The Biggest Reveals From Hulu's Disturbing Sarah Lawrence Cult Documentary, "Stolen Youth"

Content Warning: This post contains mentions of emotional and psychological abuse.

"Stolen Youth," Hulu's new docuseries that explores Larry Ray's reign of psychological terror over a group of Sarah Lawrence students, is extremely difficult to watch. The three-part series, released February 8, contains many real-life videos taken while the students were living with Ray, and many feature verbal and physical abuse.

The story of what would become the "Sarah Lawrence cult" first broke when The Cut published an expose in 2019. It detailed how Ray moved into his daughter Talia's dorm in Sarah Lawrence , quickly developing a hold on her housemates by regaling them with self-development advice. He claimed his knowledge came from his years in the Marines, but Ray lied about that, as well as many other aspects of his life.

Anyone who followed the story in 2019 knows what happened next. Ray moved a group of college students—Talia, Santos Rosario, Daniel Levin, Claudia Drury, and Isabella Pollok—into his one-bedroom apartment in New York City. From there, things escalated into patterns of emotional, physical, and financial abuse. Ray ordered the students to sleep together; demanded that Santos reimburse him thousands of dollars for the apparent damage to the apartment; lured Santos' two older sisters, Yalitza and Felicia, under her control; and even accepted around $2.5 million from Drury, who had become a sex worker, in order to pay her debts she believed she owed, according to The New York Times. (Drury has since testified against Ray in court, though she declined to appear in the Hulu documentary.)

At the time of the article's publication, Ray was still a free man, and the end of the article finds him searching for Drury, who had finally escaped him. But in September 2022, 63-year-old Ray was sentenced to 60 years in prison on 15 counts, including racketeering, violent assault, sex trafficking, tax evasion and money laundering.

Five of the original residents of Ray's New York apartment—the three siblings Rosario, Levin, and Pollok—appear in the documentary, along with some of their classmates Sarah L...