United States v. Ray
| Decision Date | 07 May 2021 |
| Docket Number | 20-cr-110 (LJL) |
| Parties | UNITED STATES, v. Lawrence RAY, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
Danielle Renee Sassoon, Assistant US Attorney, Lindsey Keenan, Mary Elizabeth Bracewell, United States Attorney's Office, New York, NY, for United States.
Marne Lynn Lenox, Public Defender, Peggy Cross-Goldenberg, Public Defender, Federal Defenders of New York Inc., Neil Peter Kelly, Public Defender, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, New York, NY, Allegra Glashausser, Public Defender, Federal Defenders of New York, Inc., Brooklyn, NY, for Defendant.
Defendant Lawrence Ray ("Ray") moves to suppress statements he made after his arrest on February 11, 2020, on the grounds that his Miranda rights were not effectively conveyed to him and that he did not voluntarily waive his rights. He also contends that he invoked his right to stop questioning. For the reasons that follow, the motion is denied.
On February 6, 2020, a Grand Jury sitting in this District returned Indictment 20 Cr. 110 (the "Indictment"). Dkt. No. 2. The Indictment charged Ray with nine counts: Extortion Conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951 (Count One), Extortion in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1951, 1952 (Count Two), Sex Trafficking in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1591, 1592 (Count Three), Forced Labor in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1589, 1582 (Count Four), Forced Labor Trafficking in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1590, 1592 (Count Five), Forced Labor Conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1594 (Count Six), Use of Interstate Commerce to Promote Unlawful Activity in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1952(a)(3) (Counts Seven and Eight), and Money Laundering in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1956(a)(1)(B)(i) and 2 (Count Nine). Id. at 10-19.
The Indictment alleges that Ray targeted a group of college students and others for indoctrination and criminal exploitation, including extortion, forced labor, and prostitution. Id. at 1. "Over the course of nearly a decade, between in or about 2010 through the present, RAY subjected the Victims to sexual and psychological manipulation and physical abuse." Id. He is accused of extracting false confessions from at least seven victims who admitted to causing harm and damage to Ray and to his family members and associations, id. , and then leveraging the victims’ false confessions to extort money from the victims, to force some of the victims to perform unpaid manual labor, and to cause one of the female victims to engage in commercial sex acts for Ray's financial benefit, id. at 1-2. The Indictment includes examples of Ray's physical threats to certain of the victims, his use of the false confessions to force the victims to pay him hundreds of thousands of dollars, his use of verbal and physical threats to force the victims to perform work on a project owned by a Ray family member, and his inducement of one victim to act as a prostitute. Id. at 2-9. He is also alleged to have laundered the proceeds of his criminal activity. Id. at 9-10.
Ray was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") pursuant to a warrant on February 11, 2020. Ray has moved to suppress statements he made to a FBI special agent immediately after his arrest. The Court held a hearing on Ray's motion to suppress his post-arrest statement on April 28, 2021. In connection with that motion, the Court received Ray's declaration in support of the motion. The Court also heard the testimony of the two officers who participated in the interview, FBI Special Agent Kelly Maguire ("Agent Maguire") and Detective Walter Harkins ("Detective Harkins") of the New York Police Department ("NYPD") and reviewed the evidence offered and received during that testimony. Ray chose not to testify at the hearing. The following summarizes the evidence before the Court and the Court's findings.
Ray was arrested at his home in Piscataway, New Jersey ("Piscateway residence") on February 11, 2020. The arrest occurred at approximately 6:00 a.m. At the time he was arrested, law enforcement also executed a search warrant for the Piscataway, New Jersey residence. He was interrogated in a bedroom in the home for approximately one and a half hours by Special Agent Maguire, after he signed an FBI Advice of Rights form. Special Agent Maguire was accompanied by Detective Harkins of the NYPD. Thereafter, Ray was transported to the FBI offices at 26 Federal Plaza in New York for processing and was ultimately presented to this Court.
The parties dispute the circumstances of the interrogation. The evidence at the hearing consisted of the sworn declaration submitted by Ray in connection with his motion to dismiss and the testimony of Special Agent Maguire and Detective Harkins. The interrogation was not recorded, but a recording was made of Ray's statements while he was being transported to the FBI's offices. That recording was introduced in evidence at the hearing.
According to Ray, he was out late the night before the arrest and did not return to his home until around 1:00 a.m.; he did not get in bed until around 2:25 a.m. Dkt. No. 109-1, Ex. A ¶ 2. Before going to sleep, he took Nyquil and Excedrin PM
, and he had a shot of vodka. Id. He was asleep when the agents arrived and he woke up when he heard banging and yelling. Id. ¶ 3. He went towards the front door and one of the officers (whom he believed to be Detective Harkins) pointed his gun at Ray and said "hands up." Id. He states that at some point, officers directed him to his bedroom where two people started questioning him. Id. ¶ 5. The female officer was sitting on the bed with Ray and the male officer sat nearby in the room, which was small and cluttered. Id. Ray states that the room felt very tight, that the officers were uncomfortably close to him, and that he was "exceedingly groggy and exhausted." Id. ¶ 6. He states that the agents had him "sign a piece of paper," that he understood he had to sign it, and that he does not remember anyone reading to him from the paper or reading him his rights before he was asked questions. Id. ¶ 12. Ray states that he told the officers that he "did not want to talk at the beginning and repeated this several times later, saying [he] was too groggy and didn't want to keep talking." Id. ¶ 8. He claims that the male officer repeated several times through the questioning that it would go well with the judge if he talked and that the faster he told the agents what they needed to know, the faster he would be released by the judge. Id. ¶ 9. He also states that the male officer, using an aggressive voice, complained that Ray was not answering the way the officer wanted him and that Ray stated that he did not want to talk "right now," but that it was "fruitless to complain" because "[t]hey just kept asking questions." Id. ¶ 10.
Ray also states that, at the time and for many years, he was taking Adderall four times a day and had grown completely dependent on it, and that without the medication, his "brain felt foggy, [his] thoughts were confusing, and [he] had difficulty concentrating." Id. ¶ 7. He says that he asked several times for his medication but was denied it. Id. He also states that as he was sitting on the bed, he fell backward a few times and that at one point he got up to go to the bathroom and almost fell. Id. ¶ 11. He further states that at one point, the male officer asked for the code to Ray's phone and said that if he did not provide the code, the judge would see him as uncooperative and that he would not get bail. Id. ¶ 13. So Ray gave the code to the agent. Id.
The testimony of Maguire and Harkins differs from that of Ray on many of the material events of the interrogation. Special Agent Maguire testified that she was the case agent on Ray's case. Dkt. No. 116-1 ¶ 2. At the time of Ray's arrest and interrogation, she had been a special agent with the FBI for two and a half years. Id. ¶ 1. Before joining the FBI, she served in the Charleston Police Department in Charleston, South Carolina for approximately nine years, where she achieved the rank of detective and investigated narcotics crimes, vice-related crimes, and crimes related to children. Id.
Agent Maguire spent February 10, 2020 finalizing the operational plan for Ray's arrest and was the team leader for the arrest and searches on February 11. Hr'g Tr. at 108:16-18. As part of her preparations on February 10, 2020, Special Agent Maguire tracked Ray's location through GPS information she obtained pursuant to a search warrant. Id. at 109:5-6. The GPS information indicated the whereabouts of a cellphone registered to Ray every ten or fifteen minutes. Id. at 109:20. It indicated that Ray returned to the Piscataway residence shortly after 11:00 p.m. on February 10, 2020, and did not leave the residence thereafter; when Agent Maguire searched the residence the next day, she located a cellphone and confirmed that it was the same cellphone she had been tracking. Id. at 109:7-12.
Agent Maguire arrived at the Piscataway residence at approximately 6:00 a.m. on February 11. She knocked, and two individuals answered the door. Id. at 111:7-17. After entering the residence with her gun drawn, she proceeded to the living room while the team conducted a protective sweep. All occupants of the house were assembled in the living room. After the sweep was complete, she provided interview packets containing materials relating to subjects other than Ray to the interview teams who were gathered with the occupants of the residence in the living room. Id. at 111:7-112:9. By the time Special Agent Maguire had gathered the residents in the living room, no one had a gun drawn. Id. at 112:15-20. She then asked Ray to follow her and Detective Harkins back to the bedroom from which he had emerged initially at the time the officers entered the home. Id. at 112:5-9.
Upon entering the bedroom, Special...
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