NEW YORK (AP) — Two former college students are suing Sarah Lawrence Faculty, arguing the New York faculty failed to guard them from Lawrence Ray, who moved into his daughter’s dorm after getting out of jail after which manipulated her pals and roommates into cult-like relationships.
Ray was convicted final 12 months of prices together with racketeering, conspiracy, pressured labor and intercourse trafficking after weeks of testimony chronicling his manipulative relationship with younger folks in his daughter’s circle.
Some mentioned they had been coerced into prostitution or turned over earnings and financial savings to Ray over abusive relationships that lasted for years.
Ray was sentenced in January to 60 years in jail by a decide who referred to as him an “evil genius” who used sadism and psychological torture to manage his victims.
The plaintiffs, who additionally embrace the sister of one of many college students, allege in a lawsuit filed late final month that Sarah Lawrence was partly guilty for his or her ordeal.
The lawsuit says Ray made little try to cover the truth that he had moved in along with his daughter in 2010 after ending a jail sentence for securities fraud, and was allowed to stay on the campus “whereas he dedicated acts of manipulation, grooming, sexual abuse, meals deprivation and sleep deprivation.”
They are saying school officers ignored the presence of a then-50-year-old man who moved into his daughter’s dormitory and “instantly built-in himself into the lives of the younger individuals who lived in it.”
A school spokesperson mentioned in an announcement Thursday that the college had “deep sympathy” for Ray’s victims, however that it wouldn’t touch upon the litigation “past noting that we imagine the info will inform a distinct story than the unproven allegations made within the grievance that has been filed.”
Ray lived within the dorm for practically a whole tutorial 12 months, the lawsuit says, and through that point a number of college students, neighborhood members and fogeys contacted the school to complain about Ray’s abusive conduct, but the school “did nothing to research or intervene to stop hurt to Plaintiffs.”
The plaintiffs say Ray made himself so totally at dwelling that he as soon as set off a hearth alarm by cooking a meal.
Ray was the one individual within the dorm room when firefighters and school safety arrived, the lawsuit says, and nobody from the school requested Ray what he was doing there. Nor was he monitored after the fireplace “to make sure he was not residing on the dormitory with the school college students,” in keeping with the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs within the Nov. 21 civil lawsuit say they had been abused and manipulated by Ray for years after leaving school in places together with a Manhattan condominium and a house in Piscataway, New Jersey.
The plaintiffs are searching for unspecified damages for his or her ache and struggling in addition to well being care prices and misplaced potential earnings.
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