A former private equity executive and licensed attorney has been indicted on 116 counts following revelations that he transformed his luxury Midtown Manhattan apartment into a dungeon of sexual violence, complete with surveillance cameras, weapons, and torture tools.
Ryan Hemphill, 43, appeared in court Thursday to face a sweeping array of charges including predatory sexual assault, rape, drug possession, and witness tampering. Prosecutors allege that between October and March, Hemphill lured at least six women, possibly many more into a brutal web of abuse involving waterboarding, electrocution, and psychological manipulation.
Hemphill, once seen as a high-flying financier, now sits in a jail cell after pleading not guilty. He is accused of using sugar-daddy websites to prey on women seeking financial support, offering them large sums of money in exchange for sex and companionship. According to Assistant District Attorney Mirah Curzer, Hemphill would sometimes pay with fake cash, or not at all.
Court documents describe Hemphill as a man who used his law degree and financial power to coerce, control, and silence his victims. Prosecutors say he recorded many of the assaults, kept disturbing trophies, and manipulated his victims into revealing past sexual trauma, only to reenact their most painful memories during the attacks.
“He told these women he was untouchable,” said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. “This indictment makes clear that he was wrong.”
The apartment, just blocks from the Empire State Building, allegedly contained a cache of disturbing items: cattle prods, duct tape, handcuffs, and shock collars, as well as high-capacity ammunition and a stockpile of narcotics ranging from heroin to fentanyl. Images of some of the recovered items were made public in a chilling news release.
Prosecutors say Hemphill used psychological warfare, convincing victims they’d be arrested if they spoke out, some were allegedly coerced into filming “consent” videos or signing payout agreements to drop charges. In one case, he reportedly shackled a woman to his bed for hours as she begged to be freed.
Curzer emphasized that authorities believe many more victims may be out there. Surveillance footage recovered from the apartment shows hundreds of women, many naked, blindfolded, and visibly distressed.
“This wasn’t just abuse,” Curzer stated in court. “It was calculated torture.”
Hemphill was acquitted in 2015 of charges related to allegedly choking and threatening a former girlfriend with a knifenclaiming it was consensual. Prosecutors now argue that incident was a harbinger of the systematic cruelty to come.
Given the scope and depravity of the current charges, and concerns about Hemphill’s access to wealth and international connections, Judge Ann E. Scherzer ordered him held without bail. A request from his public defender to transfer him to a rehabilitation facility was swiftly denied.
“This case is beyond disturbing,” said NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. “It represents a prolonged, deliberate campaign of violence against vulnerable women.”
The arraignment took place down the hall from the courtroom where Harvey Weinstein faces retrial, a haunting reminder that power, money, and prestige have long shielded predators from accountability.
But this time, prosecutors say, the law is catching up.
