Lawyer Is Charged With Sadistic Rapes of Women He Met Online
A lawyer with a background in private equity lured women he met online to his apartment near the Empire State Building, prosecutors said. There, they say, he raped, drugged and tortured them for hours, sometimes using a shock collar and a cattle prod.
When he was done, prosecutors said, he threatened the women to keep them from reporting the violent encounters.
The attorney, Ryan Hemphill, was arraigned on Thursday afternoon in Manhattan Criminal Court on a 116-count indictment accusing him of sexually assaulting six woman over five months, though prosecutors said there could be scores of additional victims.
Mr. Hemphill, 43, was escorted into the Manhattan courtroom on Thursday afternoon in handcuffs. He wore a cross necklace and matching bracelet and sat quietly beside his lawyer, Caroline Ng from the Legal Aid Society.
Mr. Hemphill pleaded not guilty and was ordered held without bail. Ms. Ng could not immediately be reached for comment.
Alvin J. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, said after the arraignment that Mr. Hemphill tried to make his victims feel powerless.
'The defendant told survivors he was untouchable,' Mr. Bragg said at a news conference at the courthouse. 'The indictment makes clear that he was wrong.'
The events leading to the charges against Mr. Hemphill began in October and involved six women, prosecutors said. Mr. Hemphill subjected each of the women to hours of sexual and physical abuse, often drugging them and threatening to torture them if they did not comply, prosecutors say. He recorded the abuse with video cameras stashed around his apartment.
Mr. Hemphill, prosecutors said, sometimes slapped and punched them, restrained them, and in some cases, forced women to wear a shock collar meant for livestock while he raped them.
Mr. Hemphill found many victims online, using dating websites and online services like SugarDaddy and Craigslist to target women. He offered them large amounts of money in exchange for sex and company, but prosecutors said he never paid many of the women what he had promised and gave others counterfeit money.
After the abuse, Mr. Hemphill systematically threatened his victims into remaining silent. He claimed to have connections to law enforcement and organized crime groups, wielding his law degree and his money 'as both sword and shield,' Mr. Bragg said.
In one instance, Mr. Hemphill drew up a contract offering to pay a victim $2,000 if she dropped a complaint she had filed with the Manhattan Special Victims Squad, which investigates sex crimes. Other times, he forced women to record videos saying that they consented and used them as leverage.
On Thursday, prosecutors said they believed the encounters detailed in the indictment were just the beginning. The videos recovered from the cameras in his apartment showed Mr. Hemphill having similar encounters with dozens, if not hundreds, more women, they said.
The charges against Mr. Hemphill are not the first time he has been accused by Manhattan prosecutors of disturbing and violent behavior.
In 2015, Mr. Hemphill was accused of assaulting an ex-girlfriend and holding a 10-inch knife to her throat. During a weeklong trial, Mr. Hemphill admitted that he enjoyed choking her during sex, according to The New York Post. A jury ultimately found him not guilty of the charges.
Mr. Hemphill graduated from Hofstra University with degrees in drama and philosophy in 2003 and went on to receive law and business degrees from the school, according to his LinkedIn profile and personal website. He has held positions in the legal and financial spheres and in 2013 founded his own firm, Madison Park Capital Advisors, which claimed a client roster including a fashion label and a real estate developer.
'The power imbalance in this predatory act could not be more clear,' Mr. Bragg said on Thursday.
'He impressed upon them that going to authorities would be futile, and that he would never be accountable. He told them that nobody would ever believe them,' Mr. Bragg added. 'Clearly he was wrong.'
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