Rotten Mango - #360: Dad Moves Into Daughter’s College Dorm & Starts A Cult On Campus

Episode Date: May 23, 2024

“Hey, can my dad stay with us for a little while after he gets out of prison?”  It was an odd request but Talia’s roommates felt like they couldn’t say no. Talia was a good friend, she always talked about wanting to become a lawyer and help people. She just had this tiny little quirk…  She was obsessed with her dad.  Even at parties - she would not stop talking about what an incredible man he was. He’s just going to stay in their dorms while he looks for a new place. What could possibly go wrong? When Larry Ray moves into Talia’s dorm - he slowly starts brainwashing all of Talia’s friends. Soon, he will be sleeping in Talia’s best friend’s room. Encouraging the students to all have intimate relations with each other… while he watches.  This would be the start of his decade-long college cult.  Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There's a college in New York called Sarah Lawrence. It is one of the pricier institutions with an $80,000 a year tuition. Their biggest scandal the past few years has been a small fox had been discovered roaming around campus. Campus security sent out a school-wide email blast. Beware the tiny cute adorable fox. Usually nothing spectacular happens on campus until 2019. An email blast goes out to much of the college students at

Sarah Lawrence. A majority of them get this email. When you open it up it's just a link to a website and it's very strange. The website name is the full name of another classmate of theirs. So imagine yourfullname.com. Weird. I mean, is she sending out her portfolio? Did she accidentally cc all of her classmates? They click the tiny little blue link and they get hit with, Hi, my name is Claudia and I'm an escort that poisons people to win her mother's love and approval.

Is Claudia the name of the website? Yeah. The opening page is, I poison people and I'm an escort. What the name of the website? Yeah, the opening page is, I poison people and I'm an escort. What the hell is going on? They click one of the tabs at the top and Claudia, their classmate, her advertisement pops up. You can book experiences with me. Our relationship will be as unique as our interpersonal chemistry. My greatest turn on is to see my partner engaged, connected, thinking, and feeling on a magnitude greater than the norm. A shared journey through experience that leaves us both in awe.

Girlfriend Services At its core, what you are considering is the experience of naked desire and all that flows from it. I am an enthusiastically indulgent, naughty, and eager companion, eager to feel and be felt. I'm a very playful woman, blessed with the disposition to shine brightest in the depths of depravity. Dalliances include but are not limited to bondage, roleplay, and predicaments. Pricing. 1 hour, $1,500.

2 hours, $2,000. 3 hours, $3,000. 4 hours, $4,000. Three hours? $3,000. Four hours? $4,000. Twelve hours? $7,000. Okay, it's a little strange, but to each their own, it's just confusing why she sent this out to all of her classmates. Was she hoping to find clients on campus? I mean most of her peers, they can't afford rates like this, let alone the fact that it would be kind of awkward booking with someone that they're gonna run into class next day. But what was the part that she said about poisoning people? They click another link on their friends page there. They see a full confession

Hi, my name is Claudia and I would poison one of my closest friends another student at Sarah Lawrence I would poison Talia at least once a day and make sure her entire fridge was poisoned I put mercury on her toothbrush I began sleeping over in her room more and more frequently to accomplish this goal I put arsenic and mercury in her underwear This is sent out from who though from her? This is the most bizarre website that they had ever seen I mean one page is dedicated to advertising Claudia as a sex worker and then the next page is her admitting to federal crimes? Like what is

going on? Also why would she poison her close friend and roommate and classmate Talia? Was she jealous of Talia or something? But even then it just doesn't sound like something Claudia would ever do. The classmates start freaking out as they're reading because it gets worse. Claudia mentions that she would even poison beverages at dorm parties. Meaning who else on campus has she poisoned? Wait, there's a video. They click on it and it's of Claudia sitting on bed, she's fully clothed, chewing a piece

of gum and she looks like she's about to fall asleep. There's a man's voice that can be heard. Please talk audibly Claudia. It's Sunday March 22nd 1120 p.m. I'm gonna tell the truth because it's destroying me not to. Claudia admits to not only poisoning her close friend and classmate Talia Ray but also Talia Ray's dad. Why would Claudia poison her friend's dad? I mean truly none of this is making any sense. She says on the video I put it in your food

I put it on your back. I put it in your shoes I put it on the handles where you would touch on the bed. I put it in the bathroom I believe on your toothbrush. I put it on the keys of your laptop My mom gave me the poison and she would bring it to me She said that if people found out if people believe you we were gonna go to jail We needed to basically we needed to kill you. I didn't hear you. My mom told me to kill you. The man on the other end holding the camera is Lawrence Ray, Talia Ray's dad. So this is Claudia's friend's dad, but also her cult leader. This is the case of Lawrence

Ray. The man that starts a cult on a college campus, brainwashes his own daughter's friends, turns them into sexual slaves, and starts a multi-million dollar high-end sex trafficking ring with high-profile clientele in New York City. And they send out email blasts? Yes. To wha- to why? We're gonna get into it. We would like to thank today's sponsors who have made it possible for Rotten Mango 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 Mango's growing

team of dedicated researchers and translators. We would also like to thank our listeners for your continued support as we work on our mission to be worthy advocates of these causes. Before we get started, today's case does include brief mentions of SA involving adults as well as CSA involving children. There are also themes of self-exit, DV, and gender sexuality-based violence. I would also like to thank Daniel Levin. He's one of the survivors involved in this case who authored a memoir titled Slahnam Woods violence. I would also like to thank Daniel Levin. He's one of the survivors involved in this case who authored a memoir titled Slonam Woods Nine. I came across this memoir during our research and I read it from front to back

and then I combed through it all over again. And we do reference a lot of the details, but of course we couldn't include everything nor would it do the memoir justice. So please, please, please pick up a copy of his book. There is no closer deep dive than this memoir It's also a fantastic resource and deserves all of its praise Daniel writes so candidly and I think it's a really important read that can help people understand how these types of cases happen because

At face value it feels so unbelievable Lastly there are many different opinions discussions doubts regarding victimhood versus culpability for two young women involved in the case Isabella Pollock and Talia Ray I want to be explicitly clear 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 So with that being said let's get started Lawrence Ray is friends with the mayor of New York City He's buddies with the last leader of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev. I mean, at the time, arguably, he was one of the most powerful people in the entire world. Larry

Reyes got status. The co-leader knows all these people? He actually knows all these people. And if Larry Reyes' college daughter is having a birthday party, it's not going to be in some frat boy house with cold pizza boxes laying around. He is going to host his precious girl's birthday dinner at the most upscale steak restaurant. The ones that don't even come with steak sauce on the side. Because Talia is daddy's little girl.

He would do anything for her. He's gonna invite all of her roommates from Sarah Lawrence to join them. The whole dinner's gonna be on him. The whole dinner is perfectly set up. Birthday girl Talia is gonna get a wad of cash to go purchase the best outfit to eat caviar in, probably from Bergdorf's.

Her best friend Isabella is gonna be right by her side, and all of her roommates are gonna come and celebrate. Daniel, Talia's friend, walks into the restaurant, and suddenly his back is straight. Because it's just that kind of atmosphere, you feel like you can't slouch. He's nervously walking his way to the table and even the air smells expensive it doesn't just smell like steak it smells like money with a light hint of cigars if it wasn't for larry ray throwing

this party for his daughter the closest most of these kids would be stepping into an establishment like this was at the time probably working in one. There's waiters rushing around in suits that are more expensive than what any of these college students can afford to wear on their most important event. Daniel rushes to take a seat because he's the last one to arrive and he looks around. It's a small group of mainly just roommates and Talia's dad Larry Ray and the only non-college student there at the table is the dad. Pick a wine from the list will you Daniel? Me? There were no prizes on that wine list. Daniel just points to a random wine, he knows nothing about wine, he doesn't even know how much it costs, and the whole thing feels exciting. With Larry there it feels like they're getting some sort of

the best treatment that the restaurant has. They barely wait for extra truffle butter. It just magically appears on the table. Normally the roommates are, even though they're getting some sort of the best treatment that the restaurant has they barely wait for extra truffle butter it just magically appears on the table normally the roommates are even though they're really close friends they're a little bit awkward so just the way that Larry is able to flow the conversation so that everybody feels included it's the perfect night Talia sweetie what do you want for your birthday? um I guess I wish for everyone to be happy this is what I always wish for. All of you guys have been through so much. Isabella, my best friend, has been through such hard times, but we're all together now.

And I want the world to be fixed. I want everyone in the world to be better, to be happy, and I want more people to think clearly and look at the world logically and find clarity. Larry's got tears in his eyes and Daniel's smiling. And then he freezes. Because under the table, Daniel feels someone rubbing their leg against his. Slowly, up and down his leg. It's feeling sexual. Someone's rubbing his Daniel's leg?

Yeah, playing flitsy with him. No, with their leg, just seductively running it up and down his leg. With their feet? Yeah, his eyes shoot up in the direction that it's coming from. It's Isabella, Talia's best friend. She holds his eye contact, giving him this long stare, and then she slowly stands up, not breaking eye contact.

Excuse me, I'm gonna use the restroom. Daniel is confused, but he thinks he gets the message, right, she wants him to follow her to the restroom. He gets up from a seat and as nonchalantly as possible he tries to excuse himself as well. Same but the whole thing is a little weird. He couldn't wait. Both of them had to use the restroom at the same time. I mean he can feel everyone staring at him. What does this even mean? He nervously approaches the restroom and there Isabella is just standing leaned up

against the wall. She doesn't even say a word. She walks towards the restroom, the private restroom, pushes it open, and motions for him to get in. It's like a single stall. After a while, they both leave the restroom, straighten out their clothes, and start making their way back to the table. I don't know exactly how much time has passed

but it is enough for everyone to know what they did it's not that hard to put two and two together they're even walking back together they look kind of disoriented I mean what's their excuse? is anybody gonna say anything? how long were they gone? they look down and there's finished dessert plates sitting around

so they've been gone for a while wait, the whole meal is done? Yeah, pretty much. Wait, so they didn't eat the food? I think they ate a little and then they left. Oh. And the whole meal is done. But as they're taking their seats, nobody says anything. Nobody asks, nobody comments.

Isabella just plops back down in between Talia and Larry Ray. And she seems so totally at ease. But Daniel, he's shifting uncomfortably in his seat. The whole thing is awkward considering Isabella is Talia, the birthday girl's best friend, and this is her very expensive birthday dinner, but Isabella is also the birthday girl's potential new stepmom. She's Larry Ray's newest wife.

Quote. The girl who just went to the restroom with Daniel is actually Talia Ray's best friend. She's a college student, but now she's dating Talia's dad. She's dating her best friend's dad. Right, right. But she just went to the restroom with a different boy. Yes.

While Larry Ray is just sitting there. Knowing damn well what just happened. Yeah, he's staring at Daniel across the table and it looks like he knows what happened in the restrooms, but it also looks like he likes it. Daniel's nearly choking on his coffee at this point. I mean, the whole coffee meeting with Larry Ray has felt like a fever dream. The two of them are sitting in this jam-packed coffee shop in New York City. Baristas are screaming people's names. The coffee grinder is going off just worrying every two seconds. And Larry Ray, bald 50-year-old Larry Ray, is asking Daniel in public, in front of everyone,

tell me what you're working with, and I'll tell you whether it's small or not. Larry's got his hands in front of him, and he's moving them towards each other, and then away from each other, raising his eyebrows. It's just so uncomfortable. He's asking Daniel how long his private part is. I mean, this can't be real life right now, right? This whole coffee meeting feels like something

that you see in a badly written sitcom. I mean, ever since they got there, Larry's been ordering Daniel around. Danny this, Danny that, Danny grab the coffees, won't you? Danny, get some half and half for me. Daniel hates when people call him Danny. But for some reason, when Larry demands something of him, he just gets a autopilot mode, grabs the coffees, grabs the half and half.

And right now he's staring into Larry Ray's eyes, which is kind of unsettling because Larry's eye whites are impossibly white. When he gets excited or mad, his whole face turns red and then his eye whites are just shining, almost glow in the dark. Daniel finally gives in, leans in, and tries to quietly tell him, this eyes. Larry does not return the favor and whisper.

Instead, he's just letting his voice boom through the whole cafe. Dan, that's normal, not a problem at all. What matters most is how you use it. What about Isabella? You ever slept with her? Oh, what? No, never. Why not? She was around all the time, wasn't she? You think she's good looking, don't you? Wait, didn't Daniel sleep with... Was it Isabella? Yeah, so this is before.

Oh, this is prior to Daniel. This is like his first time meeting Larry Ray really his first time having a conversation with Larry Ray And it's the whole thing is weird It's like a staring contest Larry might as well take out his eyeballs and dangle them in front of Daniel's because it feels like some sort of test or something Daniel just can't stand it anymore. He just blirts out. Well, I'm working on trying to understand my sexuality. Oh Well, I can tell you right now, you're not gay. You don't have small privates, you just need to relax.

Trust me, I'm professionally trained to evaluate people, to walk around inside of their minds. That's super easy for me, you know? I want to use that to help you, okay? Would you like that? Something in Daniel does kind of want help, just because it sounds so easy. Larry would come into his mind, fix all of his problems.

I mean why wouldn't you say yes, right? It would just make your life easier. It would be so quick for all these big complicated feelings to just disappear. Yeah, okay. Good. Now let's get out of here. Daniel looks up. The entire coffee shop is closing up.

They had been there for almost six hours. They walk out onto the dark street and the air feels chilly and right there parked on the street is a full-sized limousine. The long ones. Come on, get in. Daniel hesitates. He ducks his head to peer inside the limo and inside four of his roommates are sitting there and giggling. Had they been waiting for six hours for them to be done in the coffee shop? They stop mid-sentence. They look at the guy. Well, how did it go? Um, it went really, really well.

The roommates in the limo, they're glancing at each other. It's like they know something Daniel doesn't know. Like he just joined a secret little club just now with this coffee date. Larry urges him to get in the back. Now, what do you guys all say? Shall we get some dinner? I mean, who can say no to coffee? Who can say no to a limo ride? And who can say no to a dinner with friends? This would be the start of the Sarah Lawrence College Sex Cult that operates under the radar, even on campus, and stays active for

ten years. Videos would be uncovered, and one of them is of Daniel standing in front of Larry. His body language looks completely detached. He's just standing there in his red shirt staring blankly at Larry, who's standing out of view of the camera. Now Dan, you're trying to pull back now, aren't you? Yeah, I'm a, yeah. He nervously shoves his hands in his pockets.

He's a full-grown college student, but his body language is like a child being scorned by an abusive parent or something. Larry grabs a steel wrench and uses the blunt side of it to wrap around Daniel's neck and yanks him towards his face. They are now standing, faces just inches apart from each other. Larry, please, I'm being honest. Give me your tongue. Stick it out. Stick your fucking tongue out. In the back, you can hear a girl giggling. Larry

takes a wrench, squeezes it shut on Daniel's tongue, and starts pulling him closer to him. His whole body language is flinching, his shoulders are up, he's just trying to follow the wrench to avoid more pulling on his tongue, but Larry notices and as punishment, he starts pulling the wrench up forcing Daniel to get on his tippy toes unless he wants his tongue ripped apart and in this very calm menacing voice Larry threatens Daniel next it's gonna be the head of your cock do you understand see this how it feels what if I pick you up like that by your privates I'm gonna pick you up by your tongue you think I'm playing

with you right now you're a grown man I'm a pick you up by your tongue. You think I'm playing with you right now? You're a grown man. I'm a grown man. Wait, so Larry right now is torturing Daniel. And this is really all it took. He's so good at getting into people's minds. He ends up just, it's yes to a coffee date, yes to a limo, right? Yes to a dinner, and then suddenly he is in full control of all these people To the point where he can do whatever he wants with them He lets go of Daniel's tongue but slams a mallet straight into his stomach

He briefly yelps out in pain before very quickly almost too quickly. He straightens out his back. Yes. Yes. I hear you Larry holds his face right up to his listen to me. Don't fuck around Tell the truth next thing getting split is your dick and balls. Now apologize to everybody right now. Just like in the limo, Daniel turns and his college roommates are sitting there watching and waiting for a response and by this point it would be too late for Daniel because once Larry has you there is almost no escape you know there's people that make one thing their entire personality listen I'm not judging them but Talia's ray thing is kind of a mood killer it's

kind of a party killer it doesn't matter who she's with where she is it would be in the middle of a frat party and they're playing beer pong there's couples making out rubbing up on each other in the corner of the room and Talia would be half screaming over the music my dad's a truth teller he's been silenced by a group of powerful vindictive men he's been sent to prison for his heroic efforts to save me and my youngest sister from an abusive mother and his incarceration is the result of a deep-seated government corruption everyone in the circle is staring at her frozen mouths open they're're holding up a beer. What is going on right now?

This is so strange like read the room Talia did not she would keep going My dad used to do push-ups with me sitting on his back and I would come into the room whenever he was having these meetings And it didn't matter who it was with or what he was doing Honey boy, that's what I call my dad would let me come on on his back whenever I wanted I would ask him to do push-ups while I sat on him and he would do it. One of those friends at a party said about Talia, pretty much the first thing and only thing she ever talked about whenever it was her turn to talk is my dad this, my dad that, even at parties where we're just trying to have fun. Like that's when it started to get weird. Listening to Talia talk about her dad would evoke two very

strong feelings, either am I high right now? Or do I need to be high to listen to this? That's it. Otherwise, if you try to listen to her completely sober, you would need to grab a journal, a pen, because there are so many people, so many timelines, so much going on in the very complicated, twisty life that is Lawrence Ray, aka Talia's daddy. Is she like idolizing the dad? Oh, it's crazy. Is she like idolizing the dad? Oh, it's crazy. She's obsessed idolizing.

He is Jesus Christ himself. Lawrence Ray, Larry Ray, that's what the Marines would call him, Larry. He was very important as a Marine during his time. He worked hand in hand with the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency. You've never heard of the DIA? It's an intelligence agency. It's kind of like the CIA, but it's for the military. Yeah. Anyway, he was friends with some of the highest ranking generals in the Marines. Do you even know the

ranking system? Let me break it down. The highest rank in the Marines is a general. From there, there are tiers to this. The highest of the high being a 4-star general. Do you know how hard it is to achieve? There have only been 75 4-star generals in the history of the Marines. In the history! There can only be 60 generals in the Marines at any given time. Larry was friends with the most powerful generals, one of them being a 3-star general in the Marines that asked him to help with him in missions down in Cuba. But after the Marines is when he joins a different type of boys club, Wall Street. So everybody needs to listen up. He starts working as a

consultant on Wall Street, not just hanging out, but advising incredibly influential powerful military buddies, politicians, business owners. He would host these political fundraisers sometimes for big big names like Patrick Kennedy, which really kickstarted his political journey. Yeah, Larry Ray was friends with Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and also a former Trump associate, friends with the New York Police Commissioner Bernie Carrick, and perhaps the biggest fish Larry knew was Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union. Arguably, like I said, one of the most politically powerfully connected people of all time.

That's coming from the daughter? Yeah, and it's actually true. Right, right, right. And she's calling him Larry Ray? She calls him a mixture of dad, daddy, honey boy, and Larry Ray. Yeah, so like these are the types of stories that she would tell in the dorm rooms. And he was friends with all the generals as well?

Yeah, he was. Are we gonna learn- find out how? Yeah. Okay, okay. It's just unhinged. Because, I mean, Larry helped end the Kosovo War. Apparently, he helped negotiate it, which resulted in NATO- Yeah, NATO-

sending him a letter personally thanking him for his contributions like how insane is that? The roommates would just be standing in the kitchen in their pajamas Their eyes are still adjusting to the light. They just woke up. They're so hungover from last night's party Wait Talia. I was just trying to grab a bottle of water. I was just asking if you wanted one oh No, thanks. Have you heard of the Gambino crime family? My dad was an FBI informant for the, it would just never end. She was like a motion sensor camera.

If she saw you in her path, in her line of sight, and God forbid you make eye contact with her, she's gonna open her mouth in slow motion, and you would just know, either you better come up with a crazy excuse to get out of there, or you're gonna be sitting there listening to the very long, very complicated life story

of a middle-aged bald man, Talia's dad. So where is he? Does he visit? Is he, oh, he's in prison. So how the hell does this man who works with the DIA, the CIA, the FBI, all the three-letter acronyms, how the hell does he end up in prison? If you were to ever ask a question like that you better sit down because it's gonna take another few hours. Well the story starts once upon a

time with a man named Bernie Carrick, the police commissioner of New York City at the time. He was the police commissioner when 9-11, the tragedy happened. He was also best friends with Larry, Larry Ray. Well, long story short, let's just say Bernie opened up a bit too much and Larry knew a tad bit more than he was supposed to about 9-11, things that the public should not be privy to. And unlike Bernie, Larry wasn't gonna stand for that because he's a what? A truth-teller. Exactly. Unfortunately, that put a giant target on his back. Powerful people, I'm talking degrees of power that we can't even fathom possessing were after Larry.

Bernie Carrick, Rudy Giuliani, and then President of the United States of America at the time, George W. Bush and his Vice President Dick Cheney. Yeah. They first tried to ruin Larry's reputation and his life by going after the ones that meant the most to him, his two daughters. They made sure that Larry lost custody. They made sure that the girl's abusive mother, Teresa, had custody.

And when Larry broke that custody agreement by going to see Talia to make sure that she's okay, they threw him in prison. Which is smart, because now when he comes out of prison, whatever he says is just gonna be, "'Do you hear this guy? "'He sounds like a butt hurt felon, "'a conspiracy theorist against the system "'because it didn't work out for him. I guess you could call it a very bad situation of

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The students in attendance there would say, and this is according to them, most of the students there are maybe the kids that were outcast in high school. The nerdy ones or the artsy types. In Slannum Woods 9, an on-campus townhome, there are eight students living in the eight-bedroom building. The eight roommates are Talia Ray, aka Larry Ray's daughter, the one who can't stop foaming at the mouth to talk about her dad. You say eight-bedroom?

Yeah. Oh, so there's one dorm room with eight bedrooms. Yes. I mean, honestly, aside from Talia's slightly unsettling obsession with her dad, Talia's pretty normal. She's very pretty.

She's brunette, got these big big doll looking eyes She's probably the most unique out of her roommates. The other seven, they're really busy during sophomore year trying to find themselves Talia Rae already found herself. She already knew what she was gonna do with her life She was gonna go to law school and help whistleblowers like her dad. That was her whole life mission It's since day one. She was a little bit intense at times, but you have to admire her drive. Then you have Talia's best friend, Isabella. She is the complete opposite of Talia.

She's not close with anybody else in the house, except Talia. She's super shy. I mean, that's one way to put it. One roommate would put it this way. She's a social recluse. I mean, she hides a lot. She hides in her room. She hides with her hand. she always hides behind her hair that's hanging in front of her face. she really only had one friend, talia. that's it. so we have daddy's little girl talia, super shy isabella, and then santos. santos is talia's boyfriend. everyone describes him as being the puppy of the friend group.

everyone who knew him said he really just kind of behaved like a puppy. If he was happy, you would see it. If he was sad, you would see it on his face. There was almost an innocence to Santos and like a puppy, he would kind of just trail after Talia. Whatever she's doing, Santos is doing. So we got daddy's little girl, Talia, super shy Isabella, sweet Santos, and now Claudia. Claudia is like the one from the beginning of the story. She is a true artist of the friend group. Her room is probably the messiest.

She has a very chaotic way of thinking which can sometimes be overwhelming, but other times she just has these creative moments where crazy things happen and just like every good artist she always looks like she's going through it she looks like a tortured soul, in a sense daddy's girl Talia, super shy Isabella, sweet Santos, artist Claudia, and then Daniel this is one of the key people in today's episode but also the author who wrote the memoir that was an invaluable source for today's episode so keep that in mind he's also in Slalom Woods, and so is his girlfriend Raven

Raven is kind of the unofficial ninth resident. She does not have her own room but she's always in Daniel's room so practically she's living there at one point. That makes five roommates. There's still three more. Gabe, Max, and Juliana. They are not the focal point of today's episode because they'll eventually break away from this group.

All because of one question. This is what triggers all of this this is what starts it all guys do you guys mind if my dad stays with us for a few nights he's getting out of prison finally and he needs a place to crash before he finds his own the seven roommates and an unofficial roommate Raven they're all kind of staring at Talia yeah sure I mean it's just a few days until he can find his own place. What could possibly go wrong? Is the dorm like a house or? A townhome.

Townhouse, yeah. And there's eight different rooms in this house? It's kind of crazy. It's on campus. The edge of campus. Now, the greatest day of Talia's life arrives. This is the one that she's been waiting for for the past two years of college. I mean it's a pretty uneventful day for everybody else at Slalom Woods. The door to Slalom Woods 9,

the townhouse, slams open, Talia screams, jumps up, starts booking it towards the door, and then she's jumping almost in mid-air into her dad's arms. 50-year-old Larry Ray. It's not what everyone was expecting. I don't know, you hear Marines parachuting, doing missions. He sounds like James Bond, so you're expecting James Bond. But he looks, he looks like a dad. He's on the shorter side. I mean, I guess more so average height. His head is very cleanly shaven, like a boiled egg.

It was practically sparkling in the sun, like somebody greased it. His neck was almost as thick as his head. His little chest hairs are sticking out of his polo shirt. The way that he wears his shirt, it's tight in all the places that make his, quote, pudgy frame look intimidating. And even though he's short, he's the type of man that makes you feel like you're looking up at him when you talk to him, even though you're looking down. He has this really strange presence.

He honestly looks like he could have been part of the mob, especially now. He's standing there holding his daughter in his arms, and there's two people standing behind him. One is an Asian man wearing a pinstripe suit with a ponytail that comes down to his back. And the other is a young, quote, tan, sharp edged man that Larry introduces as a Marine.

Now, each one of these three men, they shake hands with every single roommate. It felt very adult and massively out of place at Sarah Lawrence. Hello, nice to meet you. We've heard such great things about you, Mr. Ray. How old are the two men, the Asian man and the other man? The other man, the Marine, is about the same age as the college students. 20? The Asian man is like in his 50s as well. Yeah.

Very strange. Everybody's upbeat and polite except Isabella, who is just standing off to the side. There is never any emotion on her face, which is nothing new for her. She usually has the type of expression that doesn't particularly welcome people to start a conversation with her. But Larry doesn't care. He immediately swings his arm around Isabella, almost startling her. Thank you for being a friend at Hall when she needed you. He looks at the rest of the group and smiles. Now let's make you some real food. That night they would eat steak for dinner, freshly grilled filet mignon, courtesy of Larry Ray.

The first few weeks of Larry Ray in the house, Talia's dad, was honestly nice. I mean despite the fact that everyone was under the impression that he was just gonna stay there until he found his own place, which, I don't know, would probably take like a week or two max, if you ignore all of that, it was kind of nice having him in the house. There was always food. Nobody was hungry. He would put on one of Talia's pink, frilly aprons to do the dishes. The whole place was always super clean when Larry was around. I mean, this is super nice change. This is a group of kids that wanted to buy these. This is a real idea they had before Larry Ray came. They wanted to buy bags of sand, pour them into the kitchen floor and turn it into a beach.

What? Yeah, so... I've never heard that before. It was a lot cleaner. It was pleasant. Kind of felt like home. Not in the cheesy way, not like, oh, daddy's home. It feels like home.

But you would walk into the building and there would be smell of fresh cooked vegetables baked in the oven, asparagus and steak. There'd be music playing. And unlike most dorm setups where you go in and you're like, oh, someone's eating steak that smells so good, you'd walk into the kitchen and Larry, this former Marine, has this cute little pink apron on, come, sit, did you eat? Eat with us, come on.

It's like a little family and then you sit down and you just get dinner. You get dinner and a story, actually. While they ate, he would tell them stories about his work as an international CIA operative and how he recovered Stinger missiles off the black market and engineered the ceasefire and the Kosovo war. I mean, it's so nice. It does take a little bit of getting used to that Talia calls her dad honey boy and he calls her honey girl, but it's kind of cute after a while right

now daniel comes home late one night and the minute he steps into the town home he spots the white styrofoam containers that are stacked up in the kitchen ever since larry got here they always have an endless supply of lasagna and italian takeout and as he's walking in santos and a few of the other roommates are standing around looking very concerned. Their arms are crossed, they're almost whispering, but when they see Daniel, they kind of hush. Like they can't talk about whatever it is in front of him. Santos turns to Daniel. It's about Isabella. Sorry, we can't really talk about it, but she's having a really hard time and Larry

is helping her. Daniel glances at his watch. It's almost midnight. And he saw Larry go into Isabella's room before he left, which is at the beginning of the day. He's been in there, what, like 16 hours? Larry would stay there the rest of the night. The next day, some of the roommates would walk by Talia's room. The door would be wide open. They would peek their heads in, and inside, Larry and Isabella are sitting on Talia's bed and Larry would just softly stroke Isabella's hair and he's whispering in her ear,

almost in like a hypnotic pacing over and over. Shh, nobody's gonna hurt my baby girl. Nobody's gonna hurt my baby girl. This is his daughter's best friend. What? Larry naturally becomes the closest to Isabella because this is Talia's best friend. What? Larry naturally becomes the closest to Isabella because this is Talia's best friend and Santos, Talia's boyfriend. Isabella loves being around Larry. I'm just gonna say it like that. Isabella had never seen

anyone buy that many groceries before ever in her entire life. She grew up on food stamps where you have to watch every single item that you get. She had to stand there in aisles staring at snacks that she can't buy while her mom is crunching the numbers to see if they're gonna go over the food stamps limit. I mean, one of the first things Larry did when he got to Slalom Woods was take the whole group grocery shopping to stock up their pantry. Isabella had walked over to a bag of chips and she was just checking the price. You like those?

Oh, yeah, but we'll throw it in the cart. Isabella thought it was kind of crazy. It caught her off guard. With Larry, she could just buy whatever trip she wanted to. And that felt nice. How does Larry have the money for that, if he just came out? He might be worth like millions of dollars.

Listen, there's so many court documents that we FOIA'd for this one. Wow, there's like this whole thing. He owned a lot of domain names. This is when domain names were selling for a lot of money. He had 8,900 domain names. And according to some of the court documents, if he were to sell them, they could amount to millions of dollars. I don't know if he was actively selling them though.

So he bought a lot of domain to flip them later. Yes. Wow. But he also is just kind of a scam artist. We'll get there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So for Santos, he just felt very lucky to be there. Honestly, he just felt lucky that Talia was dating him. She's so pretty and so socially competent and confident in herself. They met in Roman literature class and one day after class, santos had walked up to talia and very nonchalant, super confident, he just said, we should grab lunch sometime it was so bold, i don't know what possessed santos because he had never done anything like that in his whole life but talia said yes

this would be santos's first ever relationship and the other roommates knew that it wasn't gonna end well they said Talia and Santos's relationship centers around one very crucial exchange Santos is a great listener and Talia is someone who needs to be listened to but now that Larry's here Santos finally has someone to listen to him Larry would sit down with Santos and for for the first time ever, he just felt so understood. Which is kind of crazy. Larry would just calmly, in this fatherly, very preacher-like voice,

your mother and father did not pay attention to you, since as long as you can remember, yes? The drive was to get love and attention from them, and the effect that has on you, you've become uncertain. How? How did you know? Santos, I know you. I see you. Once Larry started having these deep conversations with Isabella and Santos, all the other roommates start noticing the two of them change. I mean, it was pretty drastic. Isabella was a completely new person at this point. She went from using her hair as blackout curtains Like she would just mope around campus

Kind of off-putting honestly, but they said the best word to describe Isabella after Larry is very vibrant She was just engaged in everything. She seemed fully there now I mean you'd be in a conversation with her and you'd be who is this girl? This is not the girl that we used to know this is wild There's almost this twinge of jealousy from some of the other roommates. If that's what Larry can do for Isabella, what can he do for me? That's so fascinating that sometimes all it takes is someone to talk to you, encourage you, and then you can be a whole new person. Yeah. Isabella's mom almost drops her phone when she hears Larry on the other end. What did this man just say to her?

Look Cindy, I don't know if you knew this, but your daughter was molested when she was younger. Isabella's mom is so confused, what the hell is this man talking about? It's almost winter break, this is one of the few times Isabella will fly in from New York to Texas to be with her family and now this man, Isabella's best friend's dad, is on the phone telling her that her daughter is not going to be coming home for Christmas because she was essayed by a family member as a child? Cindy is pacing the room now. What are you talking about?

I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, and she, look, it's been, she's brought it up recently to me that if she has to go back home for winter break, she's going to self-exit. Cindy goes quiet on the other end. She feels like she's been thrown for a loop. She has zero idea what Larry is even talking about right now. Like what's going on? This is the first time that she's ever hearing that her daughter Isabella was...

I mean she was sad as a kid. Wait, but she thought it was the divorce and it was rough on her, but I mean she never mentioned being assaulted and Cindy thought that she was close enough with Isabella that she would want to trust her with that kind of information. Cindy, you were a terrible mother back then. You were negligent. You didn't protect your daughter. That was then. That's not today. Today you probably wouldn't let that happen but I'm letting you know if she comes home for winter break she might self-exit. She doesn't want that so of course Isabella doesn't need to come home if that's the situation.

She would never force her daughter to come home if something like that's gonna happen. She just wants to talk to Isabella, figure out who, I mean when, how, how can she help Isabella now? But Larry refuses. She tries to reason with him. If Isabella doesn't want to talk to me, I mean how are we gonna get this stuff straightened out if she doesn't just talk to me? You see, the thing is, you got to understand this properly. Nobody is going to convince her to talk to you. I couldn't even do that, Cindy. I swear, the only thing I care about right now is helping Isabella. Larry promises Cindy, parent to parent, he's going to take real good care of Isabella. He's going to help her. Cindy would not hear from her own

daughter for the next 10 years and by then Isabella would be in prison. Larry would stand in the living room of Slahnam Woods, his chest all puffed up like a peacock. You have power over your mind, not outside of vents realize this and you will find strength who wrote that they all respond Marcus Aurelius exactly Larry had two favorite people in the whole world Marcus Aurelius the Roman Emperor that was one of the most influential stoic philosophers of all time and Larry those were Larry's two favorite people in the world the way Larry starts brainwashing the kids is insidiously slow. Nobody even sees it coming.

After dinner, the roommates would grab these giant pillows off the couch, throw them on the floor, pile them up just like this massive cushiony pile, and with their little snacks, Larry would start playing Cosmos on the TV. Exploration is in our nature. We begin as wanderers and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the horses of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself. Whoa. Their eyes would be glued to the TV and then suddenly it would go black. Larry would have turned it off which means it's time for one

of his nether lectures. He's like the little town home's own professor. Society's moving. You're in it. There's lots of options, which way you're going in this moving entity called society, right? Look, you have to be a person that you're capable of being. Your true self. That person, your potential is being held back or restrained or clouded right now. You need to just have the courage. Have the courage to ask yourself, Who am I? It sounds silly at first, but try it. He's a talker, huh?

Oh, they say the way that Larry exhausts you to death by talking, he yaps for hours until you don't even know why you got into this fight or what he's trying to convince you of. You're disagreeing to everything. You never know. You might learn something interesting. What does that even mean? That means every single person is capable of being and reaching their max potential as long as they get clarity to do so. But none of the kids at Slalom Woods 9 have that right now because their minds have been so cluttered and messed up and filled with all this gunk that's been conditioned to them by their friends, society, and their own family members. Larry could just tell that this group of students needed a lot of help.

He would call house meetings with the roommates. I mean, of course, the ones that liked him showed up. The other three, Max, Gabe, and Juliana, they thought it was so weird. Like a little lecture every night in the living room. Why would you come back from class just to go to another class with an unqualified professional? It feels like group therapy sessions, but without the therapist. Just like Talia's dad. It was weird. Larry would sit them down and one by one each student in the group would take turns talking about how much they want to self-exit. When it gets around to Daniel it's his turn to talk and he just sits there looking around. Oh um I don't really have he never really considered himself to be that sad I mean he gets sad but he never ever thought about. But Larry would interrupt him. You are too aren't you Danny? Just like all of us? Or all of them?

Uh, not really. I mean I'm sorry I guess I haven't ever tried or anything like that. Larry's smile slowly turns downward. Danny already know. You can just admit it. Daniel looks down at his hands. He's genuinely trying to think really log and hard. I mean, he doesn't recall every, I mean, do you ever have those feelings? Larry's looking at him. I know you do.

I mean, clearly Larry must've seen something in him, right? That maybe Daniel hasn't even realized. There was that one time that he was having this intrusive thought at the subway station where he was like, what if I just jump in front of the- But that's not really- But maybe it is. Maybe that's not normal.

Maybe that's what it means to want to self-exit. Oh my god. Do I wanna- Come on, Daniel. What do you want to say? Sometimes I don't want to exist anymore? Once he said those words, everyone around him starts nodding, and they start relaxing. It feels like he's one of them now and from that moment forward, Daniel starts believing through this conversation that something is wrong with him and maybe he wants to self-exit. Larry would tell them, do you see? Now we're all interconnected. You became interconnected the moment Talia

brought you all together at Swannum Woods. I have to protect my daughter and that means protecting all of you so you can trust me. As a father, as a man, I will keep you safe." Larry Ray was gonna fix them all. One of the roommates Raven, that wasn't really close with Talia or Larry, but this is Daniel's girlfriend, she said, it was so weird and also everybody's like a little bit stoned all the time So it's a moment of every time we would see it. We'd go am I weird or is this weird? We're really sure There was stone smoking weed all the time. So Raven and her friends are like, I mean, this is weird, right? But like maybe we're weird. I

Don't know what's weird anymore. It's just weird Larry always made sure everyone knew that them rooming together was not just pure chance or even just being good friends. It's because deep, deep down, every single one of them had a deep obsession with death. It was fate that brought them together with Talia and fate that Larry was Talia's dad.

It was written in the stars, Larry was gonna save them. Had it been anyone else's dad, it would not have worked. Larry had techniques to discipline the mind. He worked with the government. He knew the most powerful tools to help people. These kids were gonna be his new project, pro bono. Eventually he starts running the Ray family, he calls it, like a boot camp Marines approach. Everyone needs to be the best versions of themselves. So, every morning, they would wake up to this playlist that he puts together. Every morning, they had to listen to it. Everybody up at 7AM, on the ground, now.

The first day, it's 100 push-ups, the second day, it's 200, then a week later, 300, and by the end, they're doing 400 push-ups every single morning. "- You're kidding me. All of them? "- Most of them. "- They're able to do that? "- Yeah, which sounds crazy, but it also proves what Larry is saying, single morning. You're kidding me. All of them? Most of them. They're able to do that? Yeah, which sounds crazy, but it also proves what Larry is saying, that they're putting limitations on themselves before they even try.

Nobody believed that they could do 400 push-ups at the beginning of this, but Larry's right. So for the benefit of the group to help them, Larry would say, you need to give up full control because you don't even know what's good for you at this point. Larry slowly convinces them he needs to decide everything for them for the time being what they eat, what they do, what they talk about when they go to bed. And again, it's framed like a little mini boot camp. Do this now, bite the bullet now, suffer now, and you're going to come out way stronger on the other side.

This isn't forever. Truly everything he did on that campus was Marine style and some of it was truly goofy, if I can say so myself. They would have to clean the apartment, and he would make these spreadsheets similar to a Marine's operation document. And it would read, Mission Commander Larry, Team Members Isabella and Dan,

We have at our disposal three rolling black bins, one empty pink bin, one mostly empty black bin containing Larry's sweaters. I mean, even cleaning had to be done the marine's way but there was still one part of their training that Larry hadn't started and this would be the most important stuff he would ease them into it he did not bring this part up until he knew that they were fully ready to receive

he had them in the palm of his little sticky moist hands you know, there is something else. Side note, I do want to disclaim that these are Larry's words and they do not represent my thoughts or feelings, clearly, but just in case. Men will feel better when they start embracing their masculinity. Women will feel better when they embrace their femininity. Some of the girls here need to start wearing makeup more. Got it Claudia?

I'm looking at you. And men, you guys need to start wearing bright colored polos. Pink, red polos, because bright colors means you're embracing and you're secure in your own masculinity. This might be, and I don't know if I should keep going. No, we want to know more Larry. It's a progressive viewpoint, but everyone blossoms into an incredibly sexual person and wants to have sex. And this is just how humans are,

but we live in a puritanical society. The only way to be truthful with yourself and reach that level of clarity is to embrace your sexual freedom. The more you are open with your sexuality, the more honest you are with yourself. Larry tells them the quest for potential begins with sex re-education. Welcome to Larry's Bootcamp.

The instructions were very clear. Wear the shortest mini skirt, just the girls, well, minus his daughter. Wear the shortest mini skirt, the tightest one you can find. And if you don't have one, go buy one. Do not wear any underwear. Then go to store try on heels bend over and flash everyone in the store your private parts over And over and over again We so it's gotten to that point already like they're they're doing that. Yeah Wow, what about the daughter? What is she doing? Just hanging out in her room studying for

Also, she's not a part of this. No. But she knows. She has full clarity. Larry would say that because she was raised under him, she has full clarity. She doesn't need to go through a boot camp. But she's seeing this right now.

Yeah, pretty much. And what is she doing about it? Does she think this is cool? It's hard to know what she's genuinely thinking, because I think that she's been so brainwashed since Larry So she doesn't stop him if that's what you're wondering even though these are her friends. Yes Now that's just step one There's levels to Larry's sex reeducation camp

The next step is go to the bars find someone you think is cute Lower them into the restroom and perform oral while taking a video to show as proof for Larry how many people are doing this because he does this throughout the ten years so as of right now it'd be Isabella and Claudia do this but then it's most of it is actually focused later on Felicia but she hasn't entered the story yet okay so right now it's mainly two of the roommates. Yes. Okay. Now next, take a cab ride but when you get to the destination, pretend like you forgot your wallet and ask the taxi driver if there is any other ways to pay, like with sex. Or go to Home Depot,

Lowe's, one of those hardware stores, find an employee and beg them to have sexual relations with you in the stock room. Make sure you record that all for Larry as well. And then the final few steps would be the top tier self-growth potential stage, right? This is where Larry wants them to be. Either pick someone random off the street. The more old, the more disgusting and vile the man is, the better. Get them to have intimate relations at Central Park

while you record it. Or if you're really, really ready, go to government housing developments in New York City, find a group of men to quote gangbang you and record it. This part of the therapy sessions, the intimate relations with strangers is very important. It's pivotal in the girls growth as people. If they fail to do it, Larry is not opposed to making them sleep outside and not letting them back into their quarters. There was a time one of the girls came back with a video that was not great and

Larry just blows up on her screaming at her in front of everyone. Who fucking does this? Who goes and makes a video like this? You don't you can't even see anything. This is so fucking stupid. You're so incompetent. You're so useless. Are you sure you go to a good school? I thought you're college educated. I thought you're smart. Clearly not. And why is your skin so flabby? You look like a chicken. Do you know that? Is he genuinely just want to see a video like that or? He loves the shame. Larry would tell the girls that the man's genitals and the girl's faces had to be in the same frame and it had to be in very very clear view. The guy's face did not matter. All that mattered was the girl's faces had to be very clear and the actions had to be done very clearly.

Because again, it's the shame that he's getting off on. Then one day out of the blue Daniel breaks up with Raven. What? Well when I talk to Larry when I talk to Larry fuck Larry. Listen Raven he told me if I wanted to break up with you it wasn't fair to you or me for us to stay together. No, fuck you. Larry's a fucking creep and it's weird that he hangs around college students. It's fucking weird. Raven, Larry cares about me and he wants what's best for me. If you don't like what he has to say then logically you must not care about me. Oh go fuck yourself. At least I don't have to anymore. This would be the beginning of the great divide of roommates. Max, Gabe, Juliana, and Raven did not understand, first of all, why Larry is still living on campus in Isabella's room, not even his daughter's room, Isabella's room, after weeks of being out of prison.

Then, I mean, this is going against school rules, right? They'd be in big trouble, this whole thing is bizarre. And why is everybody else in the house treating him like some king of the land? Doesn't even make sense why he would want to spend all of his time with college kids. And the only other person on their side, kind of, is Claudia. Well, she was in the beginning. Raven's best friend. Claudia would joke with Raven about how strange Larry the Bod Guy was.

But then one day, Raven comes downstairs to grab some water. And there's Larry chatting up Claudia in the living room. Raven goes back upstairs, but when she comes back down a few hours later, they're still there in the same place. They've been talking for hours they haven't moved. But like is one silly conversation gonna do anything? That weekend, Raven and her friends are sitting around smoking weed, which… it's college, you get it. Oh Claudia Claudia, come, come! Normally Claudia partakes in these activities,

but this time she just stops in the doorway. Oh, no thanks, I can't because I'm schizophrenic. They all pause and they stare at her. Like, what did she just say? This is the first time they're ever hearing of this. Yeah, Larry told me I was. Raven's starting to feel agitated. Okay, that's enough, this is ridiculous.

You really have to stop listening to Larry. He doesn't know shit that he's talking about. You're fine. Claudia looks at her, her best friend, Raven, and tells her, you telling me that I'm not schizophrenic is only harmful to the process of me getting better. They don't even know what to say, but Claudia starts bringing up all these instances

from her childhood where she knew there were symptoms of schizophrenia, onset schizophrenia, I mean just stuff that she's never talked about before. Big childhood trauma life events that she's never mentioned until now. It almost felt fake, like she just made them up. And that was the moment they just knew. They lost Claudia to Larry. Raven could see her roommates falling for this old bald guy and she had no idea what the moment they just knew. They lost Claudia to Larry. Raven could see her roommates falling for this old bald guy, and she had no idea what the hell was going on.

I mean, worse than that, she can't even talk to them about it, because they would say that she's being strange. He's just like a dad. But clearly, clearly it's an unhealthy attachment. Clearly he's a manipulative person trying to use them. But the part that would drive her insane, the part that proved everybody else's point

that Larry was a good person, was they would scream at her, what on earth would he want from us? And to that Raven had no answer. The best way one of the roommates could describe it was, everyone at the beginning thought it was very weird, and then one by one he would get them alone, have these conversations, and suddenly they're like, oh, he's not so bad, to actually, he's pretty great. Actually, he's saving my life. Actually, he's the best thing that's ever happened to me. Actually, I'll never not listen to him.

Actually, fuck you, and I'll never listen to you if you talk bad about him. And all of it would happen so quickly. After sophomore year, Max, Gabe, Juliana, and Raven would part ways with the other roommates. They would all move out of Slalom Woods, and slowly they would all lose contact with each other. Until 10 years later, the group of four non-believing roommates would help bring Larry down.

Whaaaaat? After Slalom Woods 9, the group, Larry, his daughter Talia, her best friend and new girlfriend, Isabella, Talia's now ex-boyfriend Santos, Claudia, and Daniel would move into a one-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side off campus. So how many people are there? So it's Larry, Talia, Isabella, Santos, Daniel, Claudia, six in a one-bedroom apartment. Whoa. Their sleeping arrangements in the apartment were definitely a bit odd. In the bedroom on a singular king-size bed would sleep Larry, his daughter Talia, and her best friend and Larry's new girlfriend Isabella.

So three of them. Yeah. On the same bed. Everybody else, the entire living room floor was packed with either sofas, blow up mattresses, or these foldable mattresses just laid out on the ground like a giant bed. Everyone else was free to sleep there. Wait, so Isabella is like everybody knows that they're dating or sleeping together? It's pretty clear that they're sleeping together. Okay. Yes. Sometimes the others were asked to leave and go find a place to stay for the night for whatever reason. Most of their families did live in New York aside from Isabella, so they would sometimes go stay with their parents, but most of the time they would just sleep in the living room

and they would have all of their stuff stuffed into these tiny closets of this apartment the whole place was clutter but most nights Larry would kick everyone out of the bedroom even Isabella and Talia so he could call his girlfriend in LA he's got a girlfriend in LA Felicia Harvard graduate Columbia med school graduate doing her residency in psychiatry I believe at USC or a USC affiliated I'm not sure don't quote me on that. Larry would get all giddy on the phone to see what Felicia had done the night before if she had any videos to show him. Wait

so there's another college-ish girl college-age-ish girl? Yes. In California? Yes. How did he know her if he just came out of prison? We're gonna get into that. Okay. They're all connected. Okay. By this point, Larry has fully brainwashed the students into believing that they're all messed up mentally,

and they want to self-exit, and the only person that can save them from themselves is Larry, and he's doing this because these kids are his precious daughter's friends Outside of class, he's controlling every aspect of their lives What they eat, when they sleep, what they do all day, who they talk to He started sexually abusing the girls minus his daughter forcing them to record themselves having intimate relations with strangers But eventually he gets involved The threesomes- there's gonna be a lot of threesomes, the threesomes actually start as twosomes with Daniel and Isabella. One night in the cramped one-bedroom apartment, Daniel is falling asleep on the sticky leather couch in the living room.

Everyone else had left for the night, so just inside the room was Larry, Talia, and Isabella, and Daniel's alone in the living room. Which is kind of strange, but Talia's whole relationship with her dad is kind of strange a few weeks ago Daniel was giving Talia a massage when Larry had walked in and of course Daniel freezes because this is awkward he's got his hands on Larry's daughter on Larry's honey girl's shoulders and he knows how much they cherish each other so like is he about to get beat up right now but Larry just smiles I gotta show you how to do that properly sometime. Other times Larry would rant to Daniel. I would give Talia everything she wanted. That's what a father does, take care of his baby.

Teresa, my ex-wife, she didn't understand. So many people make the mistake of treating kids as kids as if they're fundamentally different beings, but they have it all already. Inside of them, it's all right there. They're the ones we should be learning from. There's no difference between an adult and a child. Larry would go on tangents about how he would... Yeah, about how he would... It's so alarming. He would take Talia to Bergdorf's, a high-end department store, when she was what, 10, 12? Buy her a $3,000 cashmere sweater from Loro Piana,

and she's gonna outgrow this sweater for a singular sweater, $3,000 cashmere sweater from Loro Piana and she's gonna outgrow this sweater for a singular sweater $3,000 Naturally Talia's mom would freak out because what she's gonna get it dirty or it's gonna get ruined in the washer like something What are you doing? But Larry would ask what's the moral of the story here? Larry would tell Daniel. Let me ask you this. Why wouldn't I want my honey girl to have something beautiful like that? Daniel, let me ask you this. Why wouldn't I want my honey girl to have something beautiful like that? She was expressing herself, her preferences,

her adulthood, her personhood, and her mom couldn't understand that at all. She was how old? Like 10. That wears a $3,000 sweater because she's expressing her adulthood? There are a lot of speculations online that I won't be repeating, but you can kind of draw your own conclusions.

Wow. It's definitely strange, but anyway, Daniel is trying to fall asleep on the leather couch when a little after 3am, the door to the bedroom creaks open and out walks Isabella. She's not really dressed. She's wearing this thin cotton shirt that barely covers anything. She starts creeping towards Daniel on the couch. Oh What is going on? That night she would engage in aura activities with Daniel. It's a very mixed feeling Daniel said on one hand He's a guy and like Larry said Isabella is stunning. She seems enthusiastic to be doing this They're both of age so technically there's nothing wrong with this situation.

But a part of him keeps looking over at the bedroom door where Larry and Talia are, and the room door is open. So it feels strange. It almost feels like Isabella was ordered to come out here and do this. And from that night forward, it just kept happening. Until Larry starts joining in. The first time Isabella and Daniel are alone in the bedroom having intimate relations. Of course, right at that moment when they're both unclothed, the door slams open and in walks Larry. He doesn't even appear shocked in the slightest at what's going on. He won't even acknowledge that they're naked. Okay?

He's just patting Daniel on the back. That's my boy Danny. Larry sits on the edge of the bed and starts going on one of these long winded rants. He would always have these lectures. What is the best way to have intimate adult relations? With Gregorian chants playing in the background. 13th century Gregorian chants. If you've never heard of it, there's no instrumentals.

It reminds me of Catholic choir music. It's using the echoes of voices and there's like a group of people singing I would imagine it's in a language like Latin right because 13th century. I don't know right, but it's a lot It's echoing off the cathedral walls. It's beautiful, but it's very haunting at the same time But this time Larry's rant is about Isabella Izzy loves watching explicit adult videos. She's obsessed with it. I bet you didn't know that Danny. I bet you thought no woman likes explicit videos, but most women are freakier than you and I. Izzy used to hate her body and she hated intimate relations. You wouldn't believe how many

women hate their private parts. It's a travesty really, a sad thing. And when I met Izzy she had one of the worst I'd ever seen. I mean it was awful down there. She didn't even wash it properly. When she would bathe, which wasn Izzy, she had one of the worst I had ever seen. I mean, it was awful down there. She didn't even wash it properly. When she would bathe, which wasn't often, she would just skip down there. Imagine that. Imagine the smell. I have incredibly sensitive sense of smell, Dani. The DIA called it superhuman. My nose? Superhuman. Wait, so they're naked right now? And he's talking?

Mm-hmm. Okay. You know the dogs? They got 40 times more sensitive noses than you and I. Think about that. Boy, the dogs would come running when Iz walked outside. They're naked right now? Yeah. He's talking? Mm-hmm. Okay. You know the dogs? They got 40 times more sensitive noses than you and I. Think about that. Boy, the dogs would come running when Iz walked outside. Isn't that right, Izzy?

What is going on? Isabella is listening to Larry. Like he's teaching her the ways to life or something, which is making Daniel even more uncomfortable. This is so degrading and mean, honestly. But Larry doesn't stop. He keeps going. In fact, he has Isabella turn on explicit videos

so that the three of them can watch them together. And before Daniel knew it, he's laying on the bed watching videos of two men and one girl. Nothing physical happened that day, but moving forward, it just became this reoccurring incident. The three of them in the bedroom and Daniel in these uncomfortable situations. And he was still uncomfortable when one day Larry walks over to his computer presses play. 13th century Gregorian music. So three of

them? Yeah. The group therapy sessions would continue in the new apartment and they actually got a lot more serious. Larry becomes fixated on each person's childhood trauma. How much trauma they must have endured for them to end up so messed up the way they are now. Their brains are scrambled. Even if they insist. Nothing really happened in my childhood. Truly. Like nothing traumatizing. Larry would say, I know deep down. All those vivid assaults. You were essayed. And I know that you're just repressing it. He would tell them what happened to them. Rapid fire.

Your parents sold your bodies while you were a child. You were abused by your family members. You blocked it all out because that's what the brain's natural response to heavy trauma is. But that's why you have these intense emotions of wanting to self-exit, because you're different from other kids your age, because you were assaulted. That's why. What can the kids even say? I mean, it kind of made sense sense and this guy used to work for the DIA and the CIA. He's seen all sorts of people. He knows way more about the human mind and the psyche than these sheltered college kids can even understand.

It would even get to the point where there's a video of this. One of the victims is having a panic attack and she's on her knees crying on his lap while he's just sitting there in a purple robe his chest hair is practically out and she's screaming Larry please please save me from myself Larry please please help me save me from myself don't let me do this to myself please please make me stop Daniel even wrote a poem later to pour out all these very complicated feelings and it starts off we assume most people weren't molested as children but what if they were all of them and it was such a scarring experience that no one remembers after all aren't the most disturbing things the ones most likely to be blocked out by

the psyche Daniel said at the time it made complete sense Larry said all of these things were just repressed and hidden in the bottom of their deep dark wells of their memories. Interestingly enough though, these mental health sessions, the interrogations rather, once they serve their purpose of making the students believe that they were abused by their family members, which would ultimately isolate them

from their family members, and they would mentally be broken beyond repair, they quickly went from, let's talk about our feelings, how can we help this person's mental health, to what did this person do to sabotage the group, huh? Larry starts claiming that not only do all of them harbor deep rooted trauma that they've blocked out, but now, now they're acting out, okay? They're sabotaging because they want to harm the progress of all the other members i love every season but summer nights just hit different like i don't know about the day but the

night time is a little bit nicer there's something about the warmth that makes everything feel so much better the only bad part about late nights in the summer is late mornings the next day I always wake up feeling so dehydrated like a dried-up prune And that is why liquid IV is a staple in my summer morning routine Liquid IV is the number one powdered hydration brand in America and for a reason It has three times the electrolytes of the leading sports drink plus eight vitamins and nutrients in a single in a stick that is so convenient to use. I always keep a few sticks of liquid IV in my kitchen counter so that I just never forget to make a glass of liquid IV

with breakfast. It is the perfect way to start the day. I feel fresh and hydrated. I even feel like my skin looks better when I remember to take liquid IV. And it's just so simple to make. You just grab a glass of water, you tear, pour, live more. The liquid IV sticks are also super convenient to just carry around. Just throw a few in your car. I throw them in all of my bags, especially my travel bags, because when you're traveling, trust me, it just helps counteract the airplane error. But my favorite part about Liquid IV is that it tastes like a summer treat. My summer staple is the raspberry melon or the white peach. I really like the raspberry melon. I recently got on that kick and I feel like the flavor is just made for summer.

It's sweet with a hint of tartness and I have no idea how they make it sugar-free with no artificial sweeteners. Well, actually, I do have an idea. They use a proprietary allulose blend, which has the same texture and sweetness as sugar but without any of the calories. Liquid IV sticks are also non-GMO, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free. So turn your ordinary water into extraordinary hydration with Liquid IV. Get 20% off your first order of Liquid IV when you go to liquidiv.com and use code ROTEN at checkout. That's 20% off your first order when you shop better hydration today using promo code ROTEN at liquidiv.com Do you believe that objects can be cursed? There's this pan set in Larry's

apartment that just keeps over and over again getting ruined. Little hairline scratches, markings, burn marks at the bottom. Someone in the apartment is doing this. The first time it's scratched, it's a mistake. The second time, it's on purpose. The third time, someone is out to get Larry. Someone is here to sabotage Larry and the rest of the group.

Who the hell is it, huh? Larry would call a house meeting, force all the students to sit down. The top of his bald head is practically red. Every single thing I do is deliberate. Do you guys get that? There's no action that I take that I don't embrace as my own, that I would not put my signature on. Accountability. Do you know what that means? Do you? If you do something wrong, you have to be honest and be held accountable, so that you can be a real person in the real world and live a decent life. So who scratched my pan? He would tell the group,

Remember, you are the one that has hurt me. You are the herder and I am the victim of your hurt. Mistakes need to be addressed and they will get addressed. Did you do this Santos? Santos, I have a question for you. Did you damage my property? You are my friend. Larry, I didn't.

Now Santos, you did. I didn't, I don't even remember using. No, you remember. Think about it. Why don't you stop lying? Why would you do this to me? Do I deserve this? What kind of person does this kind of stuff?

Santos would sit there with all the eyeballs on him and he's so lost. I mean He used the pen a long time ago. He kind of remembers using it, but The scratch on there. Maybe it was formed when he was putting it away in an accident What or maybe he repressed the memory? Like he did with all of his trauma Maybe you're right. No Yeah, no, you're right. I did do that. And I'm sorry.

And like you said, it's not the objects that are important, it's what they mean to the person who owns them. Exactly. Do you feel that I'm holding you accountable? Yeah. And how does that feel? Feels good. It feels good.

Thank you, Larry. Everyone in the room would smile, and Larry would pat him on his back. You did great. You're being honest, straightforward, and you're being forthcoming. This is a breakthrough. So for the first few times, Larry was holding them accountable and they felt like adults. But by the third time, Larry would scream at them, force them to write detailed written confessions. One from Claudia reads,

Larry has stuck by me through years of me confronting my own demons. We were all angry, frustrated, looking for our parents' attention for one reason or another. We all took it out on Larry and Talia. The apartment is such an unbearable mess that it's impossible to move without tripping over something. But we broke things on purpose, hid things on purpose, threw important papers out, hid food so that it would get moldy. We did anything we could to delay and sabotage Larry's efforts. Some examples include breaking Larry's $8,000 stove, throwing his power tools on the floor, ruining Talia's Loro Piana sweaters.

Yeah. We scraped the bottom of a $500 pot with a wire steel brush so that it would get ruined. To which everyone remembers Larry screaming about this pot that they allegedly kept ruining. He would scream, you owe me for that. That's an all-clad from William Sonoma. Get on your laptop and look at how much that costs right now. Tri-ply stainless steel. Make sure you find it.

What exactly is going on with these pods? Is it getting scratches for no reason? I guess it could be from Larry. But they're like hairline scratches. It could have been there all along Okay, it says the pot is $200 not for the pot the whole set $1,200 that's not right. It was $1,800 when I bought them. I don't forget things. Do I ever forget things and Now that would be at least $1,800 that you owed Larry. And you never want to be in debt with Larry.

Santos' mom is technically the one that all her friends are jealous about. She and her husband immigrated from the Dominican Republic. They have three kids, and all three kids, I mean, incredible schooling. Eldest, Harvard undergrad, Columbia med school. Middle child, Columbia youngest, Santos, Sarah Lawrence

their family is the success story everyone in their hometown in the Dominican Republic talks about and one day Santos rushes into his mom's work he ignores everybody that's waving at him he just rushes up to his mom, he's purely panicked mommy, I need money I need to pay Larry for something I broke

house stuff, I need money now, please Santos' mom is staring at his eyes I mean she had never seen him like this. He just looks so utterly desperate. I don't have any money until I get paid Santos. I need money. I need money right now. Let me see what I can do. She asks her boss for an early lunch and she grabs Santos, her purse, and they walk a few blocks in silence to a local pawn shop. She reaches up to her ear, puts her earring on the glass table, her other one, and then her necklace.

Her most sentimental earthly possessions would be pawned for just $750. She didn't know it yet, but her son had taken out loans, opened up credit cards, racked up debt to pay back Larry for property damage. They would just- How much was total? Do you know? $48,000 starting. For what?

Larry would have Santos write down a list of everything that he had damaged and it was practically anything that he came in contact with in the entire apartment. And he would believe it or he would do it because Larry would keep these kids awake for 48 hours at a time because remember he controlled when they sleep and what they eat most of the time he was starving them keeping them sleep deprived exhausting them with these very long-winded emotionally draining lectures and therapy sessions where they have to dig into their psyche and come

up with these memories that were repressed as them being assaulted as children. They had no mental guards up, no barriers up at this point. So at that point he's like you owe me $48,000. And Santos is like okay I will drop out of college and get a job. He drops out of college to get a job. So is he doing this for the money for the $48,000 or a lot of it just for control and manipulation? A little bit. For Santos, Santos is really the only one that's paying him. Okay, so everyone else is not paying him money. Not much. It's more so the humiliation and the control. So with Santos too, this is mostly for the control and humiliation.

Yeah. Larry would get so riled up that, oh oh one time he would grab one of his sharpest knives He would start jabbing it in the air towards Daniel who is bawling his eyes out on the kitchen floor And he's flinging this knife around screaming at Isabella go line the tub with plastic now. I'm gonna cut him up Daniel felt in that moment Larry was not lying. He was gonna kill and dismember Daniel. He falls to his knees on the ground and he's just so broken. He's sobbing. He doesn't even know what to say. That is when Larry puts the knife down, picks him up and wipes his tears off. If you trust me Danny boy and stop ruining my stuff and pay me back for what you've already ruined, you're gonna be okay. You're gonna be better than okay. But you need to trust me. You need to let go of fear before you can achieve

clarity. The punishments were escalating as well. Santos would just wake up in random positions. His body would be pretzeled on the ground. His head would be ringing. His vision would be blurry. And Larry would just be standing over him. He had put him in a chokehold until he passed out. What? The first thing Santos would hear from Larry when he came to would be, did darkness envelop you? He would just sit there and taunt Santos for being a quote, bitch, trash, hemorrhoid scum. And if that wasn't humiliating enough, Larry would force Santos to crawl around the apartment on all fours like a dog. If you brought home food, take out for the family, and it had gone cold because he sent you to a

restaurant that's like 50 minutes away, Larry would accuse you of trying to sabotage everything that he's done and add that to your debt. A thousand dollars for emotional distress. He would grab you by the face and slam you onto the ground. By this point, everybody was too scared to leave, but also they felt grateful that after every horrible traumatic thing that they did and went through as kids, why would anyone want to be around them? Why would anybody want to help? They were just thankful that Larry saw potential in them. So is this like years later now? This is like junior and senior year.

Oh, so they're still going to school? Yes. While doing this, okay. Now, one of the worst nights in the apartment was Daniel had been accused of distracting Talia on purpose so that she would be late for her law school application. So this would be senior year. For that, Daniel would have to pay. Larry is holding up this contraption that he put together. It looked like a plastic snake. I imagine the way to make this invention of his is to get cling wrap, plastic foil, the ones that you use to wrap dishes that need to be saved, right? Lay it down on the kitchen counter, grab aluminum foil, rip out a large piece, start sectioning them off into smaller pieces, and roll them into very tight aluminum balls,

and then he would put them equal distance apart on the plastic wrap in a single file line. Then he would roll the plastic wrap up like a piece of sushi. I mean, technically, cling wrap alone, aluminum foil alone doesn't seem too bad. But now Larry's smiling, looking at everyone, holding up this long, thin makeshift rope. This is a garrote. I often had to improvise torture devices in the course of my intelligence career, and this is a very effective one. So you know how serious this is, Danny.

You're gonna tell me exactly why you were driven to sabotage Talia's law school applications. He then forces Daniel to wrap the plastic and aluminum foil around his privates. Give me the ends. Until Daniel gave Larry the answer he wanted, Larry would pull tighter and tighter and it's like a guessing game. What does Larry want this time? Does he want an apology? Does he want to see you break down? Does he want some strange backstory? Does he want confirmation? One time Larry wouldn't stop until Santos admitted that he wanted to kill Talia and disfigure her entire face for breaking up with him

Eventually Larry would grab a knife from the kitchen counter slice it in front of Daniel's face not cutting him but getting really close Nobody had ever seen him this serious before. And Daniel blurted out, I found a baby bird in the driveway when I was younger. Larry stops. When I was a kid, I found the baby bird and it was so injured, so I picked it up and it was in my hands and then I just started crushing it. And I think that's when my trauma developed.

Larry pauses and smiles. This is what he wanted. He didn't know that Daniel had lied about the whole thing. He was just giving Larry exactly what he wanted to hear. What does he want to hear? Just traumas? Just stories? Yeah. The second Felicia, Larry's girlfriend from LA, steps into the one-bedroom apartment crammed with all these people living there. She can't help but feel like I'm a Harvard, Columbia-educated physician who already started her psychiatric training. I'm gonna be living in this shithole apartment with these other people's crap everywhere, and because of tight spaces, or whatever bullshit reason Larry is

coming up with, Felicia finds out the day she moves to New York City that she's not gonna be sleeping with her boyfriend alone. She said, and I'm sleeping with Larry and this other woman, Isabella, it's gonna be the three of us in the bedroom, me, Larry, and Isabella. He did not allow us to sleep with clothes on. So we're all just naked in the bed, and Larry would sleep in the middle, face up. Isabella and I are on each side. Isabella sleeps with her hand on his genitals.

This is supposed to be my boyfriend. And then I'm sleeping with him and this girl, and this girl has her hand all up on his stuff, and I'm just supposed to be okay. Larry would be like, oh, she's just more comfortable that way. I'm helping her through trauma. What's the big deal? Aren't you a smart, educated, liberated woman? The whole situation was an ideal.

Felicia noticed how strange the actual apartment was. Not just their sleeping arrangements, but the fridge and freezer were padlocked. The only ones that could access food were Larry and Isabella. Talia had moved out by this point to make room for Felicia. But still, there was no door handles on the bathrooms. You can't even fully shut it. Even if you manage to hold the door closed somehow, all someone has to do is bend down

and stick their face into the gaping hole to see what you're doing. There was no privacy anywhere. Felicia moves in a few weeks away from taking her exam where she would become a fully licensed medical doctor. This would be the beginning of everything falling apart. Once she settles in, Larry takes her documents, the ones from residency that are very important for her future. He tears them up and throws them 150 feet out the window. 150 feet with a zami.

Oh, because they're on like a high rise. Just to the ground. Oh. And now she's stuck sleeping in the same bed as her boyfriend and a woman named Isabella while her little brother Santos is sleeping on the floor in the living room. Felicia Rosario, Larry's girlfriend from LA, the Harvard and Columbia med school graduate, is Santos' oldest sister.

All three Rosario siblings, Felicia, the Harvard grad, Yelitsia, the Columbia University student, and Santos, the Sarah Lauren student, would all get brainwashed by Larry Ray. First it was Santos, and very early on, he had asked his sister Yelitsia to meet Larry. He could just tell Yelitsia was not adjusting well to Columbia and Larry had been so helpful with just helping everyone access their repressed memories and try to find healing. It's not weird, it's normal, you know? It's a low commitment. Just visit Santos at the apartment that he lives in, meet Larry, his counselor, and when Yelizia walks in, the entire place is cluttered. But it's not filthy, it's just jam-packed.

You really have to balance on one foot before you take the next step to avoid stepping on something or someone. There were so many bodies in there, but Yelizia loved it. There was this chaoticness. In the kitchen, Larry would be cooking up steak. The TV is playing Cosmos. And in another corner, there's two kids debating things

like the ship paradox. If a ship has all its parts gradually replaced over time, is it still the same ship? On the dining table, there's two college kids proofreading each other's law school applications. There's another kid in the corner reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. From the moment that she stepped foot into that apartment, she was in love with it. It feels like if you come from a family where you don't have family dinners and the house is always depressingly quiet, then you go over to your friend's house and there's always people around, the TV is playing, the parents are cooking and there's sodas in the fridge. It feels so nice. On top of that, Yelizia

felt really out of place at Columbia, but here, nobody's judging her. They would tell her, we're all here for the same reason as you are. We're working on figuring out who we are. There is something to be said about the fact that Larry is specifically going after college students with high education. I mean, surely there's a proximity factor where this is who he has access to through Talia. But Larry gets off on taking these highly intelligent, academically gifted kids with a lot of potential ahead of them, bending and breaking them until they're nothing.

Larry had Santos, he had Yelizia now, but he still wants Felicia Rosario. The eldest Rosario sibling, the one with the highest academic standing, is Larry's biggest catch. For weeks, he's waiting for Felicia to visit her siblings from LA. He has this entire plan mapped out. People say Larry's like a chameleon. He can change into whatever you want him to be. And Felicia just wants someone to eat White Castle with? That was one of their first dates. After a few gatherings with the whole family, this was like one of their first dates alone, they would get burgers from White

Castle. And just the two of them, no limo driver, no Isabella, no little brother, were parked on the side of the street eating White Castle and just the two of them, no limo driver, no Isabella, no little brother, were parked on the side of the street eating White Castle and watching the sunrise. The whole car smelled like greasy fries, but Felicia could not stop smiling. I mean, this was the moment that she realized, I'm gonna marry this man. Her brother's ex-girlfriend's father. From that day forward, they would refer to each other as wife and husband. Some netizens found it strange that Felicia would fall in love with Larry so quickly, but I think the best way to describe it is,

imagine if Felicia studied painting her whole life. She's constantly surrounded by these other students who have gone to school to paint, and there are nonstop conversations about which colors go best in theory, with which pigments, which types of oil paints are used for what mediums. It's very technical and they're spectacular, the best of the best. But then one day she casually meets a guy and it feels like he was born to be an artist. Like he doesn't know the technical terms for the pigments and the canvases, but he just gets it. It feels like he can at least keep up with her. Perhaps he can even teach her a new perspective.

It's very exciting. He just knows so much about the human brain, about human psyche. So they do this whole long distance thing. And it starts with them on the phone talking to each other every single night. Most days they would talk to each other multiple times. Larry would give Felicia updates on how her younger siblings are doing.

But slowly the conversations, they start getting more romantic, more sexual. Until Larry is trying to tell her you need to go to a bar and have sex with a man and record it. Wow. Yeah. Is she dead or no? Yes and it would happen very slowly. First it was how many people have you slept with and I think the age thing also factors in. He just made it sound like you need to experiment more before you figure out what you want.

He also played a lot into the fact that they all go to good colleges. They're well-educated. They must be liberated. They must be free thinkers and not bound by the traditional norms of society. He'd really tap into that. norms of society. He'd really tap into that. And Felicia would listen because well Larry is the only person there to protect her from the people that are trying to kill her. Santos and Yelizia are sitting in the living room in New York when Larry slams the door open and runs in. We got to get your sister out of

LA. What? What's wrong with Felicia? What happened? Is she okay? He puts his phone on speakerphone and they hear their sister sobbing like they've never heard her. This is their eldest sister in a not financially well off immigrant family. She's practically a parental figure for them. She's the epitome of older sibling who has their life together. But she can barely talk right now. Hi, I'm crying because I'm so scared. They're gonna do something to me. Santos and Yelizia are confused. Who is they? What are you scared about? Why is nobody answering us?

Instead, Larry just shouts into the phone. You're not gonna answer the door for anyone without me on the phone, okay? When they hang up, Santos and Yelizia are demanding. Well, not demanding. You don't demand anything of Larry. But they're asking him to clarify what the hell is going on, and they keep getting these very vague answers. Felicia's been so scared, she set up cameras all inside the apartment. She even gave Larry access online to watch her and keep her safe. She's been so paranoid she won't even sleep in her room. She's dragged her mattress out to the living room and the Rosario siblings are still like, that doesn't answer the question. But all Larry says is, Felicia is scared someone is in LA trying to come for her.

They want to hurt her because she's dating me. It's unclear as to who these people even are, but it's very very serious. It's life or death. In comes Operation Save Felicia. That's how she moves to New York City. It is the only place that she will be safe. Felicia is sitting on the black leather couch and Santos, her little brother, is standing next to her, next to the couch. And anytime Felicia does anything, I mean, her hair is tangled, she lifts her arms up, she looks very distressed.

She opens up her mouth and Santos's right hand lifts up and he slaps himself across the face as hard as he can. Wait, what's happening? Felicia is on the couch. She's very frustrated. She's trying to get up. She's trying to talk. And every time she moves, Santos slaps himself on the couch. She's very frustrated. She's trying to get up She's trying to talk and every time she moves Santos slaps himself across the face her little brother slapping himself Mm-hmm. Okay, Felicia has a pretty visceral response to that

she cries out in frustration in pain and Why is her little brother doing this to himself? But any single reaction Felicia would have Santos would slap himself across the face again Because this is what Larry told him to do. Make sure Felicia does not leave that couch for eight hours. Make sure she does not speak, does not make a sound, or else. It was Felicia or Santos, and both of them would lose to Larry. By the end of the day, Santos had stood there for seven hours.

His face was so swollen and red he was unrecognizable. A few weeks after that, Santos tried to self-exit. The three Rosario siblings are sitting in front of Larry. Do you remember your parents used to use a lot of cash to pay for things growing up? Each one of them nodded. I mean it was making sense. Everything Larry was saying, their parents were running a drug-dealing empire back and forth from the Dominican Republic and the United States. That's why they always had cash on them.

But not only that, Mr. Rosario, their father, he liked to essay his two daughters growing up. Now, I do want to disclaim clearly this is all a lie. The Rosario parents run a small travel agency and a grocery store and they had a lot of cash growing up, likely because they were probably getting paid under the table because they're immigrants or trying to find whatever job they can. They're not heroin dealers and they did not essay anyone. They're a disadvantaged immigrant family that worked hard to save enough money to buy a house in the Bronx and then proceeded to spend every last dime trying to give their kids the best education possible. But Larry doesn't care. He convinces them that their

parents are evil, filthy, vile, disgusting beings and they actually know Larry. The Rosario parents know Larry and want to kill him because he knows about their illegal dealings. Larry used to work for the CIA and the DIA. Of course he read the Rosario case files. He recognized Santo since day one. That's why he took him in like a wounded bird. The Rosario siblings fully believe it. He would deprive them of sleep for multiple nights,

put them through these 36-hour long interrogations before convincing them that their parents were pure evil. They used to be incredibly close with their parents before Larry. Felicia would talk to her mom at least once a day but now the siblings refused to talk to their parents. Mrs. Rosario would say a little prayer before bed every single night. We pray our children come back safe wherever they may be. We put our hopes in you God. $200,000. That's how much the siblings would get from their parents to give to Larry. They would... What do you mean? Why? Because they owed Larry for property damage and for all these things that he

claimed that they did to him. At one point he accuses them of trying to poison him and the Rosario siblings feel like it's not even money that their parents should have It's blood money, it's heroin money, of course they deserve it And need to give it back to Larry because they're trying to kill Larry Because he knows what they're doing Wow Their parents, they sold their house They sold their house to pay this money for their kids

They look so desperate They flew back to the Dominican Republic to get loans to beg friends for money Yelizia said she wasn't thinking about her parents at that point because they were evil to her all she thought was Maybe if we can just get some money for Larry. He'll love us again. Maybe it'll be enough this time Maybe we still have a chance to be happy That would not happen because Felicia starts Descending into madness. It's been described as a regression into a childlike state. There's multiple video clips, it's heavily documented.

Even when she was still in LA, there's an audio clip of Larry harassing her on the phone, convincing her that there's scary, powerful people out there that are gonna come get her. And she just sounds purely exhausted, and he would be screaming, do you wanna die? I'm here trying to help you, you know? There's scary people out there, Felicia.

Right now, we are under attack. People are trying to kill us. In a video on the couch, Felicia is bawling her eyes out and Larry tells her, Felicia, you lost control a minute ago. Yes, I did. You're screaming at the top of your lungs. You said you're terrified. Why are you terrified? Because I'm afraid the people back in California, they told me if I didn't do what they wanted me to do, they were going to send people to kill me. It was people my parents have known for a long time. Is this true? Are you making this up? No, I'm not making it up I swear. I'm scared. I'm so scared. I'm so certain. I know that in my deepest. I know that deep down I know that they will kill me. They'll kill me your parents. Yes

My parents will kill me or they'll send like people like to kill me. You know, I know that I'm not making it up I swear to God. I swear to God. Oh my god. This is a nightmare Larry made sure that even if Felicia were to get proper sleep, food, and be in the right headspace that she would start realizing none of this makes sense Larry made sure that if that day ever came, she would have nothing to go back to He took sick pleasure in ripping apart her life that she sacrificed everything for There's a video of Felicia sitting at a dining table and she looks like she's having some sort of life-shattering realization. Her hair is a mess, it's unbrushed, one side of her face, her eye is super swollen

like she's been punched or someone slammed her head into something, her mouth is open, she slowly closes it and looks down at the table like she's about to start crying and Larry keeps questioning her. What's going on Felicia? Are you still there? What just happened? Did you realize something? Did you realize something? Yes. What is it? You want to tell us? I hate being irresponsible. The truth is I hate being irresponsible. That's not good. What have you done now, huh? It's not my character at all. What's going on? Hello? What's been going on? Can you tell me? My medical degree I could lose it

Effectively I can tell you that you've lost it. This behavior has gone too far Felicia. That's the truth now Felicia I'm only 31 years old and I can show you still that I can still be responsible That has nothing to do with your medical degree and I have nothing to say about your medical career It has nothing to do with me. It has to do with the state licensing board. You know that. Well, I can still behave, Larry, and I will show you that I can still behave. Felicia? Yes?

You need to shut up. And the video cuts. Soon after this, Larry would force her to send an email to the dean of Columbia Medical School, the dean of the school that she graduated from. The email reads, I graduated from Columbia with a medical degree in 2011. I'm writing today to have my degree revoked as I am in serious violation of the Hippocratic oath that I took upon graduating. I've been intentionally, maliciously, and fanatically

out to hurt others and destroy their lives as much as I can. I've done nothing but shameful and hurtful things, especially to the people who have most cared for me. He made her send that and every single day he would hold the videos that he forced her to take of herself having relations with strangers He would throw them in her face and tell her I will put this on the internet I'll personally send this to the medical licensing board and you will never practice medicine again You think I don't know people in powerful places? I know almost all the top general surgeons at all the top hospitals I personally know the Dean of Columbia. I was a CIA informant.

Are you kidding me? I knew Gorbachev. In another video, Felicia is screaming, begging Larry to help her, and she's screaming, please save me from myself, save me from myself. And he asks her in the video, what do you want? And she screams, I just want to be able to go back to work and be happy and fine. Please don't do this to me. Don't do this to me.

Please, Larry. I don't want to live please Larry I don't want to live here I don't want to live here in other videos she would tell Larry I don't want to throw myself away because I love you and I want to stay with you always and forever these little videos were like Larry's little trophies one night Larry would slam open the window to the 15th floor apartment he's holding a hammer and screaming at Santos. Look, it's very simple. You leap like a frog. Why don't you guys, you and Felicia, hold hands and jump together? It'd be so cute.

Do you know how cute that would be if you both jumped? It'll be over in a second. In total, Larry's victims would attempt to self-exit at least 12 times during their time with Larry. But Daniel would get out after graduating because he had been trying to understand his sexuality for a very long time when he was with Larry. And Larry knowing that on Thanksgiving Day would force Daniel to put on one of Isabella's mini dresses, go downstairs in front of people, walk around, and then when he got back up

Larry was red in the face, mad at Daniel for whatever other thing that he forgot to do and he would taunt, look at yourself Danny, how does it feel to wear a dress? Are you still confused about your sexuality, huh? Look at yourself I'm sorry, I don't know, I don't know Let's see about that He would tell Isabella to grab one of her biggest intimate toys that she had. She always had like this double bag of intimate toys that she kept around the house. And he would say, give it to Danny.

Now Danny, let's settle this once and for all. You're going to play set, you know where, and if you like it, we'll know you're gay. Simple enough, right? That night, Daniel was forced to do things with the device while wearing a dress, things he clearly did not consent to, all the while his friends were forced to watch, and Larry was taking photos of him. Claudia would later say about that picture that Daniel is staring right into the camera, his eyes, he looks panicked, his eyes are questioning, he's very scared, she said,

it's not a look I've ever seen on someone's face before. And after that, Daniel walked up onto the rooftop, climbed on the water tank, and he just laid at the top. The surface was really smooth, and he knew that if he moved a few inches to one side, he could easily slip right off, and then none of this would matter anymore, and everything would be okay.

But he sits up and he says, I sat there looking at the city, and it was beautiful. To me, in that moment, it felt like I had gotten out of a mental prison and all I wanted to do was leave. I took my stuff after that and I had no plans to ever come back. And he just assumed that all the others, they would have their wake up moment someday. But six years later, April 2019, a New York magazine article would go viral titled, The Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence. Daniel realized his friends did not get out soon after.

It got so much worse in the next six years. The New York Magazine expose on Larry Ray and his college sex cult starts off by exposing Larry's long list of lies. First, Larry's whole identity, his whole personality was based on being a Marine. He created these little Marine based operations around the house. Their morning routine was supposed to be a boot camp.

But Larry was never in the Marines. He did serve in the military, the Air Force, for a total of 19 days before he was dishonorably discharged for reasons unknown. But not all of Larry's lies were straight up lies. Like the Marines one. He knew a lot of the top generals in the Marines. He was friends with them. So there was truth, I don't know how He was friends with them. So there was truth.

I don't know how he was friends with them, but he was. Yeah. The article states what made Larry exceptional is the way he expertly mixed connections to top officers in the US Marine Corps with lies and embellishments. So it was always a half truth, half lie. He would say he met Gorbachev and you're like, that's crazy. You're a little liar. And then he would show you a picture with him having dinner with Gorbachev, meeting

other people with Gorbachev, with Rudy Giuliani with Gorbachev. Larry did know Rudy Giuliani, Bernie Carrick, the New York police commissioner, and even Gorbachev. He did receive a letter from NATO about his efforts to help negotiate the end of the Kosovo war. He just lied about how involved he was. A NATO official said, I do remember him being around. He was connected and may have made some calls for us, as did many others at the time. I wrote a letter to anyone who was even remotely involved. Quite a professional way of saying Larry maybe called someone once in a while, but like his impact was minimal. Larry also convinced Talia that her mom was abusive

and that she was essayed by members from that side of the family, which we're gonna go more in depth on part 2. But all of that was denied by CPS and Talia's younger sister. Talia's mom and her side of the family were cleared of any wrongdoing, and custody was given to her mom. Larry was even ordered to undergo a psychological examination in 2005 during the custody battle. The psychiatrist wrote in the report, Literally impossible to evaluate. His power and control are exhibited through the process of wearing down the other person to the point of sheer exhaustion.

Mr. Ray has the control. He is able to manipulate and control almost any situation in which he finds himself, including a psychological interview with a forensic examiner. No matter how experienced the examiner may be, Larry is very good at what he does. He can be utterly charming and one can be disarmed by his childlike simplicity and smile. But make no mistake, Mr. Larry is no child. He is a calculating, manipulative, and hostile man. Basically the psychologist is saying, we can't examine this man because you ask him a question trying to get an examination. And he will just exhaust you going on these ramblings until you are so tired. You cannot continue.

Wow. He will go on ramblings. He will never answer the question. And he's got so much energy. And he's so manipulative. The article, Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence, would get the attention of the NYPD Sex Crimes Unit and the FBI, but by then, it would be too late. Larry was no longer living in the one-bedroom apartment, accusing college kids of breaking his oven. He would start a multi-million dollar sex trafficking ring catering to the wealthy elite

businessmen in New York City. And one of the cult members will not make it out alive. And I will discuss all of that in part 2. But please let me know your thoughts in the comments, please stay safe, and I will see you guys in the next one. Bye!