REWIND: Felicia Rosario and Daniel Levin - Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence

Summary

Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation

Episode: REWIND: Felicia Rosario and Daniel Levin - Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence

Release Date: December 24, 2025
Hosts: Lola Blanc & Meagan Elizabeth
Guests: Felicia Rosario & Daniel Levin

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Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth conversation with Felicia Rosario and Daniel Levin, survivors of Larry Ray’s notorious Sarah Lawrence cult, as depicted in Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence (Hulu). Hosts Lola and Meagan explore how two intelligent, driven students were systematically manipulated and abused by Ray—a master manipulator—who weaponized psychological tactics, charisma, and coercion. The conversation focuses on how abuse and cult dynamics work beneath the surface, highlighting the stepwise progression from initial attraction to total control, and ultimately escape.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Backgrounds of the Survivors

• Felicia Rosario:
  • Harvard graduate, medical doctor, psychiatry resident at USC.
  • “I was planning to be a forensic psychiatrist, do research, work with the underserved... help as many people as possible.” (10:36)
• Daniel Levin:
  • Scholar at Sarah Lawrence, studied literature and philosophy.
  • “It was the first time... I was surrounded by people who were like me.” (11:31)

Both grew up high achievers but faced personal vulnerabilities that Ray would later exploit.

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2. How Larry Ray Entered Their Lives

• Ray arrives as Talia’s recently released father; described as “charismatic” and “brilliant.”
• Initially seems benevolent, offering “help” to students experiencing depression, anxiety, or aimlessness.
  • “He leveraged his photographic memory and government connections to craft a persona of ultimate authority.” (02:51)
• Creates a “regimented,” single-minded environment among Talia’s friends.
  • “Suddenly... they became a lot more regimented, I would say... They were talking... about how great Larry was, how much he was helping them.” —Daniel (15:03)

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3. Grooming & Manipulation: From Help to Harm

• Ray used psychological manipulation and “therapy” tactics, establishing himself as the group’s authority and sole interpreter of their problems.
  • “He would challenge us and be like, take a book off of the shelf... and like, read like three words to me. And then I'll tell you the rest...” —Felicia (31:12)
• Would offer simplistic, black-and-white answers to complex issues, fostering dependency.
  • “The idea of there just being actually one person who... really believing that they do know, and then they just tell you, this is who you are... It’s awesome.” —Daniel (20:31)

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4. Escalation to Abuse—Isolation and Control

• Isolation: Ray monopolized their time, cutting off contact with family and outside support.
  • “He is taking up all of your free time and hijacking all of your ability to think for yourself.” —Lola (45:33)
• Emotional Abuse: Long, interrogative conversations aimed at eroding self-esteem.
• Paranoia: Claimed they or their families were being watched or targeted by powerful people.
• Sexual Coercion: Orchestrated and forced sexual encounters under guise of “education” or “healing.”
  • “He like sent her out into the living room to perform oral sex on me. And I have a distinct memory of feeling like frozen... non-consensual from top to bottom.” —Daniel (25:20)

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5. Mechanics of Control

• Hierarchy and Scapegoating:
  • “There was a kind of hierarchy... but who is at the very bottom would cycle... you would do everything you could to be good.” —Daniel (51:03)
• Weaponizing Authority & Knowledge:
  • Faked government and law enforcement ties.
  • “He did know people in the government... former New York City detectives, DEA agents...” —Felicia (31:39)
• Gaslighting: Convinces victims they are the source of problems.
  • “He starts saying, I love you... but he got me so paranoid that I believed that I was being followed... he persisted and he just made this story...” —Felicia (41:24)

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6. Breaking Point and Escape

• Daniel:
  • “Once you start to question one thing... what is he doing in the bedroom for all those hours with Isabella?” (53:34)
  • Solitude broke the spell: “I just needed like a couple hours by myself to get my brain back...” (57:23)
  • “If that fundamentally isn’t true... then a lot of other things must not be true. And... I don’t deserve to be hurt this way... and can just stop it.” (55:32)
• Felicia:
  • Endured worsening psychological and physical abuse (public beatings, starvation, threats).
  • “Anything you could do to somebody, he did to me.” (61:49)
  • Hospitalized after a suicide attempt, only to be further manipulated.
  • “I’m so glad the justice system worked... I felt so validated.” (63:59)

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7. Aftermath: Justice and Recovery

• Larry Ray sentenced to 60 years; survivors express relief and validation.
  • “We get to be in the very small group of people who can say that they put their abuser in prison...” —Daniel (64:49)

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8. Understanding Why It Happens

• Highlights how “smart” or educated people can fall prey; it’s about circumstance, vulnerability, and psychological need—not intelligence.
  • “It really shows what can happen to anyone.” —Megan (03:49)
• Both hosts admit under similar conditions, they could have been lured in.

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9. Reflection on Other Victims & the Series

• Empathy for other group members prosecuted.
  • “With Isabella... she was his first victim... she didn’t know anything but Larry... what Larry made her do is a prison sentence in and of itself...” —Felicia (65:35)
• Reference to the Hulu docuseries and Daniel’s memoir (Sloaneham Woods 9).

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Daniel, on Ray’s authority:

  “The idea of there just being actually one person who, if you can imagine actually trusting them... and then they just tell you, this is who you are. Yeah. It's awesome.” (20:31)

• Felicia, on Ray’s manipulation:

  “He got me so paranoid that I believed that I was being followed... he was so good at controlling and manipulating people... he was in my head.” (41:24)

• Lola, on indoctrination:

  “He is taking up all of your free time and hijacking all of your ability to think for yourself... you have no time alone. That is the classic way people indoctrinate...” (45:33)

• Daniel, on breaking free:

  “If that fundamentally isn’t true... I don’t deserve to be hurt this way and can just stop it, you know?” (55:32)

• Felicia on seeing justice:

  "He was just sentenced January 20th. 60 years in prison... I’m just so glad the justice system worked and the judge really nailed it. I felt so validated." (63:59)

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Important Timestamps

• [10:05] – Felicia & Daniel describe their pre-cult lives & ambitions.
• [13:49] – Daniel’s first impressions and the group’s dynamic shift.
• [18:56] – Felicia on observing her siblings’ rapid changes.
• [20:31] – Daniel explains the psychological relief of Ray’s “savior” persona.
• [25:20] – Daniel details first sexual coercion; onset of abuse.
• [31:12] – Felicia describes Ray’s memory feats as manipulation.
• [34:48] – Felicia’s first meeting with Ray: charm and emotional targeting.
• [45:33] – Lola explains how Ray consumed their time/thoughts.
• [51:03] – Daniel: escalation of violence and scapegoating.
• [55:32] – Daniel’s moment of clarity and escape.
• [61:00] – Felicia recounts the worst period of the abuse.
• [63:59] – Felicia on justice and post-Ray recovery.
• [65:35] – Felicia’s empathy for other victims.

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Episode Tone & Approach

• Candid, empathetic, deeply personal. By survivors, for survivors.
• Hosts use dark humor and self-reflection to make sense of the experience, repeatedly stressing that cult manipulation can happen to anyone—regardless of intellect or background.
• Direct language; occasional expletives for impact (e.g., “what an idiot—filming all of his abuse”).
• Ends with positive note on survival, justice, and hope for healing.

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Additional Resources

• Hulu Docuseries: Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence
• Daniel Levin’s memoir: Sloaneham Woods 9
• National resources for those affected by cults or coercive relationships

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For anyone interested in abuse recovery, cult dynamics, or simply how intelligent people can be controlled, this is a powerful, honest episode—equal parts harrowing and hopeful.

Transcript

[Lola Blanc]

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[Daniel Levin]

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[Lola Blanc]

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[Felicia Rosario]

Run that turns into a disco, snow.

[Daniel Levin]

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[Felicia Rosario]

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[Lola Blanc]

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[Daniel Levin]

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[Felicia Rosario]

Ross, work your magic.

[Commercial Narrator]

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[Felicia Rosario]

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[Daniel Levin]

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[Megan Elizabeth]

If you have your own story of being in a cult or a high.

[Lola Blanc]

Control group, or if you've had experience with manipulation or abuse of power that you'd like to share, leave us a.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Message on our hotline number at 34786 Trust.

[Lola Blanc]

That's 347-868-7878 or shoot us an email.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Trustmepodmail.Com Trust me dude, you trust me.

[Felicia Rosario]

Trust me.

[Lola Blanc]

I'm like a smart person.

[Felicia Rosario]

I've never lied to you.

[Daniel Levin]

I never have lied to you.

[Lola Blanc]

If you think that one person has all the answers, don't. Welcome to Trust Me, the podcast about cults, extreme belief and manipulation from two angry women who've actually experienced it. I'm Lola Blanc.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And I'm Megan Elizabeth.

[Lola Blanc]

And today our guests are Felicia Rosario and Daniel Levin, survivors of Larry Ray and his Sarah Lawrence sex cult. So today we're going to discuss how they came to meet the charismatic Larry, the ways in which he leveraged his photographic memory and government connections to craft a Persona of ultimate authority, and how he slowly gained control of their minds and their lives, all under the guise of helping them.

[Megan Elizabeth]

They'll tell us about how his manipulation escalated into sexual abuse and ultimately horrific violence. How one night of being alone led to Daniel finally leaving and how they're both doing now that Larry's finally going to prison for the harm that he has caused.

[Lola Blanc]

Thank God, right? Yeah, thank God.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Bye, Larry.

[Lola Blanc]

I wish we could have talked to them for so much longer, but I love this interview because we got to really talk about how he sort of really started to take control of their minds, which I feel like is such an important part of the picture. Like, it's not just about.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

The actual physical abuse. You know what I mean?

[Megan Elizabeth]

And their minds are so. What people historically think of as smart. So, yeah. Really show what can happen to anyone.

[Lola Blanc]

I mean, they are smart.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I know. I just mean, like, Harvard, like, traditionally.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, yeah. They have the, like, qualifications technically for what you would consider a smart person. Totally.

[Commercial Narrator]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah. Of course they're geniuses, but you know what I mean? So a million people that have gotten into cults, but they just didn't go to Harvard. And then people are like. They're dumb. Whatever.

[Lola Blanc]

I didn't go to Harvard. Am I dumb? Yeah, yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Very stupid.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh, thank you.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Kidding.

[Lola Blanc]

Well, before we dive in with them, Megan, kindly tell me your coldiest thing.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Okay. Well, it's definitely not good news, but probably a lot of people have seen.

[Lola Blanc]

This in the news.

[Megan Elizabeth]

The actor from Dancing with Wolves, his name is Nathan Chasing Horse. He was arrested in his Las Vegas home. He had five wives with him, some underage, and he's been running a sex cult. And essentially he's been using Native Americans beliefs against them because he would go do spiritual ceremonies and all these reservations across Canada and the U.S. and kind of be like, now I need to have sex with someone. You. The story is very confusing and muddled. And I think it's going to get more clear as more stuff is released. But it sounds like he was having sex with women or girls as young as 13 and he had pills for his wives to kill themselves should the police show up. So it looks like they narrowly missed being part of a death cult because the police got them out in time.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, I think, thank God. I mean, it just goes to show that there is really no belief system that is immun to the abuse of power like any frickin religion, any community. Like. And I don't want to like, you know, be a fear monger or whatever, but it is kind of everywhere and it can exist in any community. And that's why it's so important for us to, you know, be mindful of group dynamics.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah. Wherever there's a good thing happening, somebody can twist it and make it very bad.

[Lola Blanc]

I know, it's just, it's such a bummer when it's like, I mean, it's always a bummer. It's always a bummer. But like when it's someone who's supposed to be like a spiritual healer, you know, a spiritual leader of some kind. Yeah. But again, always a bummer in every scenario. It's always under the guise of helping people. I mean, at least very, very frequently, I should say. Yeah. And it makes me sad that there are so many of these, usually men, not always out there.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yep. Very unfortunate. Just messing with people's beliefs to have sex with them.

[Lola Blanc]

It's evil.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I know. What about you? What's the cultiest thing that happened to you this week?

[Lola Blanc]

Nothing culty has happened to me this week because I've been in an editing hole, but I am emerging from the editing hole and.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Welcome back.

[Lola Blanc]

Thank you. I was just really interested in this story that you actually alerted me to about how there was a retired NYPD detective who was just sort of talking about how Internet sleuths are dangerous. And so there's this article about how. Here's a quote from him. Sleuths don't know the standards of proof that police departments rely on. They may end up violating somebody's rights when doing these private investigations and inevitably might compromise courtroom testimony and presentation. And there are just a few instances in the article describing people who actually are now being prosecuted for unethical web sleuth behavior. And also people who are being sued for like pointing a finger at someone for a crime that they fucking did not commit. Yeah. So it's about the Idaho history teacher Rebecca Schofield, who's suing this Tiktoker for defamation.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Good.

[Lola Blanc]

There. There are like other instances of this happening. And listen, like, I know that if a crime has been committed against you and the police are not doing their job or like the authorities are just like, not taking your case seriously. Like, I totally understand the desire to get help from other people, but there obviously are just people who take it too far. People who make accusations without knowing what they're talking about just because things look a little funny. And as we know, coincidences are not the same as actual evidence that would hold up in court. So I just, I just, I appreciate that there's some attention being called to it, even though of course there are instances of it working.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I'm very curious to see what happens with this case. I wonder what the punishment will be since she's obviously guilty and was really destroying this woman's life and saying, I know you killed these kids.

[Lola Blanc]

Jesus.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, it's so scary.

[Lola Blanc]

I know. Well, speaking of scary things, shall we?

[Megan Elizabeth]

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[Lola Blanc]

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[Megan Elizabeth]

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[Lola Blanc]

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[Felicia Rosario]

Okay. My life before I met Larry. I was. Had just started my internship, my residency in psychiatry at usc. I had gone to Harvard on scholarship and studied biochemistry and then took some time off and went to medical school at Columbia in New York.

[Lola Blanc]

Pretty sweet education you have going before Larry. Right? That's very cool.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah. What was, like, what your trajectory. What were you hoping life would turn out like before you met him?

[Felicia Rosario]

Before I met him, I was planning to be a forensic psychiatrist, actually. So that was part of why I went to USC in la, because it has one of the best forensics training programs in the country. Yeah. And I was planning to be a forensic psychiatrist, do research, work with the underserved, work with the disenfranchised. That was a plan to give back, to help as many people as possible.

[Lola Blanc]

And Daniel, what was your life like before Larry?

[Daniel Levin]

Substantially less admirable. I was at Sarah Lawrence College. I was 18 years old. I also there on scholarship, had just kind of barely gotten in and was happy to just be figuring out who I was at 18. You know, I was studying these, like, classic liberal arts things like writing and poetry and philosophy and literature, and it looked like heaven.

[Lola Blanc]

The campus is just like these beautiful old buildings and trees and.

[Daniel Levin]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It was everything that I had kind of envisioned college might be like. Yeah, the sort of rolling hills and the big old stone buildings and friends. You know, it was the first time that I was going to a place where I was surrounded by people who were like me. I grew up in a pretty conservative area and so just starting to discover myself when I met Larry Ray.

[Lola Blanc]

Right, and you met him first.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Right.

[Lola Blanc]

You were kind of living in the apartment when Felicia arrived. How did you first meet, first of all, Larry's daughter, Talia. And then how did you meet Larry?

[Daniel Levin]

Sure. So in freshman year, I made friends with Santos, Felicia's younger brother. He was my freshman year roommate and kind of my first friend at Sarah Lawrence. He started dating Talia Ray. And so, you know, they had like, a college relationship. And everyone knew that Talia's dad was this guy Larry, who had been unjustly, according to her, incarcerated. He was this incredible intelligence agent. He had done all these amazing things and had been at the center of this conspiracy. She'd been separated from her sister. This was kind of the story that Talia would tell over and over. And that was like her life to get back together with her dad. And going into sophomore year, Talia kind of spearheaded all of us getting group housing, which at Sarah Lawrence you can apply to all live in a house together as a group, which gives you a better shot at just getting better housing. So we got to move into this kind of townhouse type situation rather than being lumped into dorms with other people called Sloan and Woods. There were eight of us. And we learned towards the beginning of that year, our sophomore year, that Talia's dad was getting out of prison and she asked if he could come and kind of crash while he got his feet back under him. And it felt like it would be kind of horrible to say no to that after her whole life she'd been living in homeless shelters, all these things. All she wanted was to be back with her dad. And so we kind of passively let that happen. And that's how Larry Ray came into my life.

[Lola Blanc]

And can you tell us about your first impression of him? What did he seem like?

[Daniel Levin]

Yeah, I, you know, for me, off the bat, he mostly seemed really stressful. You know, to be honest, he was just kind of like he would talk a lot and really fast and it just seemed like he took up a lot of my friends time and attention. He was first sort of had Santos and Talia, Larry's daughter and Talia's best friend Isabella, were sort of in his orbit. And then later our friend Claudia, and they just seemed to really glom onto him and. And I was dating my first girlfriend of my life, really, and was socializing and having fun and this just seemed like a lot. They were talking about truth and justice and fighting back against the powers that beat. It was just too much. So I was very happy to ignore that, but I was ignoring what turned out to be a lot more than just those conversations.

[Lola Blanc]

Right.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It's interesting because it seems like that initial transformation with Santos and Isabella was what really drew everyone in. And I understand that. Can you tell a little bit what happened to their demeanor after spending time with him?

[Daniel Levin]

Yeah, it seemed like, you know, we're at Sarah Lawrence, which is famously a very kind of liberal environment. It felt like everyone had been pretty free spirited, but at the same time was dealing with a lot of kind of 18 year old angst. You know, I knew that Santos had the same kind of struggles that I did as a young man. And it was pretty clear that Isabella was struggling with some things that I would now call like mental health issues. And suddenly they became a lot more regimented, I would say it felt like they were kind of myopic, like single minded and A lot less fun noticeably. And so. But at the same time, they were talking really regularly about how great Larry was, how much he was helping them, how much the sort of problems they'd been dealing with, with themselves, with their families, were kind of all getting cleared up. Everything was so much better. And they seemed like school was going better for them. You know, it felt like there was evidence that something was changing. It just, at the time, wasn't a change that I even really desired. I was perfectly happy to not be doing great in school.

[Lola Blanc]

Right. And Isabella, like, seemed to have, like, a complete transformation as a person.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Reclusive at first and then dynamic.

[Daniel Levin]

Yeah. I think that she was at first, what you might. It's a reductive phrase, but what you might call, like, an emo girl kind of, you know, the. The person you recognize that hair's always in front of their face. She's kind of, like, pretty. Retreated into herself, maybe a little, like, scathing, you know, And Talia was, like, her first really close friend who seemed to really see her and make her feel like a person. And there was something that seemed kind of beautiful about that. And Larry became an extension of Talia and then this kind of father figure for her. And that was really evident, like, very quickly. And all of a sudden, it did seem like Isabella kind of came out of her shell. She was, like, very confident and very outspoken and, you know, had a big personality, and all of this happened. All this.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Wow.

[Lola Blanc]

So, yeah. So that.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, I would have been like, sign me up. What just happened? What sorcery?

[Lola Blanc]

Oh, he's helping. He's helping all of these people. Maybe he can help me.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And it showed, like, Santos, like, kind of being in the deck. That's so wonderful. I hope everybody sees it. But, like, being hunched over and then his posture changes, and he's confident, and it just seems like, wow, I would want to talk to this person so badly.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah. And policia. I would love to hear from you. Since your siblings kind of knew him first, like, what did you observe in them when they started spending time with him?

[Felicia Rosario]

I would echo what Dan said. As far as my brother goes, he was much brighter, happier. He was much more confident. He had goals. He was a different person. He was the person that. I mean, he would say he was the person that he. What. That he had always wanted to be. Like, he had gotten. He had gotten to that place because before that, he had struggled significantly with mental illness and had had a suicide attempt and was. Had been recovering from that and recovered well enough, you know, to Go to college and go to a great school, but, you know, there were still vestiges of, you know, everything that led up to that. Right. And that was. That went for all of us, including myself. But after Santa started talking to Larry, he was just like, oh, my God, you know, this is so great. Life is awesome. I want to try all these things. Like, it was hard enough to get him to try, like, a different kind of sandwich.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Right.

[Felicia Rosario]

Want to do anything different? And then my sister, like, Santos introduced. Introduced my sister to Larry, and she also was very similar. She had struggled, too, with depression and anxiety. And Larry just, like, made, like, it felt like he snapped his fingers and made life better.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah. I think that's such an important piece of the story, because the thing with colds and the thing with abusers is that at first, it's great. At first, it works. Like, whatever they're offering you is effective. Like, for whatever reason, sometimes they're pulling from legitimate psychology or, you know, and sometimes they're just providing a sense of community or sense of purpose. But whatever the reason, it's working. And that is why people get drawn. And they don't get drawn in. Like, seeing him abuse someone, like, that's not what happens.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Right. And what. The technique he had with Daniel first. I mean, Daniel, your story is just. Oh, my. We were talking today. That's just like, we feel sick to our stomachs. You guys have been through so, so much. You're such beautiful people. It breaks our hearts. But, Daniel, so you were. You were in college. You're struggling. You're like, am I gay? Am I not gay? And he draws this diagram for you and is like, are you attracted to men? And you're like, not really. And he's like, great, then you're not gay. And he just takes it away. And suddenly you said you felt like a million pounds were lifted off of your chest. Like, what. What did that feel like?

[Daniel Levin]

Well, I think, you know, we're all familiar with the feeling of moving through life with no one definitively telling you how anything works or what is true or false or good or bad, how to be a good person. Like, we. The idea of there just being actually one person who, if you can imagine actually trusting them, like, really believing that they do know, and then they just tell you, this is who you are. Yeah. It's awesome, you know? Yeah. And this is what you're gonna do with your life, and I'm gonna help you do it. It's gonna be great, you know, and just truly, if it's so hard to imagine now because everyone's seeing all the horrible things that happened. But if it's possible to sort of rewind to that moment and be like, absolutely. If you actually believed that, what an incredible relief. And this is how people end up, you know, living under fascism. But so, yeah, you know, I felt anxiety about whether or not I was gay, about my sexuality, that I think probably the vast majority of young men feel. I felt insecurity about my body that I think is extraordinarily common, all of these things. And he offered black and white answers, you know, definitive answers. And it felt like finally I can quell this anxiety that I've been struggling with. Now, of course, as things progressed, having someone tell you a simple answer that isn't actually accurate to the more complicated reality doesn't really work. I kept having these questions sort of crop up and then those sort of. My questioning pushed back against Larry's control and so it escalated into abuse. So you're telling me that the AI that's meant to make everyone's job easier to manage just adds more to manage? On top of the thousands of apps the IT department already manages, funny how that works. Any business can add AI. IBM helps you scale and manage AI to change how you do business, let's create smarter business. IBM.

[Lola Blanc]

Every holiday shopper's got a list. But Ross shoppers? You've got a mission like a gift.

[Felicia Rosario]

Run that turns into a disco.

[Daniel Levin]

Snow globe, throw pillows and PJs for the whole family, dog included.

[Lola Blanc]

At Ross, holiday magic isn't about spending.

[Daniel Levin]

More, it's about giving more for less.

[Felicia Rosario]

Ross, work your magic.

[Commercial Narrator]

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[Lola Blanc]

Well, I want to. I want to talk about some of the ways that he did begin to exert control over you, Daniel and then Felicia. Let's start getting into your story.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah. When did it start to get bad? Because we. First it got sexual. Correct. So you guys are Sarah Lawrence, then you. Then he gets an apartment in the city. And that seems like it. When it took a turn for a little bit more extreme. So you are. You guys are now staying at the apartment in New York City, and first he starts kind of narrowing in on sex with you.

[Daniel Levin]

Yeah. And I can, I can say, like, so, you know, I first move into this apartment because it's. In the simplest terms, it's just genuinely finding it so difficult to find an apartment in New York City. And was just like, you know, I was going to Sarah Lawrence, which is just outside the city. It seems like the thing that everyone. All the, like, cool kids. Kids do is live in the city. What I didn't know is they all had rich parents and they just couldn't.

[Megan Elizabeth]

They never tell you that.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, no one tells you that's the way.

[Daniel Levin]

So, you know, it genuinely. It felt like I had missed a class on how to be a person or something. And Larry kind of came in and was like, I can. I can kind of catch you up. And I have this place that you can live, and also your friends are like, staying over and hanging out there all the time, and. And, you know, everything's cool. So I was like, fine, you know, I'll crash on his couch until I figure it out. And Larry introduced sex into this environment. So I'm sleeping on his couch, essentially, is how I understand it. And for some context, I had known that Isabella kind of had a crush on me while, you know, we were all living in this dorm. And I Just wasn't particularly interested. But he like sent her out into the living room to perform oral sex on me. And I have a distinct memory of feeling like frozen and like time was slowing down. I sort of didn't understand what was happening. I'm like staying in this apartment, I kind of feel like I owe them something. Like, right, I don't want to cause trouble and then what would I do if I like can't continue to stay there, don't have anywhere else to go. And so that was just like the smallest first step into what escalated into kind of Larry claiming to give me like a sexual education because I was, had hang ups or was too like prude or needed to kind of like get out of my shell. And you know, it became very controlling and coercive and non consensual from top to bottom.

[Lola Blanc]

God, it's so terrible. What were some of those ways that you can see now that were him slowly getting control over you? Can you talk about isolating you from other people or the late night interrogations? I'm just curious about that process because it does happen slowly. How does it get to the, the point that it got to.

[Daniel Levin]

So for me you go from like you're hanging out with your friends in college and sometimes you're having like all nighters or you're staying up until like sunrise and this kind of thing. And now I'm in this environment where we're staying up until sunrise, but we're talking instead of just like hanging out and making jokes, we're talking about like how to be a good person. And my friend's 55 year old dad is there, right, and he's kind of running the show. And then that shifts to being like these conversations will be really focused on one person and their relationship to their memories and their childhood and what happened with their parents and you know, how they behave and all these things. The mechanism here for the more intense abuse I think is basically shame. You know, he made me feel like he said to me, you're not gay, you know, you're a man. And then it was like up to me to prove it by going along with what he was, the context he was creating, the circumstances he was putting me in. So you know, it was like, if you want to continue to prove that you're the type of man that I've said you are and you're straight and you're all these things, you will follow my lead, you know.

[Lola Blanc]

So he first establishes himself as like an authority on like everything. Basically he is the wise Guy, literally everything.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Marines.

[Lola Blanc]

Well, he was in the Marines, but he said he was like this.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I thought he wasn't.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh, he wasn't.

[Daniel Levin]

He was in the Marines for like, what was it, like, 19 days?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, yeah, just a minute.

[Daniel Levin]

But it was like his whole identity.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

I didn't realize he was that short.

[Felicia Rosario]

That's hilarious.

[Lola Blanc]

I mean, technically true, but. Yeah, but that. But like, he's, you know, painting himself as someone who has been a part of very high level government operations and he's experienced a lot and he's been through a lot. So he has all this wisdom. And I'm assuming he actually did do some reading on things because he seemed to know about things, which. Maybe you can speak to Felicia, but. So, like, he's establishing, like, I'm the authority. I know about everything. You're all young. I. I know what to do. I know what the answers. And then he's creating these goalposts for you because he has all this wisdom and he knows what's best for you, for you to live up to that continuously move right this, like, oh, you're not good enough. I'm gonna tell you how to be good enough. But then that, of course, weird.

[Megan Elizabeth]

You didn't reach it again.

[Felicia Rosario]

Yeah, he was very well read. Or is. Sorry again. He is very well read.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah.

[Felicia Rosario]

He's very educated on many topics. Can carry on a conversation with anyone with just about. But just about anything. And. And it's true. I mean, he would. He would challenge us and be like, take a book off of the shelf. Like, don't tell me what it is. Go to a page, like. And like, read like three words to me. And then I'll tell you the rest of it. Like, I'll read you the whole paragraph.

[Lola Blanc]

Whoa.

[Felicia Rosario]

And he actually had his. He. I mean, he did it all the time.

[Lola Blanc]

Does he just have, like a photographic photograph memory?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, wow.

[Felicia Rosario]

He's.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yes, he's very smart.

[Felicia Rosario]

So he's very good that he knows a lot. And then he can talk his way around what he does. Anybody.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah.

[Felicia Rosario]

What he doesn't know. Exactly. And then he did. He did know some people. He. He did know people in the government.

[Megan Elizabeth]

He knew chief of police, Chief of.

[Felicia Rosario]

Police, former New York City detectives, DEA agents. Like, he knew all these people. Yeah. And I met them and they were. They're like, hi, I'm Larry's friend. Right.

[Lola Blanc]

You know, how did he know all of these people? How did this happen? Do we know?

[Daniel Levin]

I think that the way that he operated for many years is kind of this classic con man thing where he was just leveraging one connection after another to just kind of leapfrog up. So it'd be like, you know, he has someone he knew from childhood, he uses them to get connected to someone who's a little bit more powerful, and then he meets someone else and he claims he knows this person and he just sort of bouncing back and forth. And I think that a lot of. A lot of how you can understand Larry is that most of us have all kinds of other goals for our lives and things that we care about and that take up our attention and time. If you're just like single minded and all you care about is kind of trying to achieve status for its own sake or power for its own sake, you can get a long way. There's a natural cadence to conversation. And I think we all know the feeling of, like, waiting for a natural pause when you can interject. And I think that if you just imagine feeling that feeling for years, that's what it was like to be with Larry Ray. Just someone who is so capable of ignoring all of the etiquette that we've all learned our whole lives and just.

[Lola Blanc]

Never stops the anxiety that that creates in me.

[Megan Elizabeth]

She lives on 120 milligrams of Adderall sometimes. So, wow. Combining all of that shit together and you've got.

[Lola Blanc]

When you have us focused.

[Felicia Rosario]

He was actually slower. He was slow.

[Lola Blanc]

He was calm.

[Felicia Rosario]

When he had his 120 milligrams, you didn't want to talk to him if he didn't have his Adderall. It was like, oh, my God, you didn't take your Adderall. Here.

[Lola Blanc]

Was this what you texted me about saying the energy that this man had?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yes. I was like, how, Like, I complete one task a day and I'm like, I did it. And this man was just like, moving trees and, like, building buildings. And like, the smartest people I've ever seen are like, yeah. I'm just like, whoa. I can't. I don't understand why sociopaths have so much energy.

[Lola Blanc]

It's. Can they give us some of it, please?

[Daniel Levin]

And yet at the same time, he got nothing done.

[Felicia Rosario]

Exactly.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Right. Right. They know. Yes. Yes, yes. Yeah.

[Felicia Rosario]

Never finished anything. He was never on time. Like, he could just. He could not get it together. It's true.

[Daniel Levin]

The whole time.

[Felicia Rosario]

No.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Wow.

[Lola Blanc]

Well, why do you need a driver's license when you have, you know, people you're abusing who do everything for you? Yeah. So, Felicia, can you tell us about how you first met Him. How did, how did it all start?

[Felicia Rosario]

Oh, so I met Larry through my sister and my brother. I think that he had them, you know, engineer this, this dinner. So I came home from Los Angeles to visit and my brother was like, oh, we have to go out to dinner with Larry. Like, you have to meet my friend Larry. And I was like, okay, sure, let's go meet Larry. So it was the three of us and Larry, we went out to an Italian restaurant and he was just. He was really. Just cheerful, really nice, charming, kind. Not. Not like how he ended up being. Yeah, obviously, right. He. He was, he seemed great and he was really smart. He. He could keep up like, conversations with me about, you know, all my medicine, my psychiatry, any. Everything, you know, everything that I knew about. So I, it was, I was, it was cool. I was like, oh, you know, he's, he's, you know, I like him. He's. He's good. And my brother really likes him. My sister is a fan. Then he took me back. He took us, well, all of us. We went back to the apartment and we talked to him. We talked for. For a really long time. It was like till two in the morning or something. We stayed up talking and he played some songs for me. He was really into this music, music therapy. So he, you know, he had learned about our family dynamics from talking to Santos and my sister Elitza. So he knew, you know, the thing. What had been going on with my parents and my relationship with my parents already. So he plays these really sad songs about like father, daughter relationships.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh my gosh.

[Felicia Rosario]

And it's like all of this Tori Amos and I'm just like, oh my God. So I'm like. And I mean, it's beautiful music and it's very emotional, right? So I end up crying. But the story that comes out of that is not about the music, is that he ends up saying afterwards that I confessed to him that my family was out to get him, was working with Bernard Kerik, kill him and Talia.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And he went to jail before. And Bernard was a part of that. Correct. So in 2003, Larry went to jail. Bernard was part of this conspiracy, which was actually just a normal person should go to jail for this.

[Felicia Rosario]

So.

[Megan Elizabeth]

So he's saying, yes, you told me that Bernard, your family's working with him. And, and.

[Felicia Rosario]

Right, right.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Okay.

[Felicia Rosario]

Okay, got it. So then I. So then this is where, this is where the, the, the poisoning plot starts. Where he, He. He starts.

[Megan Elizabeth]

First night. Damn.

[Felicia Rosario]

Yeah, the first night. Yeah. So he, He's. He already singles Me out as, like, the good one, because I'm the one that came and told him and, like, uncovered the plot, and then everyone else turns into poisoners, like, you know, years down the line. But it's, you know, he. He started. He had this in his mind very early on that there was some kind of the conspiracy theory against him. And then he leveraged. He leveraged that and everything else he made my sister and my brother believe against me, against me and my parents.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Do you think he believed any of this or is he just messing with you guys?

[Lola Blanc]

Just shaking her head. No.

[Felicia Rosario]

No, yes. Sorry. Yeah. No, I don't. I don't think he believed it. Yeah, there were so many times when he, He's. He. He has a great poker face, so he can tell you things. And it sounds like he. It's true. But. And, but I've seen him do it to me. Even he'll, like, he'll tell me something. He's like, I was just kidding. Like, you believed me. I was like, yes, I believed you. So, no, I don't think he believed it because it was absolutely. There was no basis. There was no foundation, and he clearly had his own agenda.

[Daniel Levin]

The question about whether he believed what he said, I think is really interesting. And also the reason that I didn't leave for a really long time was because I thought that I could figure out an answer to what was going on in Larry's head. And whether he believed it or not, or whether this. Even if he didn't believe what he was saying, it was part of a program to help us. Like, he claimed all these things, and it just turned out at a certain point that that maze doesn't have an exit on purpose. You know, it's like, intended to be that absurd and not navigable. And so the only answer just becomes like, I don't deserve to be hurt this way and can just stop it, you know?

[Lola Blanc]

Right.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And how you stopped it is one of my favorite stories of. We have to get to that because it's so fascinating and what we see a lot. Can we talk about when you went back to Los Angeles? Because you were going to go back to Los Angeles, your life was going to continue as normal, but you started being followed. Is that the correct. Yeah.

[Felicia Rosario]

So I went back to la, because I was only here for a few days to visit my family, and then I was. Then I had to go back to work. I was. Was I still on psychiatry? Yeah, I was still in my psychiatry rotations. So I go back to Los Angeles, I start. Larry starts calling Me, like all the time, mostly with the pretext of talking about how Santos is doing, how my sister is doing, because I'm, I'm the eldest and my parents worked a lot, so I was effectively like the third parent.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Right.

[Felicia Rosario]

So I, you know, so I, I, I was really the person that was there for my siblings, for both of them, as, While we were growing up. So naturally. And I had a very good relationship with both of them. So when Larry wanted to talk about something that was going on with either of them that he would talk to a mom about, he would talk to me. And so that was the pretext. And then we got to talking about other things. He was very interested in my work. I love my job. So I was happy to talk about work. And then, and then it got to be, I mean, then he, he got, you know, he got romantic and then he started saying, I love you. It took maybe like two or three months and he started telling me, I love you. But he, I. Now I don't know if I was being followed or not. Yeah, that's what I'm curious about. But I think, I don't think I actually was. I think he got me so paranoid that I believed that I was being followed, that I believed that people were going to come after me, that I, I mean, and he would, he planted it, like, or not planted it. He said it constantly. Well, you know, because you're talking to me like, Carrick's gonna be looking for you. I was like, what are you talking about? What does that have to do with anything? And then it just, he, he just, he persisted and he just made this story and. Sorry, this is hard. Yeah, no, it's, it's hard to talk about, but because it's just so much, you know, he, he, it didn't take long for him to just make me paranoid or be. Or he was paranoid himself. He was worried about me seeing other people. He was worried about me who I was having sex with, who I was going out with. Just like everything that like a controlling, like, significant other does, like, that's what he did. But it was like long distance and it was, he was just, he was so determined. Like, he's so good at controlling and like manipulating people. Really, like, really, like getting to your vulnerabilities and fears and weaknesses that, like, she was in my head. And it was, and there was very little I could do to, to, to fight back up until September of 2012 when he broke me and was like, okay, you're broken now. You need to come to New York. And I had no choice but to come back and leave my job, you know, without any notice.

[Lola Blanc]

So how long were these conversations that he was having with you?

[Felicia Rosario]

Hours. Yeah, there were. There were. Because, I mean, I worked during the day as, you know, and as a resident or as an intern, it's. I'm working at least 12 hours a day. Wow. My weekends is, like, free time. Right. It would be like, all. A whole Saturday from, like, morning to night. And we would be on the phone all day.

[Lola Blanc]

Wow. Yeah.

[Felicia Rosario]

All day. And he would just be asking me questions or berating me. I mean, it just went all sorts of ways. And then I could just never get off the phone.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah.

[Felicia Rosario]

Wow.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah.

[Felicia Rosario]

But somehow. Yeah. And then somehow he was still doing everything else in the apartment at the same time while he was talking to me. It just. It was so crazy, right?

[Lola Blanc]

It's like there were five.

[Felicia Rosario]

I was just gonna sit there. Yeah.

[Daniel Levin]

Jinx.

[Felicia Rosario]

Oh, yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Like, he was everywhere all at once.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah. I just want to comment on the fact that, like, you know, this isn't like you're having an hour conversation and he's in your head. Like, he is taking up all of your free time and hijacking all of your ability to think for yourself. Because you have, literally, even though you're not with him, you have no time alone. And that is how. That is the classic way that people indoctrinate people over time is you just do not even give them a chance to start to think critically at all.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Busy, busy.

[Felicia Rosario]

Right, Exactly.

[Daniel Levin]

So let me get this straight. Your company has data here, there and everywhere, but your AI can't use the data because it's here, there and everywhere? Seems like something's missing. Every business has unique data. IBM helps your AI access your data wherever it lives. To change how you do business, let's create Smile to Business. IBM.

[Lola Blanc]

Every holiday shopper's got a list. But Ross shoppers? You've got a mission.

[Felicia Rosario]

Like a gift run that turns into a disco, snow globe, throw pillows and.

[Daniel Levin]

PJs for the whole family. Dog included.

[Lola Blanc]

At Ross, holiday magic isn't about spending more. It's about giving more for less.

[Felicia Rosario]

Ross, work your magic.

[Commercial Narrator]

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[Megan Elizabeth]

So you're like, I have to go back to New York. Someone's following me. I'm terrified. Daniel, were you still at the apartment at this time or had you left yet?

[Daniel Levin]

I was, yeah. We, we overlapped at the apartment for a little while.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And what was it like at that point? What, had it started to become more chaotic? Had all this shit started to come moving in? Because he was just like compounding stuff in this apartment and. Yeah. What was the vibe there?

[Daniel Levin]

Yeah, the way I think of it now is if he started to make the interior of the apartment and all of us like reflections of the inside of his own brain. So it became. It was like hell in there. Like it was just piled high with. It was like there were 10 apartments in one apartment. You know, just like so many boxes of random things and appliances and tools and supplies. And then he'd bring in heavy duty woodworking equipment, you know, a band saw that weighed, I think 800 pounds. Like all these things, I don't even know how he got them into this apartment. So, yes, it was highly chaotic by then. You had people at first, you know, Santos had. Was going back to his parents at night, but then by then was. He was sleeping over. A bon was sleeping over I was sleeping, you know, so there's just, like, people sleeping on the floor, trying to just sort of make space around, like, paint cans. It was totally out of control and not good for feeling sane.

[Lola Blanc]

What did he say that all the stuff was in there for?

[Daniel Levin]

Well, he claimed that the reason it was so chaotic was that we were failing to organize the space and that if he had an hour, he would fix everything, but he had to let us figure out how to do it or how to sort of better ourselves, and that there was room for everything if you just figured out how to organize it.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It makes me want to scream. It makes me want to scream.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, everything is your fault. That's. That's just the class every. No matter what it is, you are.

[Megan Elizabeth]

The problem, and I could fix it so easily. But why can't you?

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah.

[Felicia Rosario]

But I'm gonna make it a teaching lesson and let you. I'm gonna let you do it just so you learn.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Thanks.

[Felicia Rosario]

So I'm not gonna do it.

[Lola Blanc]

Daniel, can you talk about the process, like, how it began to actually turn violent?

[Daniel Levin]

Yeah. So I think, as is classic, with these sort of group coercive control situations, there was a kind of hierarchy that emerged, but that hierarchy was always shifting. Larry was always at the top, but who is at the very bottom would cycle. So it would be someone was the scapegoat for everything. It was one person's fault that the apartment was in chaos because they had been sabotaging Larry and sabotaging everyone else's progress. You never wanted to be that person, so you would do everything you could to be good. And there was this feeling that everyone had to be careful because someone else would tell Larry that you had said something wrong or done something wrong. I don't know how often that actually happened, but that was the feeling. So there came a point when I. You know, it had been in and out, but at a certain point, I was very much on the bottom. And it just happened that, for whatever reason, I think that Larry was experimenting with how far he could push it with me at first or something. I mean, he had been really extreme with everyone. So it's hard to say for me, but it became about both scapegoating me for things that had gone wrong. He claimed I had sabotaged his daughter's application to law school, among other things. But also it became about my sexuality in a pretty intense way, and about kind of fixing me and everything just sort of compounded all at once. So in my memory, it just was like one thing after another getting more and more extreme until I left.

[Lola Blanc]

So can you describe for us how the cracks began to emerge in your brain and ultimately led to you leaving?

[Daniel Levin]

So I at first was starting to kind of doubt Larry a little bit and in simple ways that now in retrospect, feel silly. Like he was obsessed with creating these websites and that he was going to own all these domain names and make all these websites and they were going to make a lot of money. It just happens that my dad's business, my whole life, is designing websites. So I knew I was just like, these are bad websites. These are the kind of websites that you land on when you mistype Google.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It's like the one you made when you were there.

[Felicia Rosario]

Yeah, yeah, right.

[Daniel Levin]

He was making like millions of dollars. And I just was like, there's no way that that's true. And then once you start to question little, like one thing, it's like, well, if that's not true, then either he's lying about it or he doesn't know. And either way something is wrong.

[Lola Blanc]

Right.

[Daniel Levin]

And then you start to wonder, you know, what is he doing in the bedroom for all those hours with Isabella or, you know, all these things.

[Felicia Rosario]

Things.

[Daniel Levin]

And so that combined, I think that he could tell that I was doubting. He started, like, showing me photos of him with Gorbachev or a photo of him with George H.W. bush. He had a friend of his from childhood get on the phone with me and tell me about how amazing Larry was as a young man, all these things. So it felt like he was trying to prove something to me. But as I was still kind of not getting with the program, he was escalating the physical violence. So, you know, towards the end, he. There was a night that he made a. What he called a garrote out of Saran wrap and aluminum foil and like wrapped that around my groin and was tightening it in front of my friend, trying to get me to admit to some sabotage. There was the night that he, you know, put me in a dress and made me like, try to swallow a dildo, like, and say that I wasn't gay anymore. All these things. And so there was one day that for some reason I was up and no one else was and. Or people were out of the apartment. And I went up to the roof of this building. This is on the Upper east side of Manhattan. It's like a 45 story building, I think. And I don't really know. It was just sort of an impulse. I went up to the roof and then I saw a ladder. And this is Also, pre Larry, I'm a person who likes climbing up and finding high places.

[Megan Elizabeth]

You're a cat?

[Daniel Levin]

Yeah, I'm a cat. And so, you know, I climbed this ladder and I was like, oh, this is kind of cool. Like, I'm getting up on this, the highest building in this area. And then there's a water tower. I get to the top of the water tower. And something that Larry had claimed the entire time that I knew him was that we were all suicidal, whether we kind of knew it or not. That it was an impulse we couldn't control, like a switch in our brain. And it could happen kind of any time. And his help, the whole point of his help was that he was protecting us from ourselves. And that if we weren't careful or that if we got away from him, we would impulsively step onto the train tracks or something like that. And he played on that feeling. I think we all get that sort of call of the void where you're holding your keys and you kind of want to drop them down like a grate. He just kind of was like, you know that feeling like, that's weird. No one else has that, just you. And he claimed that if one of us did it, we would all do it. So I was up there on this water tower and was like, if I really wanted to kill myself, you know, I'm 450ft in the air. I'm on the edge of this thing. I could absolutely, very easily do it. And I was like, do I want to? Honestly, given everything else? And I didn't. I was like, I don't want to die. And I. And that's. It's not true. And so if that fundamentally isn't true, and it's at the heart of everything he's claimed this whole time, then a lot of other things must not be true. And either way, I'm being harmed and it feels dangerous and I don't want to. I feel like it's going to get worse and I want to live. And so I felt like I had to just try and figure out a way to get away without him following me. And so that became a whole other pursuit.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It's just so interesting that you just needed like a couple hours by yourself to get your brain back. That's how busy and exhausted and everything. I feel like. I mean, yeah, definitely interesting that he would be in your head so often, and then you got away for a minute and got out.

[Lola Blanc]

We see that a lot. A lot of stories began with just like a little bit of alone Time.

[Megan Elizabeth]

The pandemic made a lot of people leave the cult I was raised in because they weren't programmed of every five seconds. So, anyway, very interesting. So you're. Yeah, he's. You're back in the real world. You go back to school, whereas, Felicia, your life is just beginning to ramp up into madness.

[Felicia Rosario]

Yes.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

Talk about that time and how he had sort of hijacked your brain, essentially, at that point. He seemed like such an. So skilled at convincing people they were crazy that there was something wrong with them. You know, just. Yeah, tell us about that.

[Felicia Rosario]

Yeah, so it started. It started before I came back here, you know, before I came back to New York in September of 2012. And within the month we went on, he had me drive him to Washington, D.C. to meet his friend who actually was a Marine, a lieutenant general in the Marine Corps, retired.

[Daniel Levin]

Did you know he had me do that, too? I didn't realize that you also did that.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, same friend.

[Felicia Rosario]

I did.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Wow.

[Felicia Rosario]

Huh.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Same. Same guy that.

[Felicia Rosario]

Yeah, Larry. Yeah. Yeah, same guy. Same guy. Yeah. He's. He was awesome. The guy was awesome. Not Larry.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yes, no, of course.

[Felicia Rosario]

But. So I. He. He. He yells at me and gaslights me the whole way down, and he has me meet. You know, we get there, and then we meet his. We meet some more law enforcement friends, and he's like, this. Is he. This person's from the dea, the Navy seal, FBI, all of these, you know, branches of government. He's like, you know, if anything ever happened to me, they would come after you. If you ever did anything to me, they would come after you. Terrifying. And he got on me for, like, a whole other day, and he. He made me suicidal, like, the next. At night when we went to sleep, I got up and I went and bought a bunch of Tylenol and took it. I took it and I found a river and. And I was trying to. I'm not going to be too detailed, but. But point was, I did have. Unfortunately, I did end up taking the Tylenol, but I did have my moment of, wait a minute, I don't want to die. And I got out, I clawed myself back to the street. The police found me, and then they took me to the hospital. But then Larry got to the hospital and he hijacked the whole hospital visit. He told the doctors that I was. Tried to kill myself because of my mother and, like, made all of this stuff up and then had me taken out against medical advice and then used. And then used that as leverage over me, saying, like, you'll never Be a doctor again. Who's ever gonna hire a doctor?

[Lola Blanc]

Oh, no.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Damn.

[Felicia Rosario]

This man commit suicide. And then, you know, like Daniel was saying about the scapegoat, since he couldn't get me to do what he wanted all the time, because he was really. He was trying to groom all of us and to, like, have this sexual grooming. And I didn't cooperate. I ended up the scapegoat, especially after Daniel was gone. So he would. He would beat me. He would starve me. I spent a week in Pinehurst out on the porch. He left me out on the porch without food or water, with, like, a blanket. And I wasn't allowed to leave the property, otherwise he was going to call the police.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh, my gosh.

[Felicia Rosario]

He would punch me in the face. Like, he would, like, regularly. It just. It went on. It was this. It went on and on. Like, almost anything you could do to somebody, he did to me.

[Lola Blanc]

And there is footage of some of this stuff, which is just fucking horrible to see. I'm also glad it exists for court for the case so that he cannot continue to gaslight people.

[Felicia Rosario]

I'm so glad.

[Lola Blanc]

But. But what an idiot. What a dumb move on his part, filming all of his abuse.

[Felicia Rosario]

No, I mean, and he swore he was. He swore I was gonna. He was gonna be vindicated with all of this footage. He's like, no, I'm gonna tell you how crazy everyone was towards me and how badly behaved everyone was towards me. And everyone's gonna go to jail because they hurt me. That was what he would say.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Ultimately, do you think that this was about sex for him? Because he did. He ended up stealing so much money from all of your parents, turning all of you. Like, he told you, Felicia, that you're. Your siblings were poisoning you. And he. He really tried to separate you from your families. So I just wanted to know, do you guys know, like, a motive or do you know, what the hell was he doing?

[Lola Blanc]

Power.

[Daniel Levin]

I mean, I. I don't know if you want me to.

[Felicia Rosario]

Go ahead, Daniel.

[Daniel Levin]

I don't think there's a really good answer for this. The way that I thought about it is like, however you want to think about, like, what he believed or what he thought was true or wasn't. Whatever is clearly, like, a sick person. And I think that. I think of it as someone whose sickness was contagious. And he just, like, needed to figure out a way to make us psychotic like he was, to make us delusional like he was. But I don't know. You know, it seemed like someone who was incapable of surviving in regular society and who was trying to, like, force his way into a version of survival and who seemed to derive some kind of. Of pleasure or satisfaction from torturing other people.

[Lola Blanc]

I just would love to hear how you guys are doing now. Now seeing that he is actually being prosecuted and you're getting. You're sharing your story. Like, how are you, Felicia?

[Felicia Rosario]

Okay, I'm doing. I'm. I'm so happy. Really? That happy is the word. Elated. He was just sentenced January 20th. 60 years in prison. He's 63. So we get out at 123 years old, effectively life and supervised release. So, I mean, I'm just so glad the justice system worked and the judge really nailed it. He really. He was really able to see the truth and. And, you know, stand by it. And I felt so validated.

[Lola Blanc]

I'm so glad we get to be.

[Daniel Levin]

In the very small group of people who can say that they put their abuser in prison, and a very small group of people who get to say that they put their occult leader in prison. And that's unbelievable. And I hope that more people get to say that.

[Lola Blanc]

I know.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, my God, me too.

[Lola Blanc]

But I'm so. I'm so happy that justice is actually being served. You guys deserve it so much for what you've been through. And I, Yeah, I. Once again, I very much. We very much appreciate you coming on and sharing your story.

[Megan Elizabeth]

What do you feel about Isabella being prosecuted? Talia being prosecuted? What. What is your feelings on that?

[Lola Blanc]

You don't have to.

[Daniel Levin]

No, I know. I don't know.

[Megan Elizabeth]

You don't know? Yeah.

[Daniel Levin]

Do you want to go?

[Felicia Rosario]

Oh, sure. I'll go. I'll go. I think with, you know, with Isabella. She was his first victim.

[Lola Blanc]

Right.

[Felicia Rosario]

And, you know, she got her in a very vulnerable time, and she was so young, and then she didn't know anything. Bought Larry of life. Like, the only life she ever knew was Larry. So I understood why she went the way that she did. I just. I hope that. I hope that as time passes and, you know, she sees the series and sees, you know, how everyone else is doing, that she starts to make better choices for herself.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah.

[Felicia Rosario]

But I think, you know, what Larry made her do is a prison sentence in and of itself, like having to live with that.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah.

[Felicia Rosario]

And then Talia, I don't. I don't really know with Talia. I think she was just so unfortunate to be born to him that, you know, what. What did. What? Choice. You know, if we're talking about choice, like what choice did she really have in, you know, fighting back against her dad?

[Lola Blanc]

So it's an incredibly empathetic perspective to take. Yeah. Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Wow. Okay.

[Lola Blanc]

Do you. So. So the series is Stolen Youth Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence on Hulu. And do you guys have anything of your own that you'd like to share in terms of like social media or any work that you do or anything?

[Felicia Rosario]

Daniel, go ahead.

[Lola Blanc]

Daniel. You do poetry?

[Daniel Levin]

Yeah, I do poetry. Yeah. I have a memoir that I had written about this called Sloaneham Woods 9, which is a reference to the dorm that we lived in or where I first met Larry. I don't really have anything to share as far as social media. I'm teaching a class with Stanford's continuing education program on converting your most difficult memories into memoir into writing. That's a class I've taught before. I find narrative really helpful form of therapy. Totally.

[Lola Blanc]

That's awesome. And anything.

[Felicia Rosario]

So I'm just working and trying to get back into life right now.

[Lola Blanc]

Wonderful.

[Felicia Rosario]

Next time I'll let you know.

[Lola Blanc]

That's a great place to be. Let's get back to life. Thank you guys so much for talking to us today.

[Daniel Levin]

Thank you.

[Lola Blanc]

And have a good rest of your day. Okay. Megan. So obviously so much more I wish we could have asked them, but for now I'm just gonna ask you a question.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Okay.

[Lola Blanc]

And the question is, do you think that if you were at Sarah Lawrence and you met Larry Ray that you would have joined his group?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh my God, yes. Goodbye forever. I would have been so deep in getting attention from a grownup.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Especially one that's so wise. And I love slumber parties. I love when everybody puts little pallets on the floor and sleeps together. To just live that way would have been heavenly. I would have loved the community. I would have loved his. Like, we're getting up at 6, been doing push ups together and I would have just been sucked in to getting my together forever.

[Lola Blanc]

You know, it sounds like you should join the military.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I've been thinking about it.

[Lola Blanc]

Can you imagine sleepovers every night, Lots of structure. Oh my Lord.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Men yelling at me. Yeah, I definitely, I definitely would join. I think you would too. Huh?

[Lola Blanc]

Oh, yeah, I think so. For sure. I. I think like I have.

[Felicia Rosario]

I.

[Lola Blanc]

Have a, like I would say, I don't know what adjective to use. I have an inordinate respect for authority that I really like. I have been like, I am the kid who is terrified of getting in trouble with the teacher. But not only terrified of getting in trouble with the teacher, but I will try so hard to make them like me, you know, Like, I want the authority figure to like me. And if a man were to come along at that vulnerable time in my life and be like, here's what you gotta do. I know these government people. Here's my photo with real politician. Like, I would be. I would be in. I would be sold. Especially because, I don't know, like, whatever. I have a history of being drawn to men with authoritative tones in their voice. And yeah, it would not have been good for me.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, I would have been. I would have been super fucked with him.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah. Well, thank God he can't keep doing this to people.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Now put him away. Well, thank you for being here with us for another week of Trust Me. We can't wait to see you again next time. And as always, remember to follow your gut, watch out for red flags and.

[Lola Blanc]

Never ever trust me. Bye Bye. Trust Me is produced by Kirsten Woodward, Gabby Rapp and Steve Delamater with special.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Thanks to Stacy Pera and our theme.

[Lola Blanc]

Song was composed by Holly Amber Church.

[Megan Elizabeth]

You can find us on Instagram, rustmepodcast, Twitter, usmecult podcast or on TikTok rustmecultpodcast.

[Lola Blanc]

I'm Ooh Lalola on Instagram and Olalola on Twitter.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And I am MeganElizabeth11 on Instagram and Babraham Hicks on Twitter.

[Lola Blanc]

Remember to rate and review and spread the word. With Venmo Stache.

[Daniel Levin]

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[Felicia Rosario]

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[Daniel Levin]

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[Lola Blanc]

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[Daniel Levin]

Ugh, stressing me out.

[Lola Blanc]

Why are the people I love so hard to shop for?

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