That's the highest-rated comment on "Sarah Lawrence sex-cult trial shows devastated young lives/Lawrence Ray is accused of manipulating and abusing his daughter’s college friends and others he brought into his circle" (WaPo).
It's such a crazy story. You wonder how could this happen. But I think everyone who attempts to read about it will stop at that threshold question. The article says:
After a federal securities fraud conviction, charges related to a custody dispute and a bail-jumping case, Ray was released from a stint behind bars in 2010. He began living at his daughter Talia’s dorm suite at Sarah Lawrence, a private liberal arts college in Westchester County, just north of New York City.
There, he encountered Talia’s roommates and injected himself into their lives. Ray cooked meals and hosted late-night chats for the college sophomores, promising them he could help them lead “better, more honest lives,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon said in her opening statement. “He told them that he had special training that could help them gain clarity and discipline,” Sassoon said. “He said if they shared their deepest feelings with him, he could help resolve their problems.”
"There, he encountered Talia’s roommates and...." Wait. They encountered him too, and what did they say? Not: "Talia, your dad cannot live in our suite"?
Another commenter over there says:
This happened because of Sarah Lawrence's complete abdication of responsibility. Several parents complained that Ray was living in his daughter's dorm, but college officials, including the Dean for Student Affairs, refused to do anything about it. They didn't want to be seen as moralistic enforcers of the rules. Sarah Lawrence was always known as being a refuge for fashionably unconventional, neurotic young people, and the administration so desperately wanted to be open minded their brains fell out....
UPDATE: Ray was convicted on all counts.
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34 comments:
Ray encountered the college sophomores, promising them he could help them lead “better, more honest lives..
“He told them that he had special training"
And, he DID have special training..
A federal securities fraud conviction, charges related to a custody dispute and a bail-jumping case..
Just NOT the sort that you'd think would help cute college coeds lead “better, more honest lives""..
So,
Several parents complained that Ray was living in his daughter's dorm, but college officials, including the Dean for Student Affairs, refused to do anything about it
Makes SENSE, The LAST Thing you want in a Dean for Student Affairs; is to be seen as moralistic enforcer of the rules.
A Dean for Student Affairs, shouldn't be deciding whether a FELON could turn the dorm into a bordello!
The Dean should be
Enforcing Mask Mandates
Ensuring Proper Use of Pronouns
Cancelling ANY speech, that is not woke Enough
That is what a Dean for Student Affairs is FOR,
not protecting cute college coeds from sexual exploitation in sex cults!!
{wait, you know, as i write that, i kinda begin to have doubts about my argument. Let me start over}
’He told them that he had special training that could help them gain clarity and discipline.’
Is there a sex dungeon in this story?
In fairness to Ray, his lawyer Did point out; that the Only people accusing him of the kidnappings, rapes, tortures, and forced prostitution where..
Sleazy Slutty Little Ho's, that were ALL members of a bizarre Sex Cult; Many of which Still owe him the money from their last tricks
That’s an awesome comment. Parents should have removed their kids- I thought $$ talked and bullshit walked?
I’m not surprised. A decade ago, one of my daughters teachers told us she couldn’t verify the enrollment of all her students, but they allowed them all because they didn’t want a child to go without education. The parents all wondered how the teacher would know they were children or that they even lived in the district.
Charles Manson
" Sarah Lawrence was always known as being a refuge for fashionably unconventional, neurotic young people, and the administration so desperately wanted to be open minded their brains fell out...."
This sentence is brilliant, but it doesn't just apply to a single college! "So open minded their brains fell out" is a near perfect description of most left wing lunacy and can be applied to progressives in general and their religion of inclusiveness. Plus, "...fashionably unconventional, neurotic young people.." seems to cover the entire woke culture so prevalent on elite college campuses today.
Thanks for this post Althouse because if you had not posted it here I would never have seen it, it being contained in the Washington Post.
Many private universities appear have become little more than extended coming of age parties for the children of well-to-do parents. Pay to play. Everyone is a guaranteed winner. No standardized admission tests. Grade inflation and no-fail policies. Easy drugs and sex if you want it, absolutist woke-and-green baby religion if you don't.
Several parents complained that Ray was living in his daughter's dorm
This is where the breakdown of our society is rooted.
The people ceding their power to govt/experts. I would not have complained and stopped. I would have demanded action or else. First by moving my daughter out. I would have rented her motel room, before allowing unacceptable situations to continue unabated. I would have started by stopping by and have a chat with Ray. Explain the flaws in his thinking and unambiguous repercussions, for continuing his present situation. Then a private chat with the, Student Dean/official, with my lawyers business card handed out and copies of the appropriate liable laws and how I would find ways to hold this person individually liable.
The idiocy of "let the experts/govt handle it", is just that. Idiocy. College employees need to be in jail, as willing accessories to crimes. A vital portion of our Justice System is the public awareness of punishment met out for crimes committed.
Yes the daughter was an adult, but she would still be a daughter, they never age out of that role.
Serious Question
of the money that Ray was making, working his Ho's.... How Much went to the Dean for Student Affairs?
How much went to other 'officials'?
Meaning: the parents pay a lot of $$- if they had left it would have made an impression. Even threatened to leave. My comment was unclear. He’ll, it’s still unclear.
Tom Wolfe foresaw this in “I am Charlotte Simons.” In it, boys and girls share the same dorm bathrooms with communal showers.
With today’s Dems, there are no rules.
I blame the father's of the girls.
Schools like Bard and Bennington make a big deal about their prison outreach programs. Maybe this was Sarah Lawrence's.
Surprising that the faculty didn't complain that the scumbag was poaching on their territory.
Also, was it an all (self-identified as) female dorm? Even at SLC if there were guys around maybe one of them might have made a fuss.
So late-adolescent girls are talked into sex for pay by a father figure.
They thought it was a good idea or couldn't muster the strength to say no.
They gave most of the take to the guy.
For various reasons, my wife and I know a number of couples in their forties whose kids are middle school age to college freshmen. Known them for years. I can't think of a single one of the latter who wouldn't tell the guy to take a hike. I can think of several, including my granddaughters, who'd tell him to call 911 when he can get off the floor. And their brothers...shudder.
They all have stable families including involved fathers.
To explicit the implicit, what was wrong with these girls?
This all seems at odds with the puritanical Title 9 madness Laura Kipnis wrote about in the NYT letter.
Or is that all about taking down professors so you don't have to do all that tiresome academic work?
okay, even MORE serious question
Sarah Lawrence Tution is $59,470 a YEAR, not including dorm fees (dorm fees are $17,158 a year)
so, 4 years; $59,470+ $17158*4 = $306,512
What are you, as a parent Getting for that price? Your daughter learns how to be a slutty Ho, but for $306,512; that seems like something that she could learn elsewhere*
$306,512@ 7% annual interest comes to more than $400,000. $400,000 principal @7% comes to nearly $30,000 a year in interest..
Now, on the other hand. IF your daughter GRADUATES from Sarah Lawrence (NOT a given)..
After TEN Years, she will be making $44,100, which is "29% higher than the national medium of $33,400". That's RIGHT! less than 10k more than the 'national medium'
As i calculated, the money spent on her tution would be enough to provide an annuity of nearly $30k.
Please Tell me, again; WHY you'd send your daughter to this place?
learn elsewhere* gilbar might (OR MIGHT NOT*) be interested in teaching whoredom to cute college coeds
OR MIGHT NOT* gilbar do NOT condone nefariousism, and You CANNOT Prove otherwise
Cum to Sarah Lawrence!
We'll charge you a third of a MILLION dollars; BUT! we'll teach your daughters, to be WHORES!!
Hooker College is expensive.
Huh! This one confused me. I used to travel to Westchester Co. all the time and I'd never heard of Sarah Lawrence College. Although, I had heard of and knew a few people out there who had graduated from or were sending their kids to St. Lawrence University in (way) upstate NY. I'm pretty sure that school has whole different vibe. This Sarah Lawrence College is apparently in Yonkers - or damn close. It's whole different feel down there - more NYC than rural northeast . . . . .whatever that means.
Anyways, creepy is, as creepy does.
Sounds like it's a bit of a misnomer to call it a dorm. It was a townhouse apartment built on a spread out campus. Does not make it acceptable, just less blatant for observers. Parents did complain, and a dean failed to act.
The criminal conduct started afterwards and elsewhere.
Dalia and her seven roommates seem to have been fragile young adults. The Washington Post article has a link to an article written a few years ago explaining the living situation in greater depth.
https://www.thecut.com/2020/02/larry-ray-sarah-lawrence-students.html
The really disgusting thing is that this trial has been going on for a couple of weeks and has been reported in the UK Daily Mail. This is first I've seen of it in the US media.
Althouse quotes a commentator as follows: "Sarah Lawrence was always known as being a refuge for fashionably unconventional, neurotic young people, and the administration so desperately wanted to be open minded their brains fell out...." This goes a long way to explain these events. Colleges are in a tough competitive market. Having a brand is absolutely necessary. At the margin, some parents and some kids will be attracted to an institution that is so fearless in its non-conformity to social norms. Remember the school in Western Mass (Simon's Rock) where the administrators learned that a student was stockpiling ammunition and was talking about killing people, but took little or no steps? And then a shooting. Allowing unlimited freedom was part of Simon Rock's brand. Or look at Oberlin. Just last week an Ohio appellate court, in a 50 page opinion, upheld a massive judgment, including punitive damages, for Oberlin's direct involvment in libeling a small town bakery. Social Justice is a big part of Oberlin's brand, and so Oberlin has to this day refused to apologize to the bakery, in the face of a jury, a trial judge, and now 3 appellate judges, finding that its behaviour towards the bakery was extreme and outrageous. Preserving the brand is more important than acting like a decent citizen in a small town. Oberlin's central customer base is that small sliver of college applicants who are attracted to this sort of thing, and it, like Sarah Lawrence, will go to great lengths not to muddy up the brand.
In cases like this, the coeds and their parents are getting what they deserve. Without sufficient morals to prevent participating and courage to stand up, one becomes a senseless victim of the predators in society, who by the way, are probably out of jail early because of the reduced sentencing of our glorious Supreme Court nominee and her child porn enabling fellow travelers..
In all fairness, he was paying for the room : )
The dorm building looks like shit considering the astronomical tuition.
On the positive side, maybe he let the girls keep enough money to pay off their college debt.
Not for nothing, but Sarah Lawrence College could teach Oberlin a thing or two about how to be prahgrahsahv. I've known only a few grads from that college, and I have to say they've been equipped to do nothing that the world needs, and to do it only in Manhattan or Brooklyn. Nothing else about them is required from this world.
May they live long and prosper. Or...find a theater to work in.
Maybe I'm being shortsighted. I'm sure there's some brilliant people who's mind comes out of there in one piece. I've just not met them.
“I blame the fathers of the girls.”
—- Howard (stock phrase, part of his ritual before dumping the small bodies)
"It was a townhouse apartment built on a spread out campus."
Really spread out.
Ridiculous situation. people need to decide whether women 18-21 are adults or children. I'm tired of hearing about how somebody - usually a man - "abused them" or "conned them" or "pushed them" into something they LATER decided they didn't like.
I'm all in favor of Women as being treated as adults and responsible for their own choices. Or being treated as kids, in which case just take away their right to vote.
Haw-haw!
Everything we ever thought circa 1966-1970 about college student life administrators (that they were totally worthless) is completely vindicated by this story.
Some things never change. "We have rules to protect our students" (but we never enforce them, except in petty and arbitrary ways).
Assistant deans = mice in training to be rats.
Rahm Emanuel is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence. In Chicago we speculated on how much tail he got in his four years there.
Our consensus: he got a lot.
Choices, Choices...
On the One Hand, your daughter could go to Sarah Lawrence, for 4 years (for $306,000)..
And, IF she graduates, in four years could be making $44,100 a year.
OR! Your daughter could go to work at Walmart, which would train her to get a CDL (truck license)..
And then Pay her a STARTING WAGE, between $95,000 and $110,000 a year.
Walmart Dangles $110,000 Starting Pay to Lure Truck Drivers
The internal training program will offer workers in other Walmart roles a 12-week course to become certified truck drivers and join the company’s internal fleet, the company said.
TOUGH Choice, huh? Of course; The Real Reason a gal goes to Sarah Lawrence is to find a hubby,
And if your daughter is a truck driver, she'd PROBABLY end up married to Another truck drive (@110,000/yr)
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