I still don't understand this situation!

Watching the doc and it seems like the guys left, but then they say they were in a cult for 10 years?

What happened to the north Carolina property?

Do you all KNOW anyone who went to Sarah Lawrence? I can 100% see why and how this would happen. I can 100% see why and how none of their parents knew about it because these are not the type of kids who are going to be telling their parents every little thing that happens.

I mean full disclosure: everyone I know that went to Sarah Lawrence is a huge pretentious prick, but still, these poor kids.

Anonymous wrote:I still don't get it, honestly. I'm sure all these young people are intelligent, capable persons. But to get sucked into this? I can't imagine how convincing someone would have to be to lure them into such a life.

Agree. He did it little by little and warped their sense of reality, which is common with abuse situations.

I think one of the lessons here is that even smart people, even me and you, can be manipulated.

Looks like two of the students are suing:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12842853/Two-Sarah-Lawrence-sex-cult-survivors-sue-NY-school-failing-protect-Larry-Ray-convicted-sex-trafficking-conspiracy-extortion.html

Anonymous wrote:I still don't get it, honestly. I'm sure all these young people are intelligent, capable persons. But to get sucked into this? I can't imagine how convincing someone would have to be to lure them into such a life.

There clearly was emotional and physical abuse, but it seems like there must be more. How is someone so charismatic?

I still don't get it, honestly. I'm sure all these young people are intelligent, capable persons. But to get sucked into this? I can't imagine how convincing someone would have to be to lure them into such a life.

Anonymous wrote:Why are so many blaming the parents? It is hard to imagine this kind of nightmare and it was unprecedented at the time. Who would be concerned that their child’s classmates might have a father just out of jail leeching off his daughter and enslaving her peers on campus ? I worry a lot as a parent but this scenario would never have crossed my mind.

Why does the college itself receive so little Criticism for their lax oversight ?

Glad this creep is in jail and I hope all colleges take better steps to prevent such abuse on campus again.

Just terrible for these young people to have their youth degraded and stolen. I hope they can make positive futures for themselves and heal from these horrors …

NP on this thread but familiar with this whole nightmare story and the original thread (the OP of that thread posted just above). I agree with the bold. We visited SL with our DD (this was a few years ago, so well after the events took place; DD did not end up wanting to apply). Seeing the physical layout of that campus, and the way some students lived as small groups in single family houses rather than dorms or townhouses with close neighbors next door, I can picture how this went down there. From what I recall, Ray's daughter and the kids he manipulated lived in one of these SFHs at the edge of campus that function as small house dorms, and that would make it FAR easier for someone to simply move in unnoticed unless someone in that house reported his presence to the college. I knew this tale at the time we visited and I definitely found myself thinking, yes, I can see how it would not be at all obvious to the college, campus security or other students if someone simply moved into one of these houses long-term. If I'm wrong about their living situation and the SFH group house, I apologize, but I'm pretty sure that was the type of housing involved. And it was clearly a somewhat isolating form of housing.

I also think the college at the time took a very hands-off, "they're adults and none of them is complaining to us" attitude, plus: The guy was the father of a student and I wonder if that made the college shrug it off even more readily. If only someone at the college, even another student, had had the instinct to check on him and discovered his record, all this might not have gone down the way it did there, sadly. He would have found other vulnerable people to manipulate, though. He was always going to do this somewhere, somehow; he just found the perfect set of victims all under one roof, in a place where he had a perfect excuse for being around.

Why are so many blaming the parents? It is hard to imagine this kind of nightmare and it was unprecedented at the time. Who would be concerned that their child’s classmates might have a father just out of jail leeching off his daughter and enslaving her peers on campus ? I worry a lot as a parent but this scenario would never have crossed my mind.

Why does the college itself receive so little Criticism for their lax oversight ?

Glad this creep is in jail and I hope all colleges take better steps to prevent such abuse on campus again.

Just terrible for these young people to have their youth degraded and stolen. I hope they can make positive futures for themselves and heal from these horrors …

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just finished it also - speechless! Like many others have said, I believe I would be Raven. No, I am SURE I would be Raven.

I just can't understand how (step 1) they didn't think a grown man living in their college housing was weird as hell. It is all so difficult to understand.

The videos...wow. The one where Santos is actually hitting himself, while Felicia is clearly having some sort of breakdown is beyond upsetting. Agree that Felicia is the biggest mystery. Clearly a very smart woman - ironic as hell that she is studying psychiatry!! WTF?

Yes! Where were these peoples parents? I just can’t get past step one.

PP again — as a parent of two girls in college, I would never allow that in 1 million years.

I'm not positive any of the parents were in a position to "allow" anything. They were all adults, and we don't know how many of them received money from their parents.

Terrible, lazy excuse.

It's not an excuse, it's true.

Sorry but I don’t think most parents check in on kids. My parents didn’t set foot on my campus until graduation.

This isn’t the 198Os, and you weren’t living in such a bizarre arrangement.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just finished it also - speechless! Like many others have said, I believe I would be Raven. No, I am SURE I would be Raven.

I just can't understand how (step 1) they didn't think a grown man living in their college housing was weird as hell. It is all so difficult to understand.

The videos...wow. The one where Santos is actually hitting himself, while Felicia is clearly having some sort of breakdown is beyond upsetting. Agree that Felicia is the biggest mystery. Clearly a very smart woman - ironic as hell that she is studying psychiatry!! WTF?

Yes! Where were these peoples parents? I just can’t get past step one.

PP again — as a parent of two girls in college, I would never allow that in 1 million years.

I'm not positive any of the parents were in a position to "allow" anything. They were all adults, and we don't know how many of them received money from their parents.

Terrible, lazy excuse.

It's not an excuse, it's true.

Sorry but I don’t think most parents check in on kids. My parents didn’t set foot on my campus until graduation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Was it ever clarified that they lived in campus housing,?

Yes, when Larry got out of jail he crashed in their campus housing. It looked like a house with several bedrooms so no RA or anything to put the kibosh on having your ex-con psycho dad move in.

But was it official campus housing? As in, if someone reported it, he would have been kicked out?

Yes the dorm was Slonim Woods, but it was apartment style and decentralized. If nobody complained, there didn’t seem to be a ton of oversight.

If you read the original story in The Cut - can't link to it free anymore - one of the parents? a few people? did complain but it was downplayed and they were told that Ray was just visiting his daughter.

I am the Op of the thread on the article - https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/801576.page

And my comment was "While I definitely get why the parents couldn't intervene later, and perhaps I'm a helicopter parent, but if my 19 year old daughter came home and told me her roommate's dad was spending nights/living in the dorm/house, I would not have left it at the school shrugging their shoulders at me."

I don't think the parents did anything wrong, but it's a way different mindset than my own and of my friends with college age kids.

But you saw that the parents didn’t all have money, so they wouldn’t have necessarily been checking in on the dorms. There’s no doubt that SL should definitely have been more aware, but they all admitted they smoked a ton of pot and weren’t really bothered at first. Larry did a ton of cooking and pizza parties and crashed on the couch at first. It’s not exactly the same but we had plenty of boyfriends/out of town friends sleep in our dorm room for a weekend or whatever and I NEVER would have told my parents.

PP here. Yes, I agree with you. I don't blame the parents.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just finished it also - speechless! Like many others have said, I believe I would be Raven. No, I am SURE I would be Raven.

I just can't understand how (step 1) they didn't think a grown man living in their college housing was weird as hell. It is all so difficult to understand.

The videos...wow. The one where Santos is actually hitting himself, while Felicia is clearly having some sort of breakdown is beyond upsetting. Agree that Felicia is the biggest mystery. Clearly a very smart woman - ironic as hell that she is studying psychiatry!! WTF?

Yes! Where were these peoples parents? I just can’t get past step one.

PP again — as a parent of two girls in college, I would never allow that in 1 million years.

I'm not positive any of the parents were in a position to "allow" anything. They were all adults, and we don't know how many of them received money from their parents.

Terrible, lazy excuse.

It's not an excuse, it's true.

This is wild. Thanks DCUM for showing me another dark side to humanity.

My opinion is that there are MANY vulnerable people out there. We just haven't been "tested" by a skilled manipulator. Really makes me want to teach my kid better how to spot these con artists.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was it ever clarified that they lived in campus housing,?

Yes, when Larry got out of jail he crashed in their campus housing. It looked like a house with several bedrooms so no RA or anything to put the kibosh on having your ex-con psycho dad move in.

But was it official campus housing? As in, if someone reported it, he would have been kicked out?

Yes the dorm was Slonim Woods, but it was apartment style and decentralized. If nobody complained, there didn’t seem to be a ton of oversight.

If you read the original story in The Cut - can't link to it free anymore - one of the parents? a few people? did complain but it was downplayed and they were told that Ray was just visiting his daughter.

I am the Op of the thread on the article - https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/801576.page

And my comment was "While I definitely get why the parents couldn't intervene later, and perhaps I'm a helicopter parent, but if my 19 year old daughter came home and told me her roommate's dad was spending nights/living in the dorm/house, I would not have left it at the school shrugging their shoulders at me."

I don't think the parents did anything wrong, but it's a way different mindset than my own and of my friends with college age kids.

But you saw that the parents didn’t all have money, so they wouldn’t have necessarily been checking in on the dorms. There’s no doubt that SL should definitely have been more aware, but they all admitted they smoked a ton of pot and weren’t really bothered at first. Larry did a ton of cooking and pizza parties and crashed on the couch at first. It’s not exactly the same but we had plenty of boyfriends/out of town friends sleep in our dorm room for a weekend or whatever and I NEVER would have told my parents.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just finished it also - speechless! Like many others have said, I believe I would be Raven. No, I am SURE I would be Raven.

I just can't understand how (step 1) they didn't think a grown man living in their college housing was weird as hell. It is all so difficult to understand.

The videos...wow. The one where Santos is actually hitting himself, while Felicia is clearly having some sort of breakdown is beyond upsetting. Agree that Felicia is the biggest mystery. Clearly a very smart woman - ironic as hell that she is studying psychiatry!! WTF?

Yes! Where were these peoples parents? I just can’t get past step one.

PP again — as a parent of two girls in college, I would never allow that in 1 million years.

I'm not positive any of the parents were in a position to "allow" anything. They were all adults, and we don't know how many of them received money from their parents.

Terrible, lazy excuse.