Financial Advisor Used Cattle Prod, Shock Collar on Women as He Raped Them, Urinated on Them: DA
A New York City financial advisor faces dozens of criminal charges alleging he raped and tortured several women he met online at his Manhattan bachelor pad.
Ryan Hemphill, 43, was indicted on 116 counts on Thursday, including rape, predatory sexual assault, facilitating a sex offense with a controlled substance and bribing witnesses, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced in a news release.
Hemphill was arraigned in Manhattan Supreme Court on Thursday and pleaded not guilty to all counts. A judge ordered him remanded to Rikers Island.
Hemphill, who describes himself on his website as a "successful private equity and venture capital executive" and a "committed philanthropist," is accused of luring six women to his Midtown apartment after posing as a sugar daddy on sites like Seeking Arrangements, Craigslist, and FetLife. The women were allegedly under the impression Hemphill was seeking sex or companionship in exchange for money, according to the release.
But the women allegedly arrived to a house of horrors. Between October 2024 and March 2025, prosecutors say, the six women — who were allegedly never paid, except with fake money — endured physical and psychological torture at the hands of Hemphill.
Hemphill's alleged depraved behavior encompassed a wide range of abuse, say prosecutors. He allegedly handcuffed the women as he punched and slapped them, "forced or tricked" them into ingesting physically impairing substances and threatened his victims with guns and knives, the release states.
He also allegedly tortured his victims using a cattle prod and made some of them wear a shock collar as he raped them. He also is alleged to have urinated on some of his victims as a form of torture.
Prosecutors even allege in the release that when the women confided in Hemphill about their past sexual traumas, he proceeded to reenact those traumas.
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Hemphill would then allegedly threaten the women over text message to ensure they wouldn't report the incidents. Some of the victims were allegedly forced to say, on camera, that their encounters were consensual. In another case, he allegedly drafted a contract wherein he'd pay a woman $2,000 to drop a complaint she had made to police, according to the release.
Text messages shared by the DA's office in the release allegedly show he told one woman not to bother reporting the assault, because he "know[s] half the precinct."
Hemphill was arrested on March 1. Authorities executing a search warrant allegedly found a cattle prod, hundreds of bullets, high-capacity magazines, handcuffs and fake cash. Also recovered were "large amounts" of drugs including heroin, fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine, the DA's office reported.
At a Thursday press conference, Bragg said that surveillance cameras were outfitted at Hemphill's apartment that captured "dozens, if not hundreds, of different women."
Legal Aid, which is representing Hemphill, declined PEOPLE's request for comment.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to .
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