NXIVM…A Sex Cult Disguised As A Self Help Program
*Warning- This post contains adult language.
“It’s Easier to Fool People Than It Is to Convince Them That They Have Been Fooled.” — Mark Twain.
On Friday night, Fancy and Brande talked about NXIVM and other cults like Scientology and the Branch Davidians on their Friday Night Live. We’ve heard about the power and control that a cult leader has over their following and how extremely dangerous that can be. Leah Remini and Mike Rinder have been exposing the inner workings of Scientology for several seasons on their A&E show Scientology and the Aftermath. For me, the show has been truly eye opening and astonishing. I think one of the reasons that some of the allegations were so shocking to me is because of the amount of people involved that we know and admire as celebrities.
I mean seriously, hearing that Tom Cruise (with the blue eyes and crooked smile that women swoon over) or Laura Prepon and Danny Masterson (who who made us all laugh in That 70’s Show, OITNB and The Ranch) are involved in a religion church cult that separates family members, stalks people that speak against them and many other disgusting things, is probably not something you’d expect. While Scientology has been around since the early 1950’s, in the late 1990’s a new company was born and it didn’t go unnoticed.
For years there were rumblings about MLM company NXIVM being a cult. Vanity Fair and Forbes had published several articles over the course of about 10 years but nothing really came of it. Then, in October 2017, the New York Times published an article that exposed the NXIVM organization. At the time, NXIVM was known as a multi level marketing company. Founded in 1998 by Keith Raneire and Nancy Salzman and based out of an suburban neighborhood in Albany, NY, the company claimed to offer personal and professional development seminars through a series of Executive Success Programs. They were supposed to help with self improvement and Raneire claimed the program’s emphasis was to have people experience more joy in their lives.
But, when Actress Sarah Edmonson gave the New York Times an interview about her personal experiences in the organization it was anything but joyful. Edmonson alleged that almost 10 years earlier, she was recruited to a secret sorority within the NXIVM organization by a woman named Lauren Salzman. This secret group was called DOS and Edmonson claimed that to get in, she had to give DOS “collateral” in the form of information that would be damaging to her reputation.
Once she was a member of DOS, Edmonson says she became a “slave”. She had an unknown “master” who she was required to text every morning and night as part of a training program, requesting permission to eat and sleep, and immediately reply to “readiness drills” that her master sent at random hours. If she didn’t do this she would be punished and punishment would include things like forced fasting. Edmonson also claimed that “slaves” within DOS were branded with Keith Raniere’s initials.
After the NY Times released their exposé, Keith Raniere fled to Mexico, but on March 27, 2018 the FBI arrested him and charged him with sex trafficking. Media outlets immediately began to speculate on who else may have been involved in what was looking more and more like a cult every day.
On April 20, 2018 the FBI arrested Smallville actress Allison Mack and charged her with sex trafficking and forced labor. She pled not guilty to the charges but the following month Mack also did an interview with the New York Times. In that interview she gave details about DOS. Mack claimed that the branding of the “slaves” was her idea. She said for someone to join the slave-master sorority they had to commit to a low calorie diet so that their bodies would be appealing to Raniere.
More arrests came on July 24, 2018. NXIVM co-founder Nancy Salzman, her daughter Lauren Salzman, and former NXIVM bookkeeper Kathy Russel were arrested and charged with racketeering conspiracy. Along with them, Clare Bronfman, 42, who is the youngest daughter of billionaire philanthropist and former Seagram liquor chairman Edgar Bronfman Sr. It’s alleged that the 4 women recruited and groomed sexual partners for Raniere, and used “harassment, coercion and abusive litigation to intimidate and attack perceived enemies and critics.”
Keith Raniere had child pornography added to his charges. Prosecutors alleged that Raniere documented sex with a 15 year old girl who was his 1st “sex slave”. They also charged him with possession of child pornography from 2005 and 2018.
In March 2019, Nancy Salzman pled guilty and admitted in court to tracking and monitoring women in NXIVM if they were suspected of being “moles. 2 weeks after her mom Nancy took a plea bargain, Lauren Salzman also pled guilty and admitted that she was a member of DOS and that she knowingly and intentionally enslaved a woman for 2 years, from 2010 to 2012. In court she said “I’m very sorry for my poor decision-making and decisions that result in the harm to others and not the just victims in this case but to hundreds of members of our community and their friends and families as well.”
On April 8th, Allison Mack followed suit and pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy and one count of racketeering. She admitted that as a member of DOS, she blackmailed other women with “collateral” to make them cooperate. Later that month, Clare Bronfman pleaded guilty to her charges, admitting to bankrolling NXIVM, enslaving an undocumented woman and helping Keith Raniere to use a dead woman’s credit card.
On May 7, 2019, Raniere’s federal trial began. According to court documents multiple people testified that Raniere had a den in Salzman’s house in upstate New York, where he had sex with some of his “slaves” in a room with an elevated bed that had a hot tub underneath it. Prosecution witnesses included Lauren Salzman, film-maker Mark Vicente, victims “Sylvia”, “Daniela”, and “Nicole”, and cult educator Rick Alan Ross. On June 19, 2019, after five hours of deliberation, the jury found Raniere guilty on all charges.
Raniere was found guilty of:
Sexual exploitation of a child and possession of child pornography with regard to minor victim “Camila”
Sex trafficking of “Nicole”, attempted sex trafficking of “Jay”
Identity theft against Edgar Bronfman, James Loperfido, Ashana Chenoa, “Marianna”, and Pam Cafritz
Trafficking for labor and services of “Daniela” and forced labor of “Nicole”
Conspiracy to alter records for use in an official proceeding
Sex trafficking conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy, racketeering conspiracy, and wire fraud conspiracy
In 2019, Investigation Discovery aired a documentary titled “The Lost Women of NXIVM”. The untimely deaths of Raniere’s alleged lovers caused speculation that Raniere had possibly murdered them. There was also a 2009 video where Raniere said “I’ve had people killed because of my beliefs.” Anyone else getting Lori Vallow & Chad Dumbbell vibes from this guy or is it just me?
In January 2020, a federal lawsuit was filed in New York against Raniere and 14 of his associates, accusing them of conducting illegal psychological experiments on members of the company and abusing them physically, emotionally and financially.
While incarcerated, Raniere has maintained his leadership position in NXIVM and still speaks with his followers by phone. At one point he gave false names of the people he was allegedly calling to prison officials, and his followers were using burner phones to avoid being identified. He even instructed a follower to “get scrutiny” on the judge in his case, saying that “the judge needs to know he’s being watched”.
On September 30, 2020, Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis sentenced Clare Bronfman to six years and nine months in federal prison. On October 27, 2020 Judge Garaufis sentenced Keith Raniere to 120 years in prison and fined him $1.75 million. Bookkeeper Kathy Russell pleaded guilty to visa fraud. Russell, 63, Allison Mack, 38, Lauren Salzman, 44, and Nancy Salzman, 66, are on house arrest awaiting sentencing which has been held up due to court closures during the COVID-19 pandemic.
I hope that every single one of them are sentenced to the maximum extent possible although I expect that many deals will be made. Each of the women that pleaded guilty were adults when they got involved in NXIVM and then DOS. What the fuck? How does this even happen? I get it- brainwashing, blackmail, all the nuances that go into forming a cult and controlling loyal followers, but still, the rational part of my brain again says, WTF?? Did they know that they were being manipulated from the beginning or did it take them a while to figure it out and by then they thought were in too deep to leave? I don’t know about you all, but once an organization I’m in starts talking about a secret slave-master sorority, that’s my cue to NOPE right the fuck outta there. I just don’t understand how grown people get themselves into this type of shit. I guess Mark Twain was onto something…
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Originally published at https://madgingerentertainment.com.
