NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — A 43-year-old attorney was indicted for the alleged sexual assault of six women over a five-month span in his Midtown apartment, which he turned into a place of “grotesque sexual violence," prosecutors announced Thursday.
Ryan Hemphill is facing 24 charges including predatory sexual assault, rape, facilitating a sex offense with a controlled substance, and assault. He is also charged with bribing a witness, criminal possession of a controlled substance and unlawful possession of ammunition and of certain ammunition feeding devices, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Jr. said.
According to court documents, beginning on Oct. 3, 2024, Hemphill subjected six women to multiple-hour ordeals of physical and sexual violence inside his apartment.
"The defendant we allege beat them, drugged them, and restrained them," Bragg said. "He threatened them with firearms. He used a shock collar, and a cattle prod, intended for livestock."
He allegedly raped his victims orally, anally, and vaginally, often under threat of torture if they did not comply. He forced or tricked them into ingesting various controlled substances that rendered them unconscious or significantly impaired, prosecutors said.
Hemphill also slapped and punched them repeatedly and tied them up with handcuffs and other restraints. In one alleged incident, one of the victims was left shackled to the defendant’s bed for an extended period while she begged him to let her go.
Court documents allege that Hemphill tortured his victims with electricity, using a cattle prod meant for livestock and a shock collar that he forced some women to wear around their necks, including while he raped them. He also allegedly tortured them psychologically by threatening them with guns and knives, urinating on them, and verbally humiliating and demeaning them.
He convinced some of the women to confide in him about the details of their past sexual traumas, and then deliberately reenacted those acts. Hemphill allegedly recorded himself abusing the women on extensive cameras within his apartment.
Hemphill allegedly met many of the women on the websites including Seeking.com (formerly known as Seeking Arrangements), SugarDaddy, SugarDaddyMeet, FetLife, and Craigslist, and offered them large sums of money in exchange for sex and companionship, officials said.
In many cases, Hemphill did not pay them the agreed-upon amounts and sometimes he paid them with fake money, authorities said.
Hemphill allegedly threatened the women, often over text message, so they would not report the assaults including falsely claiming to have vast resources and connections to police and organized crime as well as using his role as an attorney to intimidate them and insisting they would be arrested instead.
In one alleged instance, based on evidence retrieved from Hemphill’s cellphone, he drew up a contract in which he agreed to pay a woman $2,000 in exchange for dropping a complaint she had filed with the Manhattan Special Victims Squad. He also allegedly forced some victims to record videos in which they stated that they consented to being raped and tortured, then used those videos to convince the women that they would not be believed if they chose to come forward.
Hemphill was arrested on March 1. Upon executing a court-authorized search warrant at Hemphill's apartment, investigators found high-capacity magazines and hundreds of bullets, a cattle prod, large amounts of drugs, including heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, and fentanyl.
"In addition to numerous weapons that were recovered, investigators also found surveillance cameras and memory cards, from which we extracted videos of dozens, if not hundreds, of different women," Bragg said.
A judge ordered Hemphill to remain jailed without bail after prosecutors raised concerns that his predicament, combined with his wealth and connections—law and business degrees, a history of philanthropy and family real estate holdings—could give him the means and incentive to flee the country.
If convicted, Hemphill could spend the rest of his life in prison. He was previously acquitted in 2015 of choking and holding a knife to his ex-girlfriend’s throat after testifying that he enjoyed strangling her during sex.
"This investigation is ongoing, and we have reason to believe there may be additional survivors. Our talented prosecutors and investigators, as well as our specially trained counselors, are here to support you, no matter how powerful the person who assaulted you may seem. Please call our Special Victims Division at 212-335-3400," Bragg added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.