#Sarah Lawrence ‘sex cult’ leader still contacts victims from behind bars: feds

The man accused of running a sex cult at Sarah Lawrence College has been in contact with two of his alleged victims from behind bars in an attempt to stop them from cooperating with prosecutors, authorities alleged Friday.

In a letter urging a Manhattan federal judge to keep Lawrence Ray behind bars pending trial, prosecutors said he’s been communicating with the two women through phone calls with his father from jail.

“During these calls, Ray’s father has provided Ray with frequent reports about the women’s whereabouts, with Ray’s father often using coded references to ‘company’ or ‘friends’ to indicate when the two women are physically present during a call with Ray,” federal prosecutors wrote in the letter.

The women had been living with Ray in New Jersey when federal authorities arrested him on charges including sex trafficking and money laundering. He was in bed with one of the women at the time of his arrest, prosecutors have said.

Ray, the 60-year-old former friend of disgraced ex-NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik, allegedly created a Nxivm-like sex cult to prey on his daughter’s classmates at Sarah Lawrence College — all while allegedly raking in nearly $1 million by extorting the classmates and forcing one into prostitution.

In one case, Ray “sexually groomed” a young woman, forced her to have sex with a male victim while he watched and blackmailed her into more than four years of prostitution, raking in $500,000 from the trafficking, according to prosecutors.

The two women living with Ray when he was arrested have since moved closer to his father, who lives on Staten Island, authorities said in the letter Friday.

“Most troubling, the calls suggest that Ray’s ongoing communications are designed to ensure the ongoing loyalty of these women and to inhibit their ability to detach from the influence he commanded over them for nearly a decade,” prosecutors wrote.

“On May 24, 2020, Ray asked his father to let the women know that ‘they signed on forever,’ ” the court papers state.

“On June 14, 2020, the defendant made clear his intent to keep the women isolated from others (a clear means to keep them under his control). The defendant admonished his father, seemingly in the presence of the women, ‘No new friends. There should be no one in anybody’s life except each other,’ ” prosecutors added.

The feds argued that the controlling behavior is “plainly designed to tamper with witnesses” who might testify against him at his trial.

The suspect is being held without bail at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Lower Manhattan.