In diaries, emails, and videos, Claudia Drury cataloged the offenses Lawrence V. Ray convinced her she had committed.
The vacuum of Mr. damage Ray. Eat all his food. Even poison him with cyanide.
In reality, Mrs Drury now says, none of it happened. But Mr. Ray demanded reparations anyway. And while she was short on money, she said, Mr. Ray directed her to a way to have “fun” — while making money to pay him.
“I became a prostitute,” said Ms. Drury during testimony that ended Friday in federal court in Manhattan, where Mr. Ray is on trial on 16 charges, including tax evasion and racketeering. “It was Larry’s suggestion.”
Her testimony, which comes nearly halfway through the trial, is pivotal to the prosecution’s case and provides an inside account in support of some of the most serious charges against him, sex trafficking and violent crime for racketeering.
Over several days, Mrs. Drury released new details about how, according to prosecutors, Mr Ray moved into a dormitory at Sarah Lawrence College in 2010 and for years manipulated and abused students he met there.
Mrs. Drury, one of those students, described how Mr. Ray exploited her at a time when she felt “anchorless and anxious.”
He gained her trust by posing as a mentor, Ms Drury testified. Then, she said, he became abusive, pressured her to admit the false wrongs and used her confessions to extort payments.
Mr Ray was arrested in 2020 after being the subject of an article in a New York magazine.
In her testimony, Mrs. Drury how mr. Ray had wielded power over her and other impressionable students at Sarah Lawrence, a private liberal arts college in Westchester County, NY, just north of New York City.
Mrs. Drury described how Mr. Ray made her believe she had committed crimes, alienated her from her parents and prepared her for abuse. He talked about sex first, she testified, then began sexual contact with her and encouraged her to have sexual contact with others.
Finally, she worked as a prostitute for years, Ms. Drury testified, lured clients over the Internet and gave about $2.5 million in earnings to Mr. Ray.
She also testified that Mr Ray became enraged after confiding in a client about aspects of her life. At one point, she said, he threatened her with waterboarding and put a plastic bag over her head at a Manhattan hotel while she struggled to breathe.
“I was terrified,” she said. “I was shaking.”
Ray’s lawyers have suggested that a group of storytellers, some of whom have had mental health issues, had created a “fantastic conspiracy” about him.
During cross-examination, Ms. Drury admitted she had a history of embellishing anecdotes and said she made up a detailed account of being accosted on the street by mysterious men with a message from Mr. Ray’s former friend, Bernard B. Kerik. , a former New York Police Commissioner.
Mrs. Drury came into the job of Mr. Ray after he appeared in the Sarah Lawrence dormitory where his daughter, Talia Ray, lived. He had recently completed a state jail time in New Jersey over a child custody dispute.
In the dorm, Mr. Ray treated Mrs. Drury and the other roommates with tales of intrigue. She testified that she heard about his time in the military and his… role in the downfall of mr. Kerik, who was nominated to a top federal government position but ultimately pleaded guilty to charges of tax fraud and taking free work from a contractor suspected of having ties to the mafia.
Mr Ray had a “very magnetic and charismatic personality,” Ms Drury testified, adding that she believed he had uncovered a plot to “render the Constitution and hurt America”.
He described a philosophy he had helped create called “Quest for Potential,” comparing himself to the Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius, Ms. Drury said. She began to see him as a “confidential” who could help improve her life.
But while he offered counsel, he also displayed conspiratorial tendencies, Ms Drury testified. She said that Mr. Ray believed that Mr. Kerik and others were determined to harm him.
In the summer of 2011, she and other students often stayed at Mr. Ray’s apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where he gave so-called therapy sessions designed to make them “more educated people.”
Mr Ray also brought up sex, Ms Drury testified, talking about swing clubs and sometimes touching her sexually.
He urged her to have sex with a fellow student and with a salesman who frequented the apartment, Ms Drury testified, adding that according to Mr Ray, “being very open and uninhibited” represents a “higher level of personal development and self – comfort and honesty.”
At the same time, he began to make accusations.
He said the students damaged his property, hid his belongings and threw away important documents. Hours of interrogation followed, Ms. Drury said, with Mr. Ray questioning the students until he got a confession. He also threatened the students, she said, and was sometimes violent.
Ms. Drury said she admitted to things she hadn’t done, partly because Mr. Ray insisted she did and partly because the other students had committed known violations.
“It was very easy for me to say, well, maybe I damaged that,” she testified. “When I started confessing those things a little bit, each one was a new proof of all the others.”
Mrs. Drury eventually confessed that she had poisoned Mr. Ray. In a video he made, which was introduced as evidence, he can be heard asking Ms. Drury for details. She said she put “mercury, cyanide and arsenic” in his food and on his toothbrush.
mr. Ray said he could send her to jail, Ms Drury testified, and had her read Solzhenitsyn’s “The Gulag Archipelago.” so that she would know what awaited her.
A 2012 recorded phone call, also introduced as evidence, captured Mr Ray and asked Ms Drury when she told her mother that she fantasized about pushing her out a window and strangling her father and that she wanted to go to a hospital.
Ms. Drury testified that it was Mr. Ray who was the first to suggest that she wanted to harm her parents and that she had not consciously thought about doing so. While she was in the hospital, she added, he told her that her parents wanted to hurt her and “twist the truth.” She said her relationship with her parents deteriorated until she completely lost touch with them.
“Larry would essentially tell me they were trying to hang me to dry,” she testified. “I got really paranoid towards them.”
In 2014, Ms. Drury, she started working in sex clubs at the suggestion of Mr. Ray. He encouraged her to have sex with a taxi driver instead of paying for a ride and to have sex with a stranger in Central Park, she added. She also said he was “impressed” after telling him she had a man pass a knife over her body and hit her with a heavy object during sexual activity.
All the while, Ms Drury testified, she feared she would go to jail if she didn’t give Mr Ray money that he said she owed him as compensation for the harm she had done to him, especially the alleged poisonings. mr. Ray told her prostitution would be “fun” and a “sexual rush,” she said.
Ms. Drury said she was a prostitute from early 2015 to spring 2019, living in hotels, seeing up to five men a day, seven days a week, and charging them up to $2,000 for an hour. She testified that she gave the money to Mr. Ray and Isabella Pollok, a former Sarah Lawrence roommate whom prosecutors say became Mr. Ray’s “trusted lieutenant” and who has been charged with conspiring with him to commit sex trafficking, racketeering and extortion. to commit.
“I felt tremendous pressure from Larry to get money,” Ms Drury testified, adding that she also “wanted to get rid of my soul” that she had behaved in an “unforgivable” way towards him.
In late 2018, Ms. Drury said, Mr. Ray showed up at a Midtown hotel where she was staying, ordered her to take off her clothes, then tied her to a chair. For about seven hours, she said, he put a pillow over her face, strangled her with a collar and leash, and covered her head with a plastic bag, at one point saying, “I’m going to kill you.”
That, she testified, was a turning point.
“I was afraid for my life,” she said. “I became more and more concerned if he was really who I thought he was.”
She said she fled New York about six months after the encounter. She hasn’t seen or spoken to Mr. Ray again.