Who is Isabella Pollok? Ex-Sarah Lawrence student ran sex cult with best pal's dad and pimped out friends
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Former Sarah Lawrence student Isabella Pollok was charged of conspiring with arrested sex cult leader Lawrence Ray, who was 'pimping out' his daughter's friends after he moved into her college dorm. Ray's daughter Talia was apparently close friends with Pollok when the trafficking and extortion of other students were going on.
According to an indictment in Manhattan federal court, 29-year-old Isabella Pollok is facing charges of racketeering, extortion and sex trafficking conspiracies, reported DailyMail.
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Who is Isabella Pollok?
In 2010, Isabella Pollok was 19-year-old and a student at Sarah Lawrence College. She was reportedly best friends with Talia, the daughter of prime accused Lawrence 'Larry' Ray. The same year, Ray moved in with his daughter Talia, and her other roommates including Pollok. Ray portrayed himself as a father figure to the young women but soon began to manipulate them into cutting ties with their families.
With Pollok, his relationship initially followed a similar trajectory. Soon, he started sleeping in Pollok's room, stating that she needed him as she was dealing with a difficult break-up. She soon alienated herself from her family and loved ones to be with Ray.
Later, Ray recruited Pollok to assist in his sexual trafficking schemes. Together with Ray, she subjected the survivors to extreme sexual and psychological abuse and manipulation — often extorting them for unpaid manual labor or even forcing them into prostitution. From 2010 to 2018, the duo managed to abuse a considerable number of women.
Pollok continued to live with Ray for ten years after the college sex cult. In February 2020, Ray was arrested from a New Jersey house where he was found living with Pollok and another woman. Pollok was initially being viewed by the investigators as a victim of Ray's abuse. In fact, after Ray's arrest, Pollok herself told New York Magazine: "I'm 19, I was having a lot of difficulty making sense of things, I wasn't in a good place. He started to help me kind of process and make sense of a lot of things I just couldn't make sense of."
However, her recent charges of conspiring with Ray has come as a shock to her family. But still they continue to believe in her innocence as her aunt has accused Ray for keeping her niece under his 'spell' for a decade. "I don't care what they found. It is all under duress. She (Pollok) has been under his spell for 10 years," she told The New York Times. Pollok has now been ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation.
How did Ray extort and abuse his victims?
Ray followed a distinct pattern of abuse with almost all of his victims. Initially, he presented himself as a 'guardian' to the young women, and often conducted 'therapy' sessions to help them. Gradually, he would isolate themselves from their families. He even convinced a few survivors to move into an apartment in Manhattan, gaslighting them into thinking they are 'broken'.
After a while, when the women would trust him blindly, he would start falsely accusing them of property damage, and demanded huge amounts of payment from them as repair charges. Often he accused them of trying to poison him. Most of the women failed to pay up these unjust amounts, when he would subject them to sexual abuse and even prostitution.
Teaming up with Pollok, Ray abused and extorted women in the Westchester County school and later at locations in Manhattan, Pinehurst, North Carolina; and Piscataway, New Jersey. Through the prostitution racket, he reportedly amassed a fortune of millions of dollars. Pollok has pleaded not guilty to the charges against her. Ray had been jailed without bail since last February. If convicted, both of them can face lifetime imprisonment.