a year. Each one, she has written down all the facts that she knows
are true from that year. So she's rebuilding her memory? Yes, trying to distinguish between what's
a lie, what's a fact? Wow. That's been helping her realize that a brainwashed trend to believing
so many things that aren't true. She said with Larry, it was always the same pattern. He would
throw her on the ground, leave her there to rot. And then he would be the one to pick her up later.
Or her hair. Hair is a big thing for Dominican women. Felicia said, with Larry, I was so out of it.
My hair was a ball, like a bird's nest. He watched me grow this knot and then did nothing. And then
he was like, okay, now I will rescue you. And he combed out all the knots himself. He would say
things like, see how I take care of you. I spent a whole week taking those knots out of your hair.
That's how much I love you. Felicia is now free from Larry Land. That's what she calls it.
But her school loans were defaulted on. Her credit is ruined. Getting her life back on track,
even with those impressive degrees is going to be huge challenge. Even just going to public
restrooms gives her panic attacks because Larry would force her to have intimate relations
in public restrooms with strangers. But Isabella would not get away. Daniel said, observing Isabella's
dynamic in the group with Larry, there was a clear blurring between father and daughter,
boyfriend and girlfriend. I mean, Isabella was so desperate to be Larry's person. She would
constantly ask Larry about what they were. And if they can make it official, she would ask him,
when can we finally tell people about our relationship? We don't have one, so there's nothing to tell.
There would be times where even receiving Larry's love, she seems so thankful. Larry would tell
her, Isabella, I love you. I cared great deal about you. Yeah. Yeah. I'm proud of you, Isabella.
You did good. And because she refuses to testify against Laurence Ray, she becomes charged as a
co-conspirator. It does appear that the fact that her voice can be heard or she's holding the
camera when a lot of the abusive incidents take place, it seems like that also played a huge factor,
to which Isabella initially stated, I'm faced with the decision to either cooperate with the
prosecution's efforts, which is based on these completely false allegations, or risk being charged
along with Laurence as a co-conspirator, and risk myself up to life in prison of convicted.
She chose not to testify against Laurence. Meanwhile, Larry's out here doing the absolute
most during the trial. If there is a testimony or video clip of the victims that he doesn't like,
doesn't like the way it presents him, he fakes a seizure. He was ushered out of the court house
twice on a stretcher with an oxygen mask on with his tongue hanging out. An assistant professor
of neurology at Cornell wrote to the judge after an evaluation of Larry's state, and they wrote,
I believe that Larry's behaviors, or at least some of them, may be a result of meldingering.
What is meldingering? Falsifying or exaggerating a condition for personal gain.
Flying. Thank you. There is one name that will not be brought up during trial, but it is the only
member of the cult that would lose their lives due in part because of Larry, right?
Abon was Talia's ex-boyfriend, and practically an adopted member of the family.
When he started dating Talia in a high school, Larry immediately took him under his wing.
Larry was not the protective dad over his honey girl. He was actually the cool dad, and he would
call Abon's son, son, son this, son that. At some point, it starts feeling like Abon is more
dedicated to Larry than he is Talia. So much so that even after the two break up, Abon is always
around. Following Larry around, this little lost chick, to Abon, Larry is a father figure, and he
would listen to whatever Larry's told him to do. That's why he drops out of college, joins the
Marines on the advice of Larry. I mean, it almost kills him. He is instantly deployed to Iraq
in Afghanistan. He did two tours. Right when he gets there, most of us friends would die in front
of him. He gets back home with severe PTSD. He's very open about it, which in a way helps him heal.
He was accepted into Columbia University, where he helped conduct studies on PTSD for combat
veterans. He was actually really good at articulating feelings that veterans have in putting it into
words. He would write in blogs, while veterans may have the benefit of returning to a sea of goodwill,
like the store's goodwill, because they're for the veterans. Many times, we're left without a paddle
or bearing an entire need of both. He was finding his own recovery by helping other veterans.
Fellow veterans said, Oh, Iban, he's a type who will see your need for a shirt before you even
recognize it. Then he'll take off his own shirt and insist that you take it. And then both of his
parents died. One after the other. And the only person there was freshly out of prison, Larry Ray,
to help pick up the pieces of Iban. So remember how Larry shows up with three people? Yeah, it's Larry,
the Asian man, Lee Chan, and a Marine. It's Iban. And then where did he go? From that point, Iban
is just Larry's bodyguard, military escort, if he will. Iban slept on the floor most of the time. He
was hanging around Larry. He was described as a faithful servant, but it didn't matter. He would
get punched in the face. If he fell asleep when Larry didn't want him to, he would wake up Iban by
sticking a spatula on his chest, a cold spatula, and scream, time to die. Iban has severe PTSD.
Oh my gosh. So Iban was there for the whole 10 years? Yeah, most of them.
Oh my gosh. And once Iban would start panicking, Larry would laugh, I'm kidding. Let's make some eggs.
When Larry was arrested, Iban fully believed this was part of the government's conspiracy against Larry.
Iban himself believed he had been poisoned. The stress of believing he had been poisoned,
the PTSD, the situation of him being completely shut off from any other veterans, or anyone that
can help him because of Larry, all of that takes a massive toll. One of Iban's close friends,
William said, the night that Larry was arrested, I mean, he was so happy because Iban was no longer
going to be under his control, but he was so concerned. The level of devotion Iban had to Larry
was unexplainable. It was Larry's world and Iban was just happy to be living in it.
And now with Larry gone, Iban was missing his whole purpose. His friend said he just sits around
waiting to be told what to do. May 2020, like two months, February and March people may, a few
months after Larry is arrested, Iban attempt self-exit by harm, but when that doesn't work, he leaves
his house and walks onto the highway and lays down on the pavement until he was hit by a car.
William's said, personally, I blame Larry for his death.
Yeah, of course. The prosecutors argued this wasn't just about money. They said, Larry extracted
millions of dollars in extortion and sex trafficking proceeds, but the money was never enough.
And at times it was besides the point. The defendant displayed an insatiable desire to make his
victims pay in both body and spirit. Claudia said, it was as if he was experimenting on our very
souls, like lab mice, his evil withered us. It ate our spirits. January 20th, 2023, 63-year-old Larry
was sentenced to 60 years in prison, essentially a life sentence for someone his age. Bernie Carich
his arch nemesis came out and said, he has victimized everyone he's ever been in contact with.
It's completely bizarre and hopefully this will be the end of his reign of terror, so to speak,
and they'll put him away for life because he doesn't deserve to be in society.
During his sentencing, Larry shared a statement. He said, in all this horrible things people are
saying about me, I just wish they knew what good I have done in my life for this country.
And I'm never going to get recognition for that. Isabella would plead guilty to one count of
money laundering. Felicia said, and Felicia is the subject in most of the videos where Isabella is
the one holding the camera. When I first met Izzy, she had a very well-formed moral compass.
As time went on with Larry, it wasn't goodness anymore. Her true North Star became Larry.
He could say this guy was red, this guy is purple, it wouldn't matter if he said it, it was true.
It was as if God himself had said it. She wanted to be a psychiatrist, a child psychiatrist,
no less. You know, she wanted to help people. I would hear her be like, I can't do this anymore,
I can't live like this anymore. And she would get so sad. They would have these fights,
they would argue, the Larry would talk her through it, and they would just go back to how they were.
That's what's so scary, because someone who's truly a good person lost their own sense of self,
their own sense of right and wrong, that just speaks to how evil Larry is, that he was able to
fully destroy someone. Felicia was asked if she wanted Isabella to go to jail. And she said,
I don't want her to go, because she's going to use being in jail and being prosecuted as a reason
to be angry as a shield. And she's not going to actually confront the real situation. But if she
doesn't go, she has to live with what she did on her own. I pray that she starts to care about
herself enough to honor herself and honor the truth of what happened to her and to the rest of us.
Isabella would be sentenced to four and a half years in federal prison as a co-conspirator,
which has been a really big topic of conversation. Where is the line between victim and perpetrator?
Because its clear Isabella would not have done any of this had it not been for Larry Ray.
The prosecutors even stated themselves that there were a ton of videos of Isabella engaging in
quote-digrating sex acts at Mr. Ray's direction. There are videos of Larry grabbing Isabella,
fistfuls of her hair, and shaking her head back and forth in anger.
He straight up beating her in other clips. She was cut off from her entire family.
She would sometimes call her dad to ask for money, but that was it.
I mean, she was acting fully under Larry's behalf.
But nevertheless, prosecutors, passionately, when after Isabella stating in front of the jurors,
you did not need to retrieve the intimate toy that was used to torture Daniel.
You did not need to accompany Felicia and ensure that she engaged in intimate acts with strangers.
You did not need to execute those orders. You could have stepped away.
You did not need to collect every cent from Claudia or participate in her torture.
One that is in commented,
America is such a backward place where victimizing the victim is still the thing to do.
I don't know how this man manipulated these people, but he did.
And he had a very powerful psychological hold on them.
And I just cannot fathom how people can see Isabella as anything other than a victim
who needs psychological counseling and help not to be placed in prison.
Claudia wrote a letter to the judge stating,
What I want is to see Isabella heal, process, move on, and live a good happy life.
I do not blame her for any of this, any of what happened or even the things she said ended to me.
And it's crazy because Isabella said,
At times I think about the future,
if we get through this,
Talia, Larry and me watching TV,
and Talia with her kids and I'm with mine, things like that.
You know, that's the what if.
Things like that make me feel better.
Like, while she was in prison?
Before her guilty plea.
Since her guilty plea, she has publicly condemned Larry Ray for his actions.
But I don't know if she means it.
Claudia has reunited with her friends and family and has remained pretty private since.
In 2021, Daniel published an incredibly devastating memoir called Slonumwoods9,
which was an invaluable resource for this case.
Yolitsia graduated from Columbia.
She is pursuing her career in the arts.
Santos started a new job.
Felicia is working as a management consultant and plans to return to medicine one day.
Isabella and Larry are in jail,
which leaves us with one person left.
Talia Ray, Larry's daughter.
She is another person that a lot of people have mixed feelings about.
Because there are videos of her laughing at what's happening to her friends.
She was under Larry Ray's influence the longest and she was his child.
But there's evidence that she was profiting off of Claudia's sex work,
spending tens of thousands of dollars on luxury goods.
She introduced her friends to her father.
But again, this is after years and years of her father getting in her mind,
turning her against her own mom.
Prosecutors do refer to her as a co-conspirator,
though she was never formally charged.
But someone close to Talia states,
she was his soldier.
Talia is a really loving person and she is the biggest victim of all.
Last, she was heard off publicly.
There were reports that she was working at a bookstore in North Carolina
and is active in the state Democratic Party.
What are your thoughts on Talia and Isabella?
There is an audio clip of Talia when she's very young.
She sounds maybe six and Larry asks her,
remember what I always say to you?
What?
Remember what I always say to you.
The truth always wins.
That's right.
I just hope Talia knows the truth now.
Felicia hadn't seen her family in over five years.
And even when she gets out of the cult,
she's terrified to reach out to them.
I mean, their family's so broken after this.
But she does.
She reaches out to her mom first.
And then Santos.
And then she shows up at Yolizia's door and she knocks.
Hi, it's me, Fel.
There's this brief silence before Yolizia says,
I'm sorry, I can't open the door.
I miss you.
And they're both just standing on the opposite side of the door.
I love you and I miss you too, Felicia.
I miss you a lot, Yolizia.
I'm here for you.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know.
But I know we can't talk.
We can't really talk.
But I'm really happy.
I love you so much, Yolizia.
And I'm happy to hear your voice.
I've been dreaming about you every night.
I get it if you want to talk to your lawyers first
and ask them if we can talk.
I don't think it's a good idea, Felicia.
Sorry, not right now.
Okay, I just love you so much and I'm so sorry.
And they just pull to start sobbing through the door.
Apologizing and telling each other that they love each other.
And then the next time Felicia and Santos would come
and Yolizia would finally look through the people.
And she said when she saw both of her siblings together,
all of those nerves of, is this going to be okay?
Is this going to be triggering?
They were gone.
She said, they love me and I love them.
That's the most important thing.
And now it's like, I know who I am.
I have my people.
Now let's go forward.
And that is the story of the Sarah Lawrence cult.
What are your thoughts?
I can't believe this was happening just with such,
I mean, when you think of cults, you think of,
they get an isolated place.
They want to be in the rural areas.
They make like a station, if you will.
This is just happening in Manhattan.
With college students from Harvard, Colombia, Sarah Lawrence.
What are your thoughts?
Let me know in the comments.
Please stay safe.
And I will see you guys in the next one.
Bye.
