Lawrence V Ray

For decades, Lawrence V. Ray, 60, who was charged by federal law enforcement on Tuesday in a bizarre scheme that included extortion, forced prostitution and forced labor involving a group of students he met while he was living with his daughter at Sarah Lawrence College, has been described by some as a master manipulator. Burly and intense, Mr. Ray has put himself at the center of local politics. In 1998, he was the best man at the wedding of a former New York police commissioner, Bernard B. Kerik. But he’s also turned on those who have trusted him — first as an F.B.I. informant against the mob, and then as a cooperating witness in an investigation that would ultimately land Mr. Kerik in prison. In 2010, apparently down and out, Mr. Ray, who had recently been released from prison on a custody charge, moved into his daughter’s dorm room at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, N.Y., federal investigators said. He is now facing decades in prison, accused of manipulating students at the school to the point that they were willing to falsely confess to crimes. He is charged with coercing one woman into prostitution, and with stealing $1 million from his victims. Mr. Ray, who is also known as Lawrence Grecco, grew up in Brooklyn and New Jersey. In the 1980s, he became a partner in a bar in Scotch Plains, N.J., called Club Malibu and JJ Rockers. In the early 1990s, he formed a commercial insurance brokerage firm, helping insure people for projects such as construction. In this role, he met a reputed mobster who owned a company called U.S. Bridge of New York, according to federal investigators. Mr. Ray agreed to help the company get insurance for a major project. In 2000, federal investigators charged Mr. Ray with agreeing to pay a $100,000 bribe to a bond brokerage firm executive, according to a 2004 federal court filing. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit security fraud and was sentenced to five years probation. Through Mr. Ray, Mr. Kerik befriended a man named Frank DiTommaso, who ran a construction company, the Interstate Industrial Corporation, with his brother. The company hired Mr. Ray as its security director. Mr. Ray agreed to cooperate with investigators looking into Mr. Kerik. In 2006, Mr. Kerik pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges related to $165,000 in gifts received from the construction company. He was jailed three years later after pleading to eight federal felony charges. Mr. Ray had contacts with at least one American general and Russian officials. He liked to talk about how he helped broker a deal to end bombing in Kosovo in the late 1990s, a claim at least partly backed up by a letter from NATO in court records, The Washington Post reported in 2007. Somehow, he also formed a connection with someone who worked for Mr. Gorbachev, the former leader of the Soviet Union. In 1997, Mr. Ray helped to arrange for Mr. Gorbachev to visit New York, where he met with Mr. Giuliani at City Hall. He later said he arranged the visit, on Dec. 18, 1997, at Mr. Kerik’s request. Mr. Ray would end up cooperating with authorities in cases against not only Mr. Kerik but also Frank. DiTommaso. Mr. Ray testified against Mr. DiTommaso in a 2012 perjury trial related to the renovation scandal. Mr. Ray popped up in the news in 2017, when a video from two years earlier of his being pummeled in the lobby of the Hudson Hotel by Mr. DiTommaso was obtained by the Daily News. The beating left Mr. Ray with a skull fracture as well as permanent speech and other neurological problems, Mr. Ray’s lawyer, Edward Hayes, said at the time.