A non-public fairness government grew to become his New York Town condo right into a torture chamber of “gruesome sexual violence,” Ny prosecutors mentioned Thursday. Ryan Hemphill is accused of raping six girls over 5 months in a wicked rampage during which he allegedly punched, waterboarded and stunned sufferers with a livestock prod and stored recordings of the attacks as trophies.
Hemphill, who stays jailed after his arrest closing month, pleaded now not to blame to a 116-count indictment charging him with predatory sexual attack and different crimes relationship to closing October. The 43-year-old, who may be a legal professional, threatened to have sufferers arrested or disappeared in a bid to stay them silent, prosecutors said.
“The defendant advised those survivors that he was once untouchable,” Ny District Legal professional Alvin Bragg mentioned. “The indictment makes transparent that he was once unsuitable.”
Hemphill sat quietly in a khaki prison go well with, his cuffed palms clutching a move in the back of his again, as a prosecutor described his alleged crimes in ugly element.
Steven Hirsch/New York Publish by way of AP, Pool 
If convicted, Hemphill may spend the remainder of his lifestyles in jail. He was once in the past acquitted in 2015 of choking and maintaining a knife to his ex-girlfriend’s throat after attesting that he loved strangling her all through intercourse.
“We have now reason why to imagine those six sufferers are simplest the end of the iceberg,” Ny Assistant District Legal professional Mirah Curzer advised Pass judgement on Ann E. Scherzer.
Hemphill’s condo, close to the Empire State Development, was once equipped with a lot of surveillance cameras, and investigators have recovered pictures appearing dozens, if now not loads, of different girls, a lot of them bare and blindfolded, Curzer mentioned.
Investigators additionally discovered loads of bullets and high-capacity magazines, and a considerable amount of medication, together with heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, and fentanyl, prosecutors mentioned.
In a news release, prosecutors posted pictures of different pieces they mentioned had been recovered from his condo, together with a livestock prod, handcuffs and faux money. Additionally they posted threatening textual content messages that Hemphill allegedly despatched to sufferers.
Ny District Legal professional Alvin Bragg 
Hemphill met the six girls thru web sites, together with some specializing in “sugar daddy” preparations for girls searching for rich romantic companions, Curzer mentioned.
He advised the ladies he was once into function play and dominance and presented them huge sums of cash in alternate for intercourse and companionship, although he ended up now not paying one of the most girls or giving them pretend money as an alternative, Curzer mentioned.
As Hemphill were given to understand the ladies, he satisfied them to confide their previous sexual traumas, which he then intentionally reenacted as he assaulted them, Curzer mentioned. He took benefit of a few sufferers’ inexperience, the prosecutor mentioned, or crossed obstacles that sufferers had obviously articulated.
Hemphill is accused of tricking sufferers into consuming elements that rendered them not able to battle again, the use of handcuffs and different restraints on them, wrapping their heads and faces with duct tape, slapping and punching them, and torturing them with a livestock prod and surprise collar.
Hemphill stored one sufferer shackled to a mattress for hours whilst she begged him to let her move, Curzer mentioned.
Hemphill’s alleged habits is “in point of fact surprising to the judgment of right and wrong,” and he “has made transparent that he has no regard for the regulation or the courts,” Curzer mentioned.
To stay girls quiet, Hemphill boasted about connections to regulation enforcement and arranged crime, prosecutors mentioned, and claimed that since the girls had accredited gives of cash, it was once them who could be arrested.
Hemphill is charged with bribing a witness and, consistent with prosecutors, drew up a freelance during which he agreed to pay a girl $2,000 in alternate for shedding a criticism she filed with police. He’s additionally accused of forcing some sufferers to file movies during which they said that they’d consented to being abused.
“The ability imbalance in his predatory acts may now not be extra transparent,” Bragg advised journalists. “He wielded his regulation stage and cash as each sword and protect, coercing and silencing survivors.”
The arraignment came about down the corridor from disgraced film multi-millionaire Harvey Weinstein’s rape retrial.
Scherzer ordered Hemphill to stay jailed with out bail after prosecutors raised considerations that his catch 22 situation, blended together with his wealth and connections – together with a historical past of philanthropy and circle of relatives actual property holdings – may give him the approach and incentive to escape the rustic.
Hemphill’s legal professional, a public defender assigned to constitute him a minimum of thru his arraignment, had recommended Scherzer to transport him to a rehabilitation facility to maintain substance abuse problems.
Scherzer dominated that, given the reality trend laid out through prosecutors, “together with efforts to dissuade through power and threats to witnesses from attesting towards him,” jailing him was once the one means to verify Hemphill would go back to courtroom.
Hemphill’s alleged conduct, the pass judgement on mentioned, “displays his extent to which he is keen to head to give protection to himself from dealing with those fees.”
“The main points on this case are past nerve-racking — a sustained, calculated marketing campaign of violence and cruelty that focused susceptible girls,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch mentioned in a statement. “This type of predatory abuse has no position in our town and will likely be met with the total power of the regulation.”
