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Accused Sarah Lawrence sex-cult leader Larry Ray once forced a college student to shove a large sex toy in his mouth, claiming it was a “helpful” teaching moment, according to court testimony Monday.
The alleged abuse was photographed at the time — and the twisted snap described on the stand by former Lawrence student and Ray accuser Claudia Drury, 31, as she resumed her testimony at the suspect’s racketeering and sex-trafficking trial in Manhattan federal court.
“It was so big, he’s trying to fit it in the side of his mouth,” Drury said, describing the picture of the young man, Daniel Levin, as he struggled with the sex toy.
“He looks panicked … not a look I’ve actually ever seen on anyone’s face,” she said of Levin.
Drury said Ray explained the disturbing photo to her at the time as him trying to help Levin discover his sexuality.
“This was all framed as Dan wanted to do this,” she said.
Ray told her he was being “helpful and clarifying” to Levin, Drury said.
She told jurors that at some point during Ray’s alleged abuse of his group of college-age victims, which began in the fall of 2010, he took a keen interest in Levin’s sexuality.
Ray told Drury that he once made Levin don a dress and, while wearing it, go to the lobby of his Upper East Side apartment building to retrieve mail that had been delivered, she testified.
Ray’s torment of Levin escalated, with the suspect telling his alleged cohort, Isabella Pollok, at one point to retrieve “her biggest” sex toy from an array of dildos and other products she kept, Drury testified. The accused fiend then told Levin to put it in his mouth, and Ray took a photo of the moment, according to Drury’s testimony.
When Ray showed Drury the photo, his Sarah Lawrence co-ed daughter, Talia, and Pollok were present and “very amused” by the picture, the witness said.
Drury’s testimony Monday was cut short after about an hour, when the trial broke for the day for an unspecified reason.
Levin, who has not yet testified, published a book about his experience with Ray in the fall of 2021.
Ray is accused of physically and mentally abusing a group of young people after being introduced to them by Talia in 2010.
That fall, Ray moved into Talia’s on-campus dorm and began wowing them with embellished stories about his relationships with powerful law enforcement officials and politicians.
A number of the students moved in with Ray to a one-bedroom Upper East Side apartment in the summer of 2011, where his sexual and physical abuse of them allegedly escalated.
Drury testified Friday that over that summer, Ray steered conversations toward sex and began to abuse her.
On one occasion at the apartment, he asked her to masturbate in front of him, she said.
“He said he was going to go back in his room, and he wanted me to finish, but he also wanted me to be very loud,” she told jurors.
Ray ultimately forced Drury into prostitution and collected about $2.5 million from her over four years, she said Friday.
If convicted, Ray faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
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