Shattered: One Woman’s True Story of Trauma, Coercive Control and Survival

Shattered: One Woman’s True Story of

Trauma, Coercive Control and Survival

By Ginger Zyskowski

Amazon

The life of a 32-year-old professional musician, university instructor, and mother of 3, is thrown into chaos when her young children are abducted and she is viciously kidnapped. Being held against her will, she is forced to live under the coercive control of the cult deprogrammer known as “Black Lightning.” Confined by her captors, she vows to do whatever it will take to reconnect with her children and reclaim her life. She gets caught in a web of conflicts and complications caused by lies spoken by her family, her kidnappers, and the FBI. Eventually, with determination, resilience, and courage, she reunites with her three sons and, together, they begin the difficult, yet rewarding journey of recovery after trauma. The author shares her harrowing true story here for the first time.

Description

 

STANDING OVATIONS

Kick off your shoes and find a good reading spot. Shattered, One Woman’s True Story of Trauma, Coercive Control and Survival will give you reason to pause. Every one of us can relate to some of the experiences told in this memoir, but the depth and breadth of Ginger Zyskowski’s life journey is astounding. Growing up with a domineering mother, visits to a “cult” with a friend, and then her horrific experiences being deprogrammed by the infamous Ted Patrick, who truly became her cult leader, are at once fascinating and rattling to read. The emotional trauma pops off the pages, and we cry for her pain and cheer for her victories. The author concludes with a thorough compilation of research that is enlightening to all readers. This compelling and inspiring true story of one woman’s journey is a tribute to the human spirit. Parents, sociologists, psychologists, educators, and general readers will find this book difficult to set aside.

~ Debby Schriver, President, International Cultic Studies Association ~

The so-called cult wars that emerged in America during the early 1970s produced a controversial and sometimes illegal industry called deprogramming. This intimate memoir by Ginger Zyskowski describes her traumatic kidnapping in 1978 by her parents and a deprogramming team that operated under crude basic assumptions about cultic brainwashing and how to cure it. In the author’s case, the cure was worse than the purported disease as she came under the well-meaning though abusive influence of deprogrammer Ted Patrick and her parents for many months after the intervention. We learn that Zyskowski’s meaningful dalliance with the controversial Divine Light Mission group hardly met Patrick’s definitions of hypnotic mind control. Moreover, her parents held rigid views of cults that amounted to a stereotype that they would not reject over time. This book is an absorbing complex trauma as well as a revealing perspective on a problematic new religious movement in America.

~Joseph Szimhart, a cult information specialist who wrote Santa Fe, Bill Tate, and me: How an artist became a cult interventionist ~

This book cautions the reader about the consequences of an unrestrained power. Presenting a riveting story of resilience, Ginger takes the reader on her journey of love, belief, family betrayal, and abuse at the hands of Ted Patrick – the so-called deprogrammer – and his minions. Against all odds, Ginger reclaims her life, her children, the love of writing, and the joy of music. I couldn’t put it down! Bravo!

~ Patrick Ryan, Cult Inverventionist ~

There have been scores of books testifying how victims had been lured into cults where, having apparently been subjected to mind control and unable to leave of their own accord, have been rescued and returned to their ‘normal’ selves by deprogrammers. But this is a story with a twist. Ginger Zyskowski tells us how her overbearing mother, a leading light in the now-defunct Cult Awareness Network (CAN), concluded that her daughter, having shown a mild interest in the Divine Light Mission (DLM) had been brainwashed, despite the fact that Ginger was leading what might seem like a pretty normal life, looking after her three sons whilst engaged in fulltime work – quite independently of the DLM. Imperiously, her mother arranged that Ginger should be kidnapped and deprogrammed by Ted Patrick, widely referred to as ‘Black Lightening’. We read how, under Patrick’s influence, Ginger became actively involved in the ‘anti-cult’ movement, but then having learned from Patrick and CAN about ‘cults,’ brainwashing and deprogramming, she came to recognize that she had indeed been victimized and coerced – by Patrick – and was able to deprogram herself out of his deprogramming cult and piece together her shattered self. A fascinating, page-turning story – with a twist.

~Eileen Barker, Professor Emeritus of Sociology with Special Reference to the Study of Religion, London School of Economics ~

“In her compelling memoir of abduction and survival, Ginger’s honesty offers a captivating glimpse into the resilience and hope that sustained her through unimaginable challenges.

~ Kaitlin Nachtigal, Editor ~

I Have Been…

I have been victimized

But I am not a victim. I have been shamed

But I am not ashamed. I have been guilted

But I am not guilty. I have been used and abused…

But I am not used up!

gz, 6/24/22

Leah Remini sues Church of Scientology and David Miscavige for alleged harassment, stalking and defamation

Actress Leah Remini, a former Scientologist turned outspoken critic, alleges in a lawsuit the Church of Scientology has 'subjected' her to 'psychological torture'

Ashley Hume
Fox News
August 3, 2023



Leah Remini announced she has filed a lawsuit against the Church of Scientology and its leader David Miscavige for harassment, stalking, defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress in addition to other unlawful conduct.

The 53-year-old actress revealed in a Twitter post she had filed the lawsuit and linked to her Substack, where she shared a press release accusing the defendants of "mob-style operations and attacks" on her and other alleged victims.

The "King of Queens" star became a Scientologist at 9 years old but left the church in 2013 and has since become an outspoken critic.

"For 17 years, Scientology and David Miscavige have subjected me to what I believe to be psychological torture, defamation, surveillance, harassment, and intimidation, significantly impacting my life and career. I believe I am not the first person targeted by Scientology and its operations, but I intend to be the last," Remini said in the press release.

LEAH REMINI DISAGREES WITH HOW LAURA PREPON LEFT SCIENTOLOGY: ‘NOT EVERYBODY WHO HAS A VOICE USES IT’



Remini also attached her complaint in her Substack post. The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court Wednesday and names the defendants as the Church of Scientology, Miscavige and Religious Technology Center, Inc. In the press release, Remini alleged the Religious Technology Center "manages policing operations and principally enforces Scientology’s punishment orders."

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Church of Scientology for comment.

The press release stated that the lawsuit "seeks to require Scientology, and any entity it controls and funds, to cease and desist its alleged practice of harassment, defamation, and other unlawful conduct against anyone who Scientology has labeled as an 'enemy.'"

According to the complaint, Remini is also seeking punitive and compensatory damages for the "enormous economic and psychological harm" she alleges the Church of Scientology, Miscavige and the Religious Technology Center inflicted on her personal life and career.

The press release stated that the lawsuit concerns the actions of Scientology's Office of Special Affairs (OSA), which it alleges engages in monitoring both Scientologists and those outside the religion and takes retaliatory actions against individuals deemed an "enemy" of Scientology. The retaliatory actions are allegedly a "series of directives" known as OSA Network Orders issued by the late founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard.

"Under the organizations’ rules, directives originating from Hubbard cannot be changed," the lawsuit states. The complaint alleges Remini and her family, friends and professional associates became the target of "coordinated campaigns" that were "financed and ordered" by Scientology leaders starting in 2006 while she was still a member of the church.

According to the release, the "attacks" carried out by "OSA and its operatives" were intended to "totally restrain and muzzle," "obliterate," and "ruin utterly" Remini.

"With this lawsuit, I hope to protect my rights as afforded by the Constitution of the United States to speak the truth and report the facts about Scientology. I feel strongly that the banner of religious freedom does not give anyone license to intimidate, harass, and abuse those who exercise their First Amendment rights," Remini stated in the release.

In her Twitter post, Remini wrote, "While advocating for victims of Scientology has significantly impacted my life and career, Scientology’s final objective of silencing me has not been achieved.

"While this lawsuit is about what Scientology has done to me, I am one of thousands of targets of Scientology over the past seven decades.

"People who share what they’ve experienced in Scientology, and those who tell their stories and advocate for them, should be free to do so without fearing retaliation from a cult with tax exemption and billions in assets.

"The press has a right to report about Scientology without facing a sophisticated intelligence operation from Scientology to destroy their personal lives and their careers. Law enforcement authorities have a right to investigate crimes in Scientology without fear that they will lose their jobs," she added.

"Children, mothers, fathers, aunts, and uncles have a right to request welfare checks on their family members without fear of an operation activated against them by Scientology for doing so. Those in the entertainment business should have a right to tell jokes and stories without facing an operation from Scientology which uses its resources in Hollywood to destroy their lives and careers.

"With this lawsuit, I hope to protect the rights afforded to them and me by the Constitution of the United States to speak the truth and report the facts about Scientology without fear of vicious and vindictive retribution, of which most have no way to fight back."

Since her departure from Scientology, Remini has spoken out against the religion in her 2015 memoir, "Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology." The following year, she served as host and co-producer of the A&E documentary series "Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath," which ran for three seasons and won two Primetime Emmy Awards.

Miscavige, 62, was nowhere to be found in December when multiple attempts were made to serve him with a child trafficking lawsuit filed by three former Scientology members that names him as a defendant. According to court documents filed at the time, process servers attempted to serve papers to Miscavige 27 different times over the past few months.

In February, U.S. Magistrate Judge Julie S. Sneed ruled Miscavige was "actively concealing his whereabouts or evading service" and declared that he had been officially served, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

Ashley Hume is an entertainment writer for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to ashley.hume@fox.com and on Twitter: @ashleyhume



https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/leah-remini-sues-church-scientology-david-miscavige-alleged-harassment-stalking-defamation

 

‘Stolen Youth,’ Hulu’s Sarah Lawrence Sex Cult Doc, Stands Apart From the Worst of True Crime

Allegra Frank

The Daily Beast

February 17, 2023

"The case of the Sarah Lawrence College cult is peak true-crime fodder, to the point where it’s gotten two separate docuseries in the past five months. The version of the story as told by Peacock’s salacious September release Sex, Lies, and the College Cult was especially tantalizing. A bunch of college co-eds fall under a dad’s spell, leading them to move into a one-bedroom apartment with him, have sex with each other, and endure emotional and physical abuse for years.

That doc, however, was a tacky reduction of this specific story. Larry Ray, who was recently sentenced to 60 years in prison for sex trafficking, conspiracy, and 13 other charges, preyed upon a specific set of people: twentysomethings dealing with mental health issues; men and women of color butting up against societal pressures of being underprivileged; kids still figuring out their sexuality. Each of the college kids who Ray blackmailed, abused, and brainwashed was particularly susceptible to his manipulation.

Hulu’s new series Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult of Sarah Lawrence is the first version of this lurid yet intoxicating crime story that recognizes this. And that’s most apparent in how Stolen Youth gives the most heartbreaking victims of Ray a human story—allowing them to speak up, on camera, free of their tormentor’s presence and influence.

In the initial reporting on the Larry Ray/Sarah Lawrence case, Felicia Rosario emerged as the most heart-wrenching example of Ray’s psychological damage. In 2010, 27-year-old med school grad Rosario met Ray through her college-age brother Santos; Santos was dating Ray’s daughter Talia when he entered the toxic clique. Ray and Felicia quickly struck up a powerful, emotionally wrought relationship, leading to Felicia ditching her residency program in L.A. to move in with Ray, her brother, and the other kids; Felicia and Santos’ sister Yalitza had also joined by this point.

Felicia’s story stood out among the others for both how much and how long she endured Ray’s abuse. Perhaps it was that she seemingly sacrificed the most by giving up on her dreams to become a psychiatrist that made her such a compelling figure—or perhaps it was the irony that a budding psychiatrist could so swiftly fall for a master manipulator like Ray. Either way, footage of Felicia is the most disturbing to watch of all the tape that Ray recorded over the near-decade he held his captives as psychological prisoners. (Why people like Ray or other recently nabbed cult leader Keith Raniere document their abuses so thoroughly, I’ll never understand.)

For years, Ray taped Felicia screaming on the floor in a clear psychic break; begging for forgiveness for things she did not do; claiming that she had been poisoned, simply because Ray told her she was; and having incessant panic attacks. This footage is all over Stolen Youth, just as it was in Sex, Lies, and the College Cult as well as other reports of the case. Felicia was seen as a symbol of what a cult can do to a promising young woman: render her unstable, leave her disheveled, and make her a shell of her former self.

What director Zach Heinzerling’s Stolen Youth does differently, however, is that it tells the story not from the perspective of a ravenous observer, but from nearly all of Ray’s young victims, letting them recount their own stories of succumbing to such a strange man’s beliefs. The shock of hearing about what Ray made the kids do—sleeping on the floor of a one-bedroom apartment, telling him about every negative thought they’d ever had, letting him convince them that their family members were to blame—is mitigated by the sadness of hearing them tell it. There’s an allowance for empathy here that even the best journalism hasn’t granted the victims; their first-person accounts allow us to directly connect with and understand their unique circumstances.

“There’s an allowance for empathy here that even the best journalism hasn’t granted the victims; their first-person accounts allow us to directly connect with and understand their unique circumstances.”

That Heinzerling was able to interview Felicia, in particular, is a huge win. From a reporting perspective, it’s of course crucial to get as many sides of the story as possible. But Stolen Youth grants Felicia an arc that any docuseries would be lucky to secure. We first meet her shortly after Ray has been arrested, where she and fellow victim Isabella Pollok are living in the cocoon-like New Jersey home Ray ultimately sequestered them in. Felicia tells the camera, boldly, that Ray is innocent—anyone who says otherwise is working for the government, or has been secretly poisoning her, or has been hired by her parents to ruin her life.

The most unsettling moment is when Felicia explains that she and Ray are “married”—common-law marriage, she says, because they’ve been living together and in love for so long. “I’m his honey-bunny lady,” she explains, “and he’s my honey-bunny man.” This comes moments after she shows off a well-organized drawer of countless pills and shelves of rations. At that point, it seems doubtful that a woman so deeply influenced by Ray’s paranoid worldview could ever make her way out of it, even with Ray out of the picture.

But Felicia continues to participate in interviews with Heinzerling in the months to come. Next time we see her, she and Isabella have parted ways and moved out of the house. Her legal counsel told her it would be the right move, Felicia says, as did her therapist. That latter detail feels like a quiet win, especially when we see how much healthier she already looks from being out of the house. Felicia’s hair is untangled, her face is fuller, and she’s seemingly inching closer to rational thought.

To see her removed from those subpoenaed videos where she’s at her most ravaged is a heartening, gracious triumph for the viewer and the show. The entirety of its third hour is devoted to Felicia’s slow, steady path toward forgiveness—of herself and, most touchingly, her family. At first, Felicia can’t fully dismiss Ray as her abuser, telling us that she believes much of what has been said about him is a lie. How could he have required one of her roommates to do sex work under her nose? How could he have lied about her parents cooperating with the police to destroy her?

In the film’s final act, however, Felicia has found both reality and grace. She was a victim, she has trauma, and she has a life to rebuild; through therapy, she has reconnected with herself. It’s beautiful to watch the physical and emotional change that she has undergone from when we first met her at the start of the series, especially through such an intimate lens."

[continue reading]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-hulus-sarah-lawrence-sex-cult-doc-stolen-youth-stands-out 

 

Perth Christian rehab facility apologises after allegations of psychological abuse, inappropriate treatment

Joanna Trilling and Alicia Bridges

ABC News

March 10, 2022

The Esther Foundation, a Christian-based residential rehabilitation centre in Perth, says it will cooperate with any criminal investigation after a growing number of women have spoken out about allegations of psychological abuse and inappropriate treatment at the facility.

Key points:

• Esther House has issued an apology to former residents for any "hurt" or "abuse" they might have experienced while living at the Perth rehabilitation centre

• Former residents have come forward with claims of psychological abuse and inappropriate treatment

• The centre has parted ways with the former managing director and founder

Former residents of the centre this week told the ABC that the program treated their mental health and addictions by attempting to "exorcise demons". One woman said she was not allowed to speak for two months.

The women say they did not receive any psychological or psychiatric care from a qualified medical specialist during their time at the residential centre for young women from crisis backgrounds, which claims to provide counselling for issues including addictions, sexual abuse and mental health.

Confronted with the women's allegations this week, the Esther Foundation issued an "unreserved apology".

"We stand in support of any former resident who has suffered hurt, abuse or anguish," the Esther Foundation said in a written response.

Continue Reading:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-10/esther-house-abuse-allegations-apology-exorcisms-perth/100895888

Jury finds Larry Ray guilty on all counts in Sarah Lawrence sex cult trial

Ben Feuerherd

NY Post 

April 6, 2022

Sarah Lawrence College sex-cult leader Larry Ray was convicted Wednesday afternoon on all counts by a Manhattan jury — ending a yearslong prosecution launched after the fiend’s tyrannical abuse of a group of young people was exposed in a magazine article.

Ray, 62, faces life in prison when he is sentenced by Manhattan federal Judge Lewis Liman in September. 

The convicted sex trafficker stood and faced the jury, appearing emotionless as the foreperson repeated “guilty” to the 15 counts. 

The panel deliberated for about five hours after being given the case Tuesday evening. 

Throughout the monthlong trial, prosecutors and victims painted Ray as a calculating predator who asserted control over a group of college students and others to enrich himself as the leader of a criminal organization he dubbed “The Ray Family.” 

“When his victims were completely subdued, when they were under his control, he committed crimes to get them to pay — extortion, forced labor, sex trafficking, obstruction of justice, financial crimes,” Assistant US Attorney Mollie Bracewell told jurors in her closing argument. 

“The defendant did all of this for control, for his own greed, and to increase his power, to cement his position in the organized group that he led.” 

Ray’s abuse began when he moved into his daughter’s on-campus dorm at the prestigious Westchester County college in 2010 after he was sprung from prison in an unrelated case. 

Almost immediately, Ray began grooming his daughter’s friends, wowing them with fantastical tales about his supposed involvement in overseas military operations and his friends in law enforcement and politics, prosecutors said. 

In the summer of 2011, a number of the students moved into an Upper East Side one-bedroom apartment with Ray, where his abuse and control over them increased, the feds said.

Ray began his abusive sex cult in 2010 after he was released from prison in an unrelated case. 

For nearly the next decade, Ray extorted his victims and forced one of them into prostitution while laundering the proceeds of the scheme, which totaled millions of dollars.

Federal authorities began investigating Ray after a 2020 New York Magazine article drew the curtain back on his relationship with the former Sarah Lawrence students. 

Ray subjected his victims to physical, mental and sexual abuse, prosecutors said at trial. Ray recorded confessions his victims made in which they copped to damaging his property, plotting against him and poisoning him and his family — then used the mea culpas as blackmail. 

Ray carried out his criminal enterprise with the help of Isabella Pollok, a former student who became his co-conspirator, the feds alleged. 

Ray’s most lucrative scheme was collecting money that victim Claudia Drury earned while working as a prostitute at his direction, she testified at trial. 

For about five years, Drury worked seven days a week, meeting monied clients who paid her exorbitant amounts of money in exchange for sex, she said. 

Drury turned over about $2.5 million to Ray that she earned while escorting and living in various Manhattan hotels, where she would meet her clients. 

When Ray felt threatened that Drury was slipping from his control, he and Pollok confronted her at the Gregory Hotel in Midtown, where he tortured her for hours over the course of a night, prosecutors said.

He ordered her to strip naked, handcuffed her to a chair and tried to suffocate her repeatedly with a plastic bag, Drury told jurors. 

“I was terrified. I was trembling. You can’t breathe. You want to breathe a lot. That just makes it much worse,” she testified in March. 

Ray also doused Drury’s naked body with water and moved her chair over to an air conditioner in the room, she said. 

During the hours-long torture session, Ray and Pollok paused to eat hamburgers they had ordered from a nearby diner, Drury testified. 

The torture session was powerful evidence that Ray had committed almost all of the crimes he was charged with, Bracewell told jurors in her closing argument. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, this single night of crime tells you almost all you need to know. But, as we will cover and as you have seen, there is so much more,” she said.

In a statement, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, hailed the verdict.

“Let me be very clear. Larry Ray is a predator. An evil man who did evil things. Today’s verdict finally brings him to justice,” Williams said. 

“This verdict would not have been possible without the victims who testified in court.  We are in awe of their bravery in the face of incredible trauma,” he added.

Throughout the trial, Ray’s defense team tried to undermine his accusers’ credibility and painted them as a group of “storytellers” who embellished stories about Ray because they were jealous of him or otherwise wanted to damage him. 

In her closing argument, Ray lawyer Marne Lenox attacked Drury’s account of the night she was tortured by the defendant, claiming it was fiction. 

“There was no assault in the Gregory Hotel. It never happened,” Lenox said. 

Ray has been locked up in the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center since his arrest in 2020. 

Pollok was subsequently charged for her alleged role in the enterprise and has pleaded not guilty. She’s scheduled to go to trial later this year.

https://nypost-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/nypost.com/2022/04/06/sarah-lawrence-sex-cult-trial-for-larry-ray-verdict-reached/amp/

At Sarah Lawrence Cult Trial, Bronx Siblings Describe Their Ordeal

Lawrence V. Ray turned a brother and sister against each other with threats and lies, they testify.

Colin Moynihan

The New York Times
March 29, 2022

Lawrence V. Ray grunts and screams on the audio recording. He asks for his “sharpest razor,” calls for a hammer and yells at a young man named Santos Rosario.

“I swear I’ll put this through your skull,” Mr. Ray shouts. “I want to take you out in a brutal way.”

The recording, played to jurors in Mr. Ray’s trial on charges of sex trafficking, extortion and racketeering conspiracy in Federal District Court in Manhattan, captured the rage he unleashed on young people whom he first befriended, then mesmerized and then accused of sabotaging him.

Mr. Ray, 62, who was arrested in 2020 after he was the subject of a New York magazine article, spent nearly a decade controlling and abusing a group of young people, prosecutors say. He met most of them, according to testimony, in 2010 after moving into his daughter’s dormitory at Sarah Lawrence College in Westchester County, just north of New York City.

Mr. Ray has been accused of manipulating, threatening and assaulting those under his sway and isolating some from their parents. Prosecutors said he pressured the young people to make false confessions of undermining him and damaging his property, then extracted payments from his victims and their relatives.

After the recording was played in court earlier this month, Mr. Rosario testified that Mr. Ray had become infuriated when someone had listed him on the web as a mental-health provider. Mr. Rosario, conditioned by years of fake confessions, told Mr. Ray he had posted the information, but then could not comply with his demand to remove it.

“He was hitting me with the hammer,” Mr. Rosario testified, adding that the encounter lasted for “several hours.”

The defense has maintained that Mr. Ray was absorbed into a fog of falsehoods created by students who mixed their own life stories with his, adding details and building upon one another’s accounts to create “one fantastic conspiracy.”

No family became more deeply intertwined with Mr. Ray than the one that included Santos Rosario and his older sisters, Yalitza and Felicia, who grew up in the Bronx and other areas and then attended prestigious schools.

After Horace Mann High School in Riverdale, Mr. Rosario went to Sarah Lawrence. He met Mr. Ray there and introduced him to Yalitza, then a student at Columbia University, and Felicia, who had graduated from Harvard University and Columbia medical school.

Santos and Felicia Rosario have testified in the trial, offering vivid accounts of how Mr. Ray’s methods of control tore apart their family and describing how he belittled them, disparaged their parents and ultimately turned the siblings against one another.

Ms. Rosario, who finished her testimony Tuesday, said that she is back in touch with her family but still fears Mr. Ray.

“I still feel like no matter where he is, he can still get to me,” she said.

Mr. Rosario, who gave his age as 30 when he began testifying March 10, first heard about Mr. Ray while dating his daughter, Talia Ray, during their freshman year at Sarah Lawrence. He testified that Ms. Ray described her father as “a hero” in prison on “trumped-up charges.”

The following year, when Mr. Ray got out of the New Jersey prison where he had done time after a child-custody dispute, he showed up at the Sarah Lawrence dormitory where Mr. Rosario and Talia Ray lived.

There, he began speaking with students about ideas like honesty and honor, Mr. Rosario testified. “I thought he was very cool, very smart, very composed and very inspirational,” he said.

In summer 2011, Mr. Rosario said, he was among several students who often slept at Mr. Ray’s apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Philosophical conversations continued, and Mr. Rosario wrote to Felicia Rosario, now 39, that he felt more comfortable in that apartment than anywhere else.

He introduced Mr. Ray to Yalitza Rosario, who is expected to testify Wednesday, and who was then living in New York. He also connected Mr. Ray and Felicia, who had just begun a psychiatry residency in Los Angeles. Within months, Mr. Ray and Felicia Rosario began a long-distance romantic relationship, she testified.

Mr. Ray soon began making odd requests, Ms. Rosario testified, asking her to have sex with strangers. He called her a “tease” and “liar” when she declined, Ms. Rosario said, and became increasingly angry.

“I decided I would comply to appease him,” she testified. The experience left her feeling “disgusting, used, embarrassed, ashamed, uncomfortable, guilty.”

Still, she moved to Manhattan to live with Mr. Ray in 2012. By then, Sarah Lawrence had placed Mr. Rosario on medical leave after he told a psychology professor at Mr. Ray’s urging that he had “violent intrusive thoughts” and had tried to kill himself while in high school, he testified.

Around that time, Mr. Rosario testified, Mr. Ray began calling him “scum” and “trash,” and accusing him of wasting his time and damaging his property.

“He would hit me, slap me, held a knife to my throat, to my throat; he hit me with a hammer, he held a knife to my genitals,” Mr. Rosario said. “He made me believe that I deserved the treatment, that I had done something wrong to deserve it.”

Soon, Mr. Ray began interrogating Santos and Felicia Rosario, recording their false confessions and insisting they owed him hundreds of thousands of dollars, they testified.

Ms. Rosario testified that Mr. Ray accused her of cheating on him and costing him money in business deals that had fallen apart while he was tending to her. Near the end of 2012, she said, she tried to kill herself.

“I felt so guilty, because of the things that he was saying that I had done or had participated in that I hadn’t,” Ms. Rosario said.

Mr. Rosario, meanwhile, admitted to damaging dozens of items in Mr. Ray’s apartment, including a Viking refrigerator, a set of Williams Sonoma pots and pans and a pair of binoculars.

He testified that his parents gave him money to pay Mr. Ray for the supposed damages, from hundreds to thousands of dollars. Once, when his mother refused him more, Mr. Rosario testified, he grabbed $10,000 from the cash drawer of the travel agency that his parents ran.

Over time, Mr. and Ms. Rosario testified, Mr. Ray’s demands grew more bizarre.

Mr. Rosario said that Mr. Ray directed him to have sex with Isabella Pollok, a former Sarah Lawrence roommate, who prosecutors said had become Mr. Ray’s “trusted lieutenant” and has been charged with conspiring with him to commit sex trafficking, extortion and racketeering. Ms. Rosario testified that Mr. Ray directed her as well to have sex with Ms. Pollok and to record sexual encounters with strangers.

Mr. Ray also sowed division between the siblings, according to testimony and recordings. Ms. Rosario said that at one point Mr. Ray accused her brother of being jealous and wanting to “destroy” her. During one interrogation session, a recording introduced into evidence shows, Mr. Rosario confessed that he had plotted with Yalitza to get Felicia to kill herself.

“I used to love you, Santos,” Felicia Rosario says on the recording.

During what Mr. Rosario referred to in court as the “hammer recording,” Mr. Ray repeatedly ordered him to leap from his apartment window. The recording captures Mr. Ray saying: “Jump, it’ll be over in a second.”

“I want you out, too,” Mr. Ray tells Ms. Rosario. “Why don’t you hold hands and jump together?”


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/29/nyregion/sarah-lawrence-cult-larry-ray.html

CultNEWS101 Articles: 3/22/2022 (SGA Event, Opus Dei, Cathars, Breatharianism, Video, Supreme Master Ching Hai, Clergy Abuse, Legal, Event, Coercive Control, Sexual Exploitation, Psychological Abuse)

SGA Event, Opus Dei, Cathars, Breatharianism, Video, Supreme Master Ching Hai, Clergy Abuse, Legal, Event,  Coercive Control, Sexual Exploitation, Psychological Abuse

ICSA Online Event: Second and Multi-Generational Adult Former Cult Member Series (FREE!)

Sunday, March 27th, 2022, 1:00 - 2:15 pm EST: Destigmatizing Medical Care Post-Cult, Presented by Eva Mackey and Ck Rardin

Opus Dei Awareness Network, Inc.

ODAN challenges many of Opus Dei's Questionable Practices because of the way they affect an individual's personal freedom, choices and family life.

InfoCatholic: The sect of the Cathars spreads throughout Spain and attracts young people

"With the title "Neither sex, nor meat, nor social life: this is how the Cathars of the 21st century are", a Spanish digital media published on June 20 a report on the so-called Association for the Study of Cathar Culture , present in Spain . A group that, according to its own website, "studies, recovers and promotes the universal values of Catharism'."

SFGATE: The strange, sad Bay Area 'diet cult' that fell apart over a chicken pot pie

" ... [Wiley Brooks] was the founder of the spiritual and pseudoscientific movement known as Breatharianism, famous for spreading the gospel that humans could live on air alone. He claimed he hadn't eaten in 19 years. To his followers, the binge was an unforgivable sin — as if God himself had taken a bite out of the forbidden apple."

" ... 'Breatharianism is a philosophy that believes that the human body, when it's in perfect harmony with itself and nature, is a perfect Breatharian — you know, all the constituents that we need is taken from the air we breathe,' Brooks told Snyder, in front of a studio audience that seemed both amused and entranced by his words."

San Francisco Examiner: More than just a vegan eatery—some call it a cult

"Many go vegan and skip the cult bit.

If you have ever ventured into the Bay Area vegan restaurant scene, you'd be familiar with the Asian fusion restaurant chain Loving Hut. Lien Hoang opened San Francisco's version Hut on Irving St. in December 2010 largely because of her concern about killing animals and the meat industry's harmful impact on climate change.

The storefront's bright yellow appearance and the aroma of food could capture the attention of any hungry pedestrian. Plant-based meat replacements are aplenty – chicken, pork, fish. Right now, the San Francisco restaurant is still taking COVID precautions by only offering take-out.

It seems innocuous; it's just vegan food. But underneath it all lies an international chain with over 200 locations across 42 countries run by a multi-millionairess named Supreme Master Ching Hai who claims god-like status, reputedly has 2 million followers and hawks expensive merchandise over the internet.``

Daily Beast: 'Cult-Like' Ohio Church is Secret Hotbed of Incestuous Abuse, Minister's Niece Says

"An Ohio woman who escaped her family's home after years of what she described as horrific, religiously-motivated abuse has filed a lawsuit accusing her mother, father, uncle, brothers, and a local cop of not only causing the abuse, but allowing it to continue, then covering it up once authorities became suspicious.

In the 22-page civil suit, filed Feb. 21 in Cincinnati federal court, Serah Bellar says her parents "mandated" that all of their 18 biological children and one adopted child attend their uncle's Dove Outreach Church in Waverly, Ohio."

ICSA Annual Conference: Coercive Control & Sexual Exploitation - Carrie McManus, Andrea Silverstone, Rod Dubrow-Marshall, Linda Dubrow-Marshall

"The language and understanding of coercive control has begun to shift how we view and understand experiences of domestic abuse, deepening our capacity to understand the long term impacts of this crime often perpetrated against women and girls. Little research however, has been done into the intersections of coercive control and sexual exploitation/trafficking. This presentation will provide an overview of a research project completed by Sagesse in partnership with the University of Salford exploring how coercive control and experiences of sexual exploitation link together to impact victims of crime. This project explored the impacts of sexual exploitation within practice, policy and legislation in multiple jurisdictions including Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and the Netherlands. This presentation will provide an overview of the linkages between practice, policy, legislation and personal lived experience of sexual exploitation and coercive control. Pulling from experiences of Sagesse participants, the presentation will review the push and pull factors related to individuals engagement in sex work/exploitation. We will discuss the themes from participants connecting their experiences to coercive control and the experience of the loss of personal agency and the implications of that loss on their emotional and physical liberty. Superordinate themes that were also identified and will be discussed in this presentation included the journey of sex work, wellbeing, coercive control, interventions and services, protection, and enforcement, and lastly, the intersections of COVID 19 and sex work. Recommendations for practice and policy with a lens for understanding coercive control and its impact on sex work and sexual exploitation. This presentation will include a discussion to understand how to implement suggested adjustments, practice necessities and create more space for survivor voices within prevention, prosecution and protection components of this complex issue."

ICSA Annual Conference: Assessment of perceptions and experiences of family members or individuals concerned about a loved one who is or was in a controlling or abusive group or relationship

Carmen Almendros, Michael Langone
Friday, June 24th

"Psychological abuse within cultic groups is a worldwide social problem that has negative impacts on the health of victims-survivors, families and communities. A growing body of research has evidenced the manipulative and abusive practices endured by many followers of these groups and their deleterious effects on members and former members' well being. Despite progress here, little is known about how the involvement and/or ongoing membership of a loved person to such groups affects their family members or friends. In fact, the lack of study of the experiences and problems faced by families and relatives of victims-survivors seems to be a common research gap within other areas in which coercive controlling relationships occur (e.g., intimate partner violence). To address these gaps we conducted a study to examine the concerns, responses and experiences of family members, relatives and friends of members and former members of controlling and/or abusive groups or relationships. The initial sample of the study consisted of 230 participants who were/had been concerned over a current or past involvement of a loved one in one of such groups/relationships. Some of the participants were themselves survivors of the same groups/relationships (around 30% had been born and/or raised in such). Results showed that responses seemed very comparable with those obtained when studying family members of people with other problems (generally a diagnosis of a mental health problem) in terms of family distress and emotional experiences of caring. Understanding the difficulties and problems faced by family members and their coping responses may not only give visibility to the suffering of these close relatives of victims/survivors of abusive relationships, as well as evidence the scarcity of useful helping resources, but may contribute to inform prevention and intervention efforts on this crucial societal problem."

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Sarah Lawrence ‘sex cult’ leader made victims wear diapers as punishment: witness

Ben Feuerherd
NY Post
March 14, 2022

Accused Sarah Lawrence sex cult leader Larry Ray once made two of his victims wear diapers while accusing them of acting like children, according to disturbing testimony Monday.

Santos Rosario revealed the sick abuse under questioning by Assistant US Attorney Lindsey Keenan at Ray’s racketeering trial in Manhattan federal court.

Keenan asked Rosario if he recalled an incident involving diapers just before he tried to escape from Ray’s tyrannical control in 2014.

“I don’t remember the context or what we were being blamed for this time. But Larry said that me and my sister were supposedly acting like children and he had Isabella put diapers on us,” Rosario responded, referring to Ray’s alleged co-conspirator, Isabella Pollok.

Rosario and his two sisters, Felicia and Yalitza, fell under Ray’s control after he was introduced to him in 2010 by Ray’s daughter, Talia, whom he was dating at the time.

Prosecutors allege Ray extorted money from the Rosario siblings and other college-age kids after he moved into Talia’s on-campus dorm at Sarah Lawrence College in the fall of 2010.

Ray berated Rosario, beat him with a hammer and accused him of poisoning him and damaging his property as part of his extortion scheme, Rosario testified last week

Ray’s crimes also included forcing one of the students, Claudia Drury, into prostitution, according to prosecutors. Ray allegedly collected some $2 million in profits by sex trafficking Drury.

On Monday, Rosario told jurors that he would occasionally go with Ray to hotels where Drury was working as a prostitute to collect money from her.

On one occasion, Ray allegedly forced Drury to perform a sex act on Rosario in one of the hotel rooms, according to testimony.

“He told Claudia to give me a b—job and for me to take off my pants,” Rosario said, adding that Ray was “right next to me” when it happened.

Rosario said he felt “like I didn’t have control of my life anymore” after the experience.

The 30-year-old, who was the first alleged victim to testify at the trial, said he ran away from Ray in 2014 after he sent him and his sister to a Manhattan Apple Store.

Rosario made contact with Ray four years later after a New York Magazine reporter contacted him about a story he was writing about the accused sadist.

After he met Ray again, Rosario began giving money to his sister Felicia, who was still under control of the alleged cult leader.

“He said that she was sick because I poisoned her,” Rosario said of his sister.

Ray is charged in a 17-count indictment on counts including racketeering, sex trafficking and conspiracy. He faces a maximum of life in prison if convicted on all counts.

https://nypost.com/2022/03/14/sarah-lawrence-sex-cult-leader-made-victims-wear-diapers-witness-claims/

What Did Larry Ray Do to These Kids?

Ezra Marcus and James D. Walsh

NY Magazine 

March 14, 2022

The jury saw that photo of Santos Rosario and his friends on the first day of the trial of Larry Ray, who is accused of verbally, physically, and psychologically abusing a group of his daughter’s former college roommates, and of turning those students into a criminal enterprise that engaged in racketeering and sex trafficking.

By the end of the second day, the jury had heard a recording of Ray ordering Rosario to get on all fours and crawl like a dog across his living room floor.

Not even two years separate that photograph from that recording.

In the first few days of the Ray trial last week in federal court in lower Manhattan, the prosecution’s first job was to make sense of this strange and awful story, as bright-eyed college sophomores become Ray’s miserable disciples.

“When you have cases like this one, it’s really important to reduce the sense of otherness that can happen when people have been victimized as part of a coercive control group,” said Moira Penza, a former assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted NXIVM leader Keith Raniere, who last year was sentenced to 120 years for sex trafficking and other charges similar to those faced by Ray.

“There are a lot of people who instinctively think, ‘That could never be me. That could never be my son or daughter. That could never be my friend,’” Penza said. Prosecutors will attempt to break this notion down by showing the jury “how vulnerabilities are exploited, about how it’s a slow creep, about how trust is built at the beginning — about how information that can be used against someone is gathered.”

For Rosario, now 30, it all started with a girl. During his freshman year at Sarah Lawrence, he dated Talia, Ray’s intensely devoted daughter, who raved about her heroic, righteous father. By the time Ray moved into Talia’s dorm sophomore year, she and Rosario had broken up. Still, they remained close friends and Rosario, 19 at the time, looked to Ray, who was then 50, for all manner of advice and guidance.

“I thought he was very cool, very smart, very composed, and very inspirational,” Rosario said, describing the first night he met Ray in 2010. Ray offered him both emotional and physical guidance. Sarah Lawrence students remembered Ray encouraging Rosario to work out, making him and others do push-ups daily. “I ended up confiding in him a lot about issues I had with my family, my depression that I struggled with in high school,” Rosario said.

From there, the relationship quickly became a nightmare.

Rosario’s indoctrination began with Ray forcing Rosario to write and frequently revise dubious confession statements. Ray would accuse Rosario of harming him or others in various ways; Rosario would deny it. Ray would then insult him, attack him, or threaten to abandon him, which would spur Rosario to admit to doing things which, he said now in court, that he didn’t actually remember doing.

“Larry kept insisting I was lying,” Rosario said. “I was convinced that if Larry said it wasn’t true, it couldn’t be true because he’s such an honest man, and he’s been my friend, so I must be confused, and I must be misremembering or I must not want to remember what I did.”

These accusations started small: Ray told Rosario he wasted his time on purpose, or distracted his daughter from schoolwork. But they grew increasingly baroque. The jury heard audio of Rosario confessing under pressure to poisoning Ray and recording their conversations at the behest of a shadowy conspiracy.

They were shown a video in which Rosario’s sister Felicia is sitting on a leather couch in Ray’s living room, rocking back and forth in distress. Rosario is standing over her; whenever she speaks he slaps himself in the face. Ray had instructed him to slap himself every time Felicia spoke, in order to keep her from talking. “Stop talking, Felicia!” Rosario screamed. “I’m no longer going to enable it.”

The prosecution then showed a photo of Rosario with his face so swollen and red that he looked like a different person — the consequence, he explained, of slapping himself repeatedly for over an hour.

Prosecutors presented several long audio clips in which Ray threatened Rosario repeatedly, after accusing him of posting Ray’s address online. Ray picks up a hammer and brandishes it in front of Rosario. “I swear I’ll put this through your skull,” he says. Someone opens a window, and Ray says: “Go out that window,” an order to Rosario, who has told Ray at length about his suicidal thoughts. Gesturing at Rosario and his sister Felicia, Ray suggests, “Why don’t you hold hands and jump together?” Then he begins to hit Rosario’s legs with the hammer. “Be careful,” he growls. “Those legs break really easily.”

Ray eventually began extracting money from Rosario, accusing him of damaging property and demanding repayment. Under pressure, Rosario turned to his parents and friends to cover the tens of thousands of dollars Ray was asking for. This list of debts grew and grew — eventually, Rosario said, the list expanded to include every item he could “conceivably have come in contact with” in the entire apartment, totaling $100,430 in supposed damages.

As heinous as Ray’s behavior may be, his motives are often inscrutable. (Ray has pleaded not guilty to the 17 charges against him.) Why wreak havoc on a college student’s life and convince him that he’s part of a convoluted plot? It will be up to the jurors to consider whether Ray was a sophisticated con artist driven by money and sex, or an irrational actor caught in his own grim conspiracy. In the end, does that distinction even matter? Ray’s defense team seems to think so.

In the defense’s opening statement, Allegra Glashausser, one of Ray’s attorneys, described Ray and his victims not as a criminal enterprise but as a “group of storytellers” who erected around themselves a bizarre, semi-fictional world. It was as if, Glashausser said, they leapt through Alice’s looking glass.

“Through the looking glass, the truth became complicated. At times the storytellers couldn’t separate truth from fiction,” Glashausser said. “That’s the thing about a good story: It makes you believe. And Larry believed most of all.”

In court, Rosario spoke slowly, his voice quavering. Often, long gaps of silence preceded his answers. Speaking in court about Ray, he said, was a stressful experience. Until recently, Rosario seemed to be one of the people least likely to speak against Ray. During our reporting for the article that, after its publication in 2019, spurred an investigation into Ray that eventually resulted in his arrest, we tried and failed many times to reach Rosario. It was unclear whether he was ignoring our interview requests or hiding (whether from us, from someone else, or from everyone, we didn’t know).

Eventually, we visited his parents’ home in the Bronx. When they came to the door, we told them we were writing a story about Ray. The couple was visibly shaken. Through an interpreter, the Rosarios told us that they had not spoken to their son, or his two sisters, in years. They estimated that, between their children, they’d given Ray some $200,000. They paid because their children said they might commit suicide if they didn’t come up with the money. The Rosarios were forced to sell their home to make ends meet.

They appeared heartbroken: After immigrating from the Dominican Republic, they seemed to have achieved the American Dream, sending their children to Sarah Lawrence, Harvard, and Columbia, only to watch all of them disappear from their lives under Ray’s influence.

We did eventually find Rosario in a surprising place — the comments section of the story we published about Ray. Soon after publication, he posted a long comment defending his mentor. (We were able to verify that his email was connected to the username that posted it). “Larry Ray has only ever offered his friendship, attention, and care to me,” he wrote:

“He fed us, never skimping on the quality or healthiness of meals. He offered a listening ear, always making himself available to us, no matter the time. He taught us about and exemplified the notions of honesty, integrity, honor, and compassion. He encouraged us to enhance and educate ourselves, constantly suggesting that we read all kinds of books ranging from philosophy, history and current events, to science and mathematics … Without a doubt, I owe whatever independence, clarity, emotional balance, and resilience I have to Larry Ray and the time that I have spent with him.”

The comment certainly seemed to indicate that he remained under Ray’s influence. According to the prosecution, he was — the government entered that comment into evidence during pretrial litigation and said Rosario had written it under pressure from Ray.

How does someone seemingly so devoted to Ray, and for so long, suddenly become a star witness in the case against him? How does someone apparently so coerced find their way to a new truth? That’s what the jury will be asking as they make their way through the early stages of this case.

After Rosario finishes his testimony, prosecutors will try to show a similar pattern in Ray’s treatment of the other two students in the picture at the museum, Dan and Claudia, and of Rosario’s two sisters, Yalitza and Felicia.

“What you’re trying to do is have one witness’s testimony corroborate the other witness’s testimony,” said Penza. “Wherever you can show that the same behaviors were being used over and over again, that’s going to be persuasive to a jury.”

Even in court, Ray shows signs of still wanting to be in control of the story. The other morning, before Judge Lewis Liman called the jury into the 24th-floor courtroom, he had a message for Ray.

“At various points yesterday during the testimony of the witness, my staff observed Mr. Ray either nodding in approval or shaking his head in apparent disapproval of what the witness was saying,” Judge Liman said. “I’m prepared to assume for now that that was just reactions in the heat of the moment. That assumption is not going to last into today.” The caution seems to have been effective.

Http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/03/larry-ray-trial-testimony.html