CultNEWS101 Articles: 3/11/2026
Patrick Ryan
A father took over the lives of his daughter's college roommates in horrifying ways for almost a decade.
"In April 2019, a website called The Cut published an article titled “The Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence.” "What happened to the group of bright college students who fell under the sway of a classmate’s father?" the subhead asked, introducing the general public—and much of law enforcement—to Larry Ray. The story also provided the basis of the 2024 Lifetime movie Devil on Campus: The Larry Ray Story.
Almost nine years earlier, in 2010, Larry got out of prison, moved in with his daughter, Talia Ray, at Sarah Lawrence College and set his sights on her vulnerable roommates. He cooked them steak dinners, taught them lessons from the Marines and regaled them with tales of espionage in the CIA and connections with government officials, gaining their trust and respect before slowly taking control of their lives. His victims, all in their late teens and 20s, endured sexual, physical and emotional abuse and torture. This real-life horror movie went on for years before it was uncovered, almost by accident, by journalists who just happened to reach out to the right person.
Daniel Levin, now a writer, was under Larry's control for three years, and he spoke about his story on a 2023 episode of the podcast Navigating Narcissism. Levin was one of Talia's roommates, along with Claudia Drury, Isabella Pollok and Santos Rosario. Talia had frequently talked about her supposedly heroic father, a former Marine and CIA agent, and now that he was getting out of prison (after being unfairly incarcerated by the government, she said), she wanted him to move into the dorm. Strange, but as Levin said, 'No one wants to be the one to tell your friend she can't see her dad.'"
Uncult Ōtautahi: Episode 001 – Jaya Mangalam Gibson
Show NotesAsahi: Ex-minister admits lobbying for Unification Church’s name change
• Born into a cult — Jaya shares what it was like growing up inside the Fourth Way movement and how it shaped his early understanding of the world.
• A search for meaning — After leaving, his journey led him through other spiritual movements, including encounters with Scientology and Falun Gong.
• Recognising the patterns — Over time, Jaya began to see the dynamics of control, ideology, and manipulation that defined these environments.
• Life after cults — Recovery, rebuilding identity, and the importance of community, friendship, and support in the healing process.
"A former Cabinet minister has admitted to lobbying in support of the Unification Church’s controversial 2015 name change, telling The Asahi Shimbun he acted because the group had provided him with crucial election support.
Yoshiaki Harada, 81, a former environment minister and Lower House member for the Liberal Democratic Party, justified his intervention by saying it was “natural for a politician to respond” to petitions from those who had helped them.
The group, originally founded in Seoul in 1954 as the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, became widely known as the Unification Church.
Certified as a religious corporation in Japan in 1964, its practices of “spiritual sales” and soliciting large donations became a major social problem from the 1980s onward.
HIDING TRUE IDENTITY
The church’s efforts to rebrand itself began much earlier.
In 1997, it consulted the Agency for Cultural Affairs about a name change, but the request was denied on the grounds that it “would help conceal the group’s true identity,” according to a former senior education ministry official.
Despite the rejection, the church persisted, and the issue came to a head in 2015.
That March, the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales, representing victims of the church's activities, urged then-education minister Hakubun Shimomura to block any future application."
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