United States v. Ray
| Citation | 541 F.Supp.3d 355 |
| Decision Date | 26 May 2021 |
| Docket Number | 20-cr-110 (LJL) |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, 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 of America.
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, pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12, to suppress evidence seized pursuant to a search warrant. 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 Defendant Lawrence 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). Dkt. No. 2 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. See Dkt. No. 2 at 1 (). He is accused of extracting from at least seven victims false confessions that they had caused harm and damage to Ray and to his family members and associates Id. He then leveraged 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 alleged 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.
On January 26, 2021, the Grand Jury returned a superseding Indictment (the "Superseding Indictment") charging Ray with Racketeering Conspiracy, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) (Count One), Extortion Conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951 (Count Two), Extortion in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1951 and 2 (Count Three), Sex Trafficking in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1951 and 2 (Count Four), Conspiracy to Commit Sex Trafficking in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1594 (Count Five), Forced Labor in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1589 and 2 (Count Six), Forced Labor Trafficking in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1590 and 2 (Count Seven), Forced Labor Conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1592 (Count Eight), Use of Interstate Commerce To Promote Unlawful Activity in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1952(a)(3)(B) and 2 (Count Nine), Use of Interstate Commerce to Promote Unlawful Activity in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1952(a)(3)(B) and 2 (Count Ten), Money Laundering in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1956(a)(1)(B)(i), (ii), and 2 (Count Eleven), and Tax Evasion for the years 2015 (Count Twelve), 2016 (Count Thirteen), 2017 (Count Fourteen), 2018 (Count Fifteen), and 2019 (Count Sixteen). Dkt. No. 127. The Superseding Indictment added as Isabella Pollok as a defendant.
Ray's motion challenges several search warrants obtained during the investigation of his alleged crimes.
On July 26, 2019, the Government obtained a warrant for historical cell site location information ("CSLI") for three phone numbers, including one ending with the digits 9122. Dkt. No. 112-1 at 18-20. The warrant ordered Ray's telephone service provider to supply "all available historical cell cite location information reflecting the cell towers and sectors thereof utilized in routing any phone, text, or data communication to or from the Target Cellphone, and the approximate range of the target phone from the cell towers during the communication ..., for the period from June 1, 2013 through the date of th[e] Order, as well as all available toll records (including call detail, SMS detail, or data session detail records) for the communications." Dkt. No. 112-1 at 19. Based on the warrant, the Government received data spanning July 29, 2018 through July 26, 2019 for the 9122 cellphone. It received data dating back to 2013 for the other phones. Dkt. No. 161 at 3.
The CSLII Warrant (the "CSLI Search Warrant") was signed by Magistrate Judge Stewart Aaron on July 26, 2019. Dkt. No. 112-1 at 20. Judge Aaron's order supporting the warrant recited the Court's findings that the cell phone ending in 9122 was "subscribed to in the name of Lawrence Greco,"—the birth name of Lawrence Ray—that the "Government's application set[ ] forth probable cause to believe that the historical location information for the Target Cellphone ... w[ould] reveal evidence, fruits, or instrumentalities of suspected violations of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1962 (racketeering conspiracy), 1591 (sex trafficking), 1594 (sex trafficking conspiracy), 1589 (forced labor ...)," and that there were "reasonable grounds to believe that the historical location information and toll records for the Target Cellphone ... [would be] relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation." Id. at 18-19.
The warrant's probable cause finding was based on facts contained in an affidavit signed by Special Agent Kelly Maguire ("SA Maguire") of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") (the "CSLI Search Warrant Affidavit"). Dkt. No. 112-1 at 7-17. SA Maguire identified her qualifications and experience. Id. at 7-8. She had been an FBI Special Agent assigned to the Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force for approximately a year and a half, having previously served in Special Operations for the Joint Terrorism Task Force. Id. at 7. Prior to joining the FBI, she was a "Detective/Police Officer" in the Charleston Police Department in Charleston, South Carolina for approximately 9 years and had served in its Special Investigations Unit, which encompassed investigations of narcotics, vice, and violent crimes against children. Id. Based on her experience, SA Maguire was "familiar with investigative techniques regarding cellphones and other technology to commit federal crimes" and had "experience executing search warrants, including warrants for cellphone location data." Id.
The CSLI Search Warrant Affidavit set forth facts establishing probable cause that the historical location information and toll records for the 9122 cellphone, as well as the two other cellphones, would lead to evidence of violations of 18 U.S.C §§ 1962 (racketeering conspiracy), 1591 (sex trafficking), 1594 (sex trafficking conspiracy), and 1589 (forced labor). Id. at 10-16. The facts included information contained in a New York Magazine article entitled "The Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence," published on or about April 28, 2019 (the "Article"). Id. at 10-11. Among the facts recited in the Article were: (1) that on or about September 2010, following his release from prison, Ray moved in with his daughter Talia Ray and her roommates at Sarah Lawrence College (the "Roommates"); (2) that "[o]ver time, [he] began to control aspects of the lives of some of the Roommates;" (3) that he gave "counseling sessions" to one of the women, Female Victim-1 ("FV-1") and "sexual education" to some Roommates; (4) that he brought FV-1 and others to his stepfather's house in Pinehurst, North Carolina to install a drainage system in the yard; (5) that Ray has created a website that documented purported confessions from FV-1 including that she had tried to poison Ray; (6) that in 2014 FV-1 had begun working as an escort and would give her profits to Ray in order to pay for the damage she had done to Ray's property; (7) that Ray had admitted to the author of the article that he had taken the money FV-1 had earned from escorting and was pleased with her efforts to pay him back for the damage he says she did; and (8) that FV-1 had told a former-employer that Ray had strapped her to a chair and put a plastic bag over her head. Id. at 10-14.
The affidavit also included corroborating information obtained by SA Maguire through interviews she conducted with FV-1 beginning in June 2019. FV-1 did not supply the information in the Article but had fact checked portions of it for the author. Id. at 12-14. The corroborating information supplied by FV-1 included: (1) that Ray had moved in with FV-1, Talia Ray, Isabella Pollok, Santos Rosarios and others, while they were students at Sarah Lawrence College; (2) that Ray had provided some of the Roommates with "sex education" and that he had provided FV-1 with "counseling sessions;" (3) that Ray had repeatedly asked FV-1 "why she was poisoning him and others;" (4) that FV-1 had "started to believe that she had in fact poisoned Ray and others and had ‘confessed’ to it at Ray's urging," including by recording on Ray's iPhone a confession which was later posted on YouTube; and (5) that FV-1 "no longer...
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