A woman who described herself as Larry Ray’s “wife” of Sarah Lawrence “cult leader” and lived with him and his co-defendant “Lieutenant” Isabella Pollok has told jurors how their “romantic” relationship degenerated into abuse and sexual humiliation that was destroyed her medical career and left her feeling “subhuman.”
Felicia Rosario, 39, took the witness stand early in the third week of Monday’s high-profile trial and told jurors how she was introduced to Ray by her brother Santos, who was 62 and a student at Elite Liberal College. Old Ray’s daughter, Talia.
Rosario described how she found Ray “charming” when the young woman, then a 29-year-old medical graduate from Harvard and Columbia and on track to get her medical license, first met him in the fall of 2011.
Rosario was living with Ray and Pollok in a home in Piscataway, New Jersey when Ray was arrested in February 2020. She said she called him “Honeybun,” and both she and Pollok considered themselves his “wife.”
Witness for the prosecution Felicia Rosario, 39, (far right) testified in Manhattan federal court Monday as the trial of Larry Ray (bottom left) on sex trafficking charges entered its third week
Rosario, who appeared in Manhattan Federal Court Monday, referred to herself as Ray’s “wife” while living with him in New Jersey
Rosario was a 29-year-old medical doctor at Harvard and Columbia when she met Ray, 62, through her younger brother, who was a student at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York
Rosario shared a now-familiar story of Ray’s charm pattern, which quickly gave way to coercion, sexual humiliation, and physical and psychological abuse.
Rosario is a sophomore living in Los Angeles and only saw Ray a couple of times on the East Coast before declaring he was “in love” with her and beginning to pursue sexual challenges.
In a statement matching that of alleged cult member Claudia Drury, 31, Rosario recounted how Ray made her challenges, asking her to have sex with strangers and record it for him.
She also shared how he would ask her to go to the mall, wear no underwear with a short skirt and buy shoes, and blink the shoe salesman if he helped her.
“He made those demands practically every weekend. Eventually, he was so adamant and threatening to break up with me and leave me that I started to acquiesce,” Rosario said.
Rosario said she first had sex with a stranger for Ray in the summer of 2012, by which time she had left the West Coast and moved in with Ray at his Upper East Side apartment.
She told the court that Ray and Pollok shared a bed and that all three slept together naked.
The witness told the court how her “romantic” relationship with Ray resulted in abuse and sexual humiliation that destroyed her medical career
The jury was shown a disturbing video of Rosario wearing her graduation cap, which she said was a repeated humiliation tactic by Ray, who would make her wear it and mock her as stupid and a failure
While living with Ray and his so-called “lieutenant,” Isabella Pollok, Rosario Pollok allowed herself to become unkempt and “unattractive” so he wouldn’t send her on sexual challenges
Rosario said she was “not happy” but Ray convinced her that he was doing this to “help” Pollok, just as he “helped” the other students overcome their mental and emotional struggles.
Over time, she said, Ray demanded that she perform sexual acts on both him and Pollok.
“He called it the BPD camp,” Rosario said, explaining that it stood for Borderline Personality Disorder, or “Bad Parenting Disorder,” as Ray called it.
The court saw disturbing video of Ray filming Rosario appearing asleep and with one black eye.
She can be seen wearing her graduation cap, a repeated humiliation tactic used by Ray when, she testified, he would make her wear it and mock her as stupid and a failure.
Audio played in court can be heard as Ray instructs another student to “buy a pacifier for Rosario” because she is acting “like a child” and “subhumanly”.
As with Drury, Ray allegedly used his tactics against Rosario to extort money from her for alleged wrongdoing — at one point she “confessed” to stealing $160,000 from him.
She asked friends and family for money, racked up credit card debt and emptied her “very small” 401,000 to “pay him back,” she said.
Rosario also recounted how Ray punched her in the face, head and stomach, kicked her legs, bound her with zip ties and covered her mouth with duct tape to undermine her sense of self and reality.
Ultimately, she became convinced that her own siblings had poisoned her — a feeling she described as “heartbreaking” and a belief that shattered their once-close relationship.
She said she herself was “terrified,” “paranoid,” and “overwhelmed,” certain that Ray would follow up on threats to send her to jail if she didn’t comply with his demands.
Ray eventually endeared himself to his daughter Talia’s friends Santos Rosario (left), Daniel Levin, Felicia Rosario (right) and Isabella Pollok
Pictured: Alleged cult victims Claudia Drury (left) Dan Levin (right) in evidence photos presented to the court
Ray’s daughter Talia (left) was named as a co-conspirator along with Ray’s so-called “lieutenant” and co-defendant Isabella Pollok (right), the judge ruled last week
Her stress was so great that she once attempted suicide, Rosario said.
Eventually, she told the court, Ray stopped demanding that she sleep with strangers and recorded it in 2017.
At the time, living with Ray and Pollok, she explained that she was unkempt, with her hair in a bun and her clothes boring, and that she was “unattractive” and “uninteresting.”
“He wouldn’t get anything if he sent me out the way I was,” she testified.
Rosario is one of at least five “cult” members who met Ray after insinuating himself into his daughter’s friends at the elite liberal arts college in Bronxville, north of Manhattan.
Felicia’s brother Santos Rosario (pictured) testified for the prosecution earlier in the trial
Prosecutors say Ray coerced students into joining his “family” as he amassed power, sex and money, forcing a woman into a sex work venture so lucrative she handed him more than $1 million in a single year.
Rosario’s dramatic testimony comes after the jury was shown Friday a horrific video of Ray applying pliers to a student’s teeth and tongue while threatening him and hitting him in the stomach with a mallet and steel mallet.
The footage showed Ray threatening to “obliterate” student Daniel Levin’s face as he hooked what appears to be a mallet or mallet in the grainy images around his neck and forced a pair of pliers into his mouth.
As Levin wails, Ray can be heard saying, “I’m going to smash your face now… Don’t f**k about.” The next thing that will come out is your cock and balls.
Apparently Ray is referring to another incident where Ray allegedly made a garrotte out of tinfoil and then tightened it around Levin’s genitals and Ray is heard asking “Did you like it when your balls got strangled the other day?”
Sarah Lawrence College is an elite liberal arts college in Bronxville, north of New York City
Earlier in the trial, the jury was shown another disturbing video of a young woman believed to be Felicia appearing to attack Ray in a kitchen but being restrained by another woman.
Prosecutors say Ray dominated the college student, forcing some of them into prostitution and making others wear diapers as punishment.
It’s not clear from the video why the young woman is upset or when it was shot, but at one point Ray kicks her in the leg while another woman holds her back.
Earlier in the trial, Rosario’s brother Santos told the court he allegedly endured Ray’s scathing interrogations and abuse for five years.
Santos said Ray made him and his sister Felicia sit in his apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side wearing nothing but the diapers.
The former Sarah Lawrence College student was introduced to Ray in 2010 by his daughter Talia, who he was dating at the time. Before long, he found himself under Ray’s control along with his two sisters.
Santos testified that Ray hit him with a hammer, held a knife to his genitals, urged him to commit suicide, and called him “scum” and “garbage.”