Prosecutors Seek Life Sentence for Man Accused of Abusing, Trafficking Daughter’s College Friends – NBC New York

Prosecutors search a life jail time period for an ex-convict who extorted and compelled into labor or prostitution some ladies he met at his daughter’s on-campus housing at Sarah Lawrence College, whereas his attorneys request the necessary minimal 15 years behind bars for his crimes, in line with papers filed previous to sentencing subsequent week.

In a submission in Manhattan federal courtroom late Friday, prosecutors referred to as Lawrence Ray’s crimes “heinous,” saying he groomed and abused his younger victims as he took “sadistic pleasure of their ache and loved the fruits of their struggling.”

They stated Ray, 63, has proven he’s a hazard to others, is incapable of contrition and have to be incapacitated.

Ray was convicted final April of utilizing threats and violence to counterpoint himself with thousands and thousands of {dollars} as he ruined the lives of his daughter’s associates, watching them descend “into self-hatred, self-harm and suicidal attempts under his coercive control,” prosecutors stated.

His sentencing is scheduled for subsequent Friday.

His attorneys have argued for leniency, saying he ought to face 15 years behind bars. They stated his personal bodily, sexual and psychological abuse he suffered as a toddler and thru his younger maturity “bears a striking resemblance to the conduct underlying the offenses he now stands convicted of.”

Ray was convicted at a trial the place weeks of testimony chronicled his psychologically manipulative relationship with younger individuals he met in fall 2010 at Sarah Lawrence College, a small New York liberal arts college. Ray moved into his daughter’s dorm after ending a jail stint for a securities fraud conviction.

He was convicted on 15 counts, together with racketeering, conspiracy, compelled labor, intercourse trafficking and obstruction of justice.

A jury returned its verdict after lower than a day of deliberations following a monthlong trial that featured testimony from quite a few victims. Some testified that Ray made them imagine for most of a decade that that they had poisoned or in any other case harmed him they usually wanted to pay him again.

One lady testified that she turned a intercourse employee to attempt to pay reparations to Ray after changing into satisfied that she had poisoned him. She stated that, over 4 years, she gave Ray $2.5 million in installments that averaged between $10,000 and $50,000 per week.

Ray didn’t testify. Twice, the trial was interrupted as he was taken to the hospital in an ambulance for undisclosed sicknesses.

Of their submission Friday, prosecutors stated Ray had “shown no remorse, accepted no responsibility, and impeded the prosecution of this case, including by disrupting the trial and prolonging the trauma to his victims.”

A number of college students testified that they had been drawn into Ray’s world as he informed them tales of his previous affect in New York Metropolis politics, together with his position in ruining the profession of former New York Metropolis Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik after serving as the perfect man at his marriage ceremony years earlier. Ray had, in actual fact, been a determine in a corruption investigation that derailed Kerik’s 2004 nomination by President George Bush to steer the U.S. Division of Homeland Safety.

Some of the scholars agreed to reside with Ray in the summertime of 2011 at his Manhattan one-bedroom house, the place his sinister facet emerged as he began to say that the scholars had poisoned and harmed him or his property.

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