Cult Leader Dad Threatened Abduction to Middle East, Witness Says
A former Sarah Lawrence student who was allegedly forced into prostitution by her roommate’s father testified about emotional and physical abuse at the hands of the accused sex cult leader, including that he threatened to have her kidnapped.
“He threatened to kill me on a memorable occasion,” Claudia Drury, 31, said during Lawrence Ray’s sex-crimes trial in Manhattan federal court on Friday. “He threatened to cut my face. He threatened to have me abducted and dropped in the Middle East. He threatened to blackmail people I knew. He threatened to beat up my father.”
Those shocking allegations of abuse, however, paled in comparison to the horror Drury said she endured after Ray forced her into sex work to pay the 62-year-old back for allegedly “damaging” him, “wasting his time,” damaging his property, and even supposedly poisoning him. None of those things were true, but Drury said on Friday that she funneled Ray $2.5 million over a four-year stint as a prostitute in connection with nonexistent wrongdoing against him.