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Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence is a harrowing dive into Larry Ray’s twisted sex cult that originated at Sarah Lawrence College. Over the course of a decade, Larry’s influence over his victims destroyed families and futures.
While her name is brought up several times over the course of the 3-part docuseries, Larry’s daughter, Talia Ray, does not appear in person at all. She doesn’t give an interview about her father and the accusations against him. So, where is Talia Ray now? Here’s what we know.
Who Is Talia Ray?
Talia is cult leader Larry Ray’s daughter. In 2010, Talia let her father come stay with her at her Sarah Lawrence College dorm after he was released from prison. Talia lived in a dorm with several other Sarah Lawrence students. During Larry’s stay at the dorm, he began having intense “therapy” sessions with Talia’s roommates. These sessions evolved into a cult that Larry had full control over.
Talia’s family situation was always complicated. Talia’s mom, Teresa, filed for divorce in 2004. Months later, when Teresa called the police and claimed Larry had hit her, Larry and Talia accused Teresa of child abuse, according to the New York Magazine article that first reported Larry’s crimes. After that, Talia also accused other family members of abuse. Investigators looked into the allegations against Teresa and found them not credible.
The investigation concluded that Larry had manipulated Talia into making the abuse allegations that “fit no discernible pattern ever reported to this examiner, who has been evaluating families for 20 years.” There was no evidence that Talia nor her younger sister, Ava, had been physically or sexually abused.
Larry was ordered by the court to turn over Talia and Ava to his ex-wife, but he refused. He spent 6 months in jail as a result. Talia did not go to live with her mother. She decided to live in youth shelters. “She was his soldier,” a source close to the family told New York Magazine. “Talia is a really loving person, and she is the biggest victim of all.”
Larry created a hostile and paranoia-filled environment within his cult that isolated his victims from their friends and family. He threatened his victims in order to receive money from them and exploited them in sexual scenarios. He also pressured them into false confessions after brutal interrogations where he deprived them of food and sleep. His obsession with former friend and ex-NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik led to shocking accusations. Larry falsely accused several of his victims of poisoning him and others in the cult.
A childhood friend of Talia told New York Magazine that Talia had told them that “their house had poison in the walls or in the attic” as early as second grade. In the initial 2019 exposé, Larry claimed that Talia still believe she was a victim of poisoning. “Talia was talking to me just a couple days ago about how she finds it sometimes difficult that she’s not able to do certain things in the regular time it would take,” Larry claimed. By that point, Talia was no longer living with her father. She had moved in with his stepfather in North Carolina, but they still talked almost daily.
Where Is Talia Ray Today?
The Hulu docuseries said that federal prosecutors “referred to Talia Ray as her father’s co-conspirator, but no charges have been brought against her.” Larry was found guilty on all 15 counts — including racketeering conspiracy, money laundering, sex trafficking, forced labor, and tax evasion — in April 2022. Nearly a year later in January 2023, he was sentenced to 60 years in federal prison without the possibility of parole.
Stolen Youth director Zach Heinzerling revealed to Variety that Talia “declined to participate” in the docuseries. “It’s not really much more to that right now. I imagine she’s probably going through a lot. I can’t speak for her, but I can’t imagine having Larry as your father presents its own challenges. I hope that she has support through all this as well,” he added.
Since her father’s arrest, Talia has stayed out of the public eye. A Facebook account that is supposedly Talia’s hasn’t had a public post since August 2020. According to the account, Talia was working as a paralegal at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, which is located in Durham, North Carolina.
In 2019, Talia and her step-grandfather, Gordon Ray, were pictured at the Durham Performing Arts Center, according to the New York Post. She also previously worked at The Country Bookshop in Southern Pines, North Carolina. At one point, Larry had moved several of his cult members down to a home in Pinehurst, North Carolina.
Daniel Barban Levin, one of Larry’s victims, admitted that he would be open to having a conversation with Talia in the future. “I had disconnected myself from everyone involved with this for many years because I was afraid and didn’t know who was safe,” he told Newsweek. “And then, after the conviction, I [began] reconnecting with my friends, and I don’t know where Talia is at, and what her state of mind is.”
He added, “I think that if she reached out to me I would be curious to have that conversation. But it’s really hard for me to imagine what her experience is, and I feel a lot of compassion for someone who has lived with Larry Ray since she was a baby, I can’t imagine that.”
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