Girl will get 4 years in Sarah Lawrence intercourse trafficking, extortion plot

A New York girl who admitted aiding an ex-convict’s decade-long plot to extort and sexually abuse his daughter’s Sarah Lawrence Faculty schoolmates was sentenced Wednesday to greater than 4 years in jail by a choose who known as her vital to his scheme.

Isabella Pollok should report back to jail by April 25 to start serving a 4 1/2-year sentence that U.S. District Choose Lewis J. Liman mentioned resulted from her failure to insurgent in opposition to Lawrence Ray’s crimes.

The choose mentioned Pollok participated in “excessive and sadistic violence” in committing “extraordinarily severe” crimes after being recruited when she was 19 and weak.

“Your function was nonetheless vital,” he mentioned, noting she took steps to forestall a former schoolmate from escaping years of prostitution that produced thousands and thousands of {dollars} for Ray. “You have been in no means harmless.”

Ray, 63, was sentenced final month to 60 years in jail after his conviction following a trial during which his victims described how he satisfied them that that they had poisoned him earlier than forcing them to make amends by doing work for him, obeying his instructions and paying him money.

Pollok, who pleaded responsible to a cash laundering conspiracy cost final September, stood between her legal professionals and sobbed as she briefly spoke earlier than being sentenced.

“I believed and supported somebody who managed me in methods I can not perceive. I’ll reside with the guilt without end,” she mentioned via her tears. “I badly damage my mates and I’m ashamed and deeply remorse it. I’m actually sorry.”

Pollok, 31, who graduated from the Westchester County college the place Ray met most of his victims, confronted as much as 5 years in jail.

Her legal professionals, who requested that she serve no jail time or obtain residence detention instead, blamed Ray for manipulating their shopper after assembly her when she was near-suicidal after a childhood with a mom hooked on medicine and a father and brother in jail.

Liman mentioned the sentence he imposed was partly for Pollok’s cruelty to a lady who Ray had pressured into prostitution. The choose mentioned she “gleefully” participated in an assault on the lady in a resort room the place, amongst different issues, she was choked and suffocated with a plastic bag.

Assistant U.S. Lawyer Lindsey Keenan mentioned Pollok had performed an “energetic function” in Ray sadistic acts, together with handing “him a plastic bag so he may suffocate her faculty buddy.”

Keenan mentioned Pollok additionally saved a list on her laptop of video recordings of her former schoolmates in compromising sexual positions or supposedly admitting that they had harmed Ray so she may retrieve the “collateral” if Ray needed to self-discipline anybody.

“The subsequent time I see you, you can be in a jumpsuit,” the prosecutor mentioned Pollok as soon as wrote to the lady Ray had pressured into prostitution.

Protection legal professional David Bertan mentioned Pollok had no lifeline when she met Ray, who brainwashed her.

He famous that the lady pressured into prostitution had written to the choose requesting leniency for Pollok.

Bertan mentioned Pollok was rebuilding her life partly by working at an Amazon warehouse.

“I don’t see {that a} cult sufferer ought to need to go to jail for being in a cult,” he mentioned.