There may be little doubt that Mr. Ray’s life, earlier than he moved to the Sarah Lawrence campus in Westchester County, had been uncommon. It included an episode wherein he organized a gathering between Rudolph W. Giuliani, then the mayor of New York Metropolis, and Soviet chief Mikhail Gorbachev, and claims that he labored at one level in Kosovo for a United States intelligence company.
He was pleasant within the Nineties with Bernard Kerik, the previous New York Metropolis police commissioner, who helped him safe a job with Interstate Industrial Company, a building firm reputed to have ties to organized crime.
Mr. Ray was charged in 2000 by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn with participating in a scheme wherein mobsters and stockbrokers had been accused of swindling traders out of $40 million. Across the similar time, Mr. Ray cooperated with prosecutors investigating Mr. Kerik, who ended up pleading responsible to state and federal fees stemming from their connections to Interstate.
In 2010, Mr. Ray emerged from state jail in New Jersey, the place he had served time on fees associated to a toddler custody dispute. He then moved right into a dormitory the place his daughter, Talia Ray, lived.
Mr. Ray, who was then 50 years outdated, rapidly turned a domineering drive within the dormitory, known as Slonim Woods, in accordance with prosecutors. He started providing what prosecutors known as phony “remedy” periods to his daughter’s pals and roommates, gaining perception into their lives and vulnerabilities.
As these college students fell beneath Mr. Ray’s affect, his habits, as described in an indictment, turned extra aggressive. Over time that adopted, Mr. Ray ran what prosecutors stated was a prison enterprise — one which in some ways resembled a cult, with Mr. Ray enjoying the position of authoritarian chief.
He’s stated to have used psychological manipulation to persuade the scholars that they had been “damaged” and in want of his “fixing.” Prosecutors stated he indoctrinated the scholars into his system of beliefs; used threats and coercion to get them to admit to crimes they’d not dedicated; and extorted tons of of hundreds of {dollars} from them.
Supply: NY Times