The Story of Larry Ray and the Sarah Lawrence 'Sex Cult'

In April 2019, a website called The Cut published an article titled “The Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence.” "What happened to the group of bright college students who fell under the sway of a classmate’s father?" the subhead asked, introducing the general public—and much of law enforcement—to Larry Ray. The story also provided the basis of the 2024 Lifetime movie Devil on Campus: The Larry Ray Story.

Almost nine years earlier, in 2010, Larry got out of prison, moved in with his daughter, Talia Ray, at Sarah Lawrence College and set his sights on her vulnerable roommates. He cooked them steak dinners, taught them lessons from the Marines and regaled them with tales of espionage in the CIA and connections with government officials, gaining their trust and respect before slowly taking control of their lives. His victims, all in their late teens and 20s, endured sexual, physical and emotional abuse and torture. This real-life horror movie went on for years before it was uncovered, almost by accident, by journalists who just happened to reach out to the right person. 

Daniel Levin, now a writer, was under Larry's control for three years, and he spoke about his story on a 2023 episode of the podcast Navigating Narcissism. Levin was one of Talia's roommates, along with Claudia Drury, Isabella Pollok and Santos Rosario. Talia had frequently talked about her supposedly heroic father, a former Marine and CIA agent, and now that he was getting out of prison (after being unfairly incarcerated by the government, she said), she wanted him to move into the dorm. Strange, but as Levin said, "No one wants to be the one to tell your friend she can't see her dad." 

His first impression was of a "relatively short, kind of rotund, bald shaved-head guy who's kind of got this tough-guy Staten Island demeanor." He seemed kind of "silly" and talked at an "incredible pace" with no pauses for anyone else to chime in. Larry was "overwhelming," Levin remembered, and "weird."

"He had this way of trapping you in a conversation," Levin said. "You might be kind of resistant at first … but somehow, through the process of wearing you down, the logic traps that he would get you in, the authoritativeness with which he spoke about things, you would find yourself kind of confused and a little vulnerable, trusting him a little more than you trusted yourself inside of that conversation." 

The truth was that Larry was a con artist with a criminal record who had never been in the Marines. The Cut reported that he had been in the Air Force for 19 days before being dishonorably discharged, and the outlet could find no evidence of him ever being an intelligence agent. He had just gotten out of prison for, among other charges, contempt of court and custody interference because he had refused to return Talia back to a relative in 2005. Despite Talia backing up his claim that her mother had abused her and her younger sister, Ava, the court had seen through Larry’s manipulation. 

Just as he manipulated his daughter into believing he was a hero, Larry convinced the Sarah Lawrence roommates he was the answer to all their problems. He took them all under his wing, starting with Talia's best friend, Pollok. He went from acting as a father figure to sleeping in bed with her, claiming he was helping her through her mental health crisis, as Levin described it. (It soon became clear Larry and Pollok had started a sexual relationship.) Larry also began giving Drury and Santos alleged life guidance.

Eventually, when Levin was going through a difficult breakup, Drury and Santos convinced him Larry could help. A casual coffee meeting ended with Levin confessing he had occasionally questioned his sexuality, and Larry told him his problems would be fixed. Instead, everything got much, much worse. 

Both Levin and The Cut article described how Larry turned the small group of students into his own personal cult. He isolated them from outside friends and family, convinced them they had repressed memories of childhood trauma and taught them to trust his words over their own senses. He accused them of stealing or breaking his stuff, forced false confessions out of them and then made them pay for the imagined damage, sometimes through manual labor. He also forced them to have sex with him, each other and strangers, even having Drury become a sex worker and give him (and Pollok) large amounts of the money she earned. 

Levin remembered being physically assaulted, humiliated and forced to have sex with his friends in front of Larry. In one instance, he made Levin put on a dress and use a dildo on himself in front of the whole group. He claimed all of it was for their own good. 

Levin seemed to be at the "bottom of the pyramid" of Larry's orbit, and the abuse was unbearable. 

"Part of me almost wonders if Larry was using me to test how far he could go early on," he said. "It reached a point that was so extreme that I think a kind of survival instinct kicked in." 

In 2013, he escaped Larry's clutches by pretending he had successfully completed Larry's treatment program, making it seem as if it was Larry's idea for Levin to move into his own on-campus housing. He stopped answering Larry's calls, and then spent the next six years living in constant fear of meeting him again while also grappling with the concept of having been in a cult. 

During those six years, Larry continued the torment. Santos introduced his sisters, Yalitza and Felicia Rosario, to him, and even though Felicia was training to become a forensic psychiatrist in California, she found herself infatuated with this interesting, fast-talking man. 

However, as Felicia recalled in her episode of Navigating Narcissism, their relationship quickly turned into a nightmare. He made her install a camera in her apartment so he could watch her all the time, and when she was in New York with him, he would beat her or lock her in a garage for days. He was convinced the government was after him and that Drury had been sent to poison him and Felicia. Drury became convinced of this, too, and what happened next is what eventually got the attention of a journalist at The Cut. Larry had filmed Drury “confessing” to the poisoning and created an entire website dedicated to her apparent confessions. A writer reached out to Levin to see if he knew anything about a girl poisoning people at his alma mater, and he shared the whole story with the hope that he could save his friends. 

"After the article came out, I got a call from an FBI agent," Levin said. "She wanted to talk about the story and what had happened … She took those notes from that conversation back to her office and used that conversation to form the basis of an investigation." 

Larry was arrested in February 2020 while in bed with one of his victims. He was denied bail after that tidbit was shared, and in 2022, he was put on trial for 15 counts, including sex trafficking, racketeering, extortion, forced labor, racketeering conspiracy, money laundering and more. 

Drury and Felicia were among the victims who testified against him, and after a month-long trial and four hours of deliberation, the jury found him guilty on all counts. In 2023, he was sentenced to 60 years in prison, and as of 2025 he was still claiming he's innocent. He will be 111 when he's eligible for parole in 2071. 

Pollok also faced consequences for her role in Larry's crimes. She took a cut of proceeds from Drury’s sex trafficking, and her phone was found to have files full of collateral material on her fellow cult members. She defended Larry on screen in the documentary Stolen Youth, saying, "If [Larry] were here in front of me right now, I would tell him how sorry I am that he's going through this and he's being put through this, and that it's not f—king fair." 

But in August 2022, after going through what her attorneys compared to "deprogramming," she took a plea deal and was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. 

"I believed and supported someone who controlled me in ways I cannot understand. I will live with the guilt forever," Pollok said just ahead of the sentencing. "I badly hurt my friends, and I am ashamed and deeply regret it. I am truly sorry."