Accused sex cult leader Lawrence Ray had his second medical emergency in the span of a week at his federal trial on Tuesday. Coming during the testimony of a woman who says Ray forced her into sex work, the incident raised the prospect that jurors or witnesses were being deliberately toyed with by a defendant described by prosecutors as a master manipulator, experts said.
“Nothing about this case is normal,” Moira Penza, the former Brooklyn federal prosecutor who won a conviction against NXIVM founder Keith Raniere, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday. “It is extremely rare for defendants to have multiple medical emergencies mid-trial, and given the nature of the allegations and Ray’s history of claiming illness during prior court proceedings, there’s a legitimate question about whether this is a ploy by him to force a mistrial or even to further victimize the witness on the stand the one way he has left: by trying to make a show of some form of continued control.”
Ray’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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The latest episode began when defense attorney Neil Kelly asked for an abrupt break around 12:30 pm, which was promptly granted by the judge. As the Manhattan federal courtroom was cleared out, crying was audible from an adjacent witness room before FDNY medics ultimately entered the empty courtroom to find 62-year-old Ray alone at a vacant defense table.
As in a similar case last week, the jury was not present when Ray left the courtroom—nor when he was ultimately carted out to an ambulance outside the building. But ex-Sarah Lawrence student Claudia Drury was on her third day of testimony, during which she was alleging emotional, physical, and psychological abuse at the hands of Ray.
The abrupt end to proceedings marked just the latest medical emergency to disrupt a chaotic trial. Last Tuesday, Ray was rushed out of the courthouse hours after his lawyers said he had “suffered a seizure.” Defense attorney Marne Lenox initially had said that Ray did not need to be hospitalized, but he was in fact later carted out on a stretcher.
The case centers on allegations that Ray moved into his daughter’s dorm room in 2010 and effectively launched a sex cult that continued for nearly a decade under the guise of “therapy sessions” as a “father figure.” Drury is alleged to be among his victims.
Meanwhile, in the last week, two jurors have also been excused from the highly-anticipated trial—including one who suffered a medical episode on Monday that prompted a separate interruption to Drury’s testimony.
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told The Daily Beast that while medical delays are routine in criminal cases, the constant commotion around Ray’s trial was “extremely uncommon.”
“This also happened during some really damning testimony,” Rahmani added. “The judge is now going to have to say something to the jury. Then there is the question about whether these emergencies are legitimate—or if this is just another scheme to delay the trial.”
The constant stop and start is almost inevitably going to have an effect on the jury’s perspective of the case, the ex-prosecutor suggested.
“This is definitely a delay tactic defendants use. The longer he delays it, the better it is for him,” Rahmani noted, before cautioning: “If the jury thinks he is faking it, he is done.”
Drury was the second witness to testify in Ray’s case—and just one of several former college students he is accused of ensnaring in a web of manipulation and abuse. Ray has pleaded not guilty to several charges, including sex trafficking, extortion, and racketeering conspiracy, for allegedly physically, sexually, and psychologically abusing the college students—and laundering millions from Drury after forcing her into sex work.
On Tuesday, Drury had just begun to recap the four years she spent as a sex worker—allegedly at Ray’s behest, after she was accused of damaging his property, poisoning him, and “wasting his time.”
At times mumbling, Drury testified that she believed she had no choice but to go into sex work because she “wanted to repair what I believed I had done to Larry,” adding that she also received “immense pressure to get money for Larry.”
She said that between 2015 and 2019, when she eventually left Ray, she understood that the “extreme majority” of the money she earned from her clients would be given to Ray and Isabella Pollok.
Pollok is another former roommate who prosecutors allege to have been a co-conspirator in Ray’s twisted scheme.
Penza, the ex-prosecutor, emphasized how difficult it is for witnesses to testify in cases like this one—centered on alleged coercion—and suggested that repeated delays could ultimately redound to Ray’s advantage.
“When they get into court, they often fear that the person will hold that same power over them they once did, and when any disruption happens that feels out of their control, I think that can have a detrimental impact on the victim’s testimony.”
