Tag: crime

NXIVM Sex Cult Leader Keith Raniere Sentenced to Spend the Rest of His Days in Prison

The leader of a New York-based sex cult called NXIVM (nex-ee-um), which branded itself as a self-help group for elites, was sentenced in the Eastern District of New York on Tuesday to life in prison. Through his defense lawyers, Keith Raniere, 60, maintained until the end that he is not sorry for his conduct because he will one day show that he is not a sex-trafficker, abuser of women, possessor of child pornography, racketeer, extortionist, identity thief or obstructionist.

The NXIVM founder—known as “Vanguard,” “Master,” and “Grandmaster“—was found guilty in June 2019 on all criminal charges against him. Raniere and elite co-defendants like Seagram’s heiress Clare Bronfman (a NXIVM bankroller) or Smallville actress Allison Mack (a top recruiter) are all being punished for their roles in the conspiracy. 

Bronfman, Mack and others, unlike Raniere, entered guilty pleas and avoided sex crime charges; Bronfman was sentenced to nearly 7 years in prison, while Mack is still waiting to be sentenced. Raniere chose to fight the charges and lost. Now he’s been sentenced to 120 years in prison.

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If Trump Really Wanted to Fight the Deep State, He’d Pardon These 5 Heroes Instead of Criminals

President Trump has recently used his power of pardon to absolve a number of high profile individuals from criminal charges because they may have been treated unfairly by the justice system. Last month, Trump posthumously pardoned the great African-American boxer Jack Johnson, who was falsely imprisoned for traveling with a white woman. While this was a nice symbolic gesture, it did not do much aside from creating a PR opportunity for the Trump administration.

Most recently Trump pardoned the controversial conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, who was accused of and confessed to campaign finance violations. Trump has also suggested pardoning Martha Stewart, who was arrested years ago for insider trading but is not currently in jail, as well as Rod Blagojevich who was impeached and then charged for corruption and soliciting bribes.

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Why Are So Many Grateful Dead Fans Being Murdered?

“When you think of the Grateful Dead, you think of peace and love and music and community,” podcaster Jake Brennan tells The Daily Beast. “You don’t think of murder and true crime.”

Brennan and co-host Payne Lindsey are behind the podcast Dead and Gone, which has been grabbing attention since its release earlier this month for its investigations into the unusual spate of missing and murdered fans of the Grateful Dead, better known as Deadheads. (The aforementioned cases are just a handful of the examples.)

There’s a record-scratch intrigue in the seeming dissonance between the vibe associated with the psychedelics-devouring, hippie-skewing, tie-dye-wearing anti-establishment fan community and the darkness underscoring the violent crimes and mysteries outlined in Dead and Gone.

The podcast explores the surprising darkness at the core of the Dead’s music and the culture surrounding them, and the phenomenon of how susceptible Deadheads, in their free-wheeling nature, have been to predation. (After founding member Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995, surviving band members continued to tour.)

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It’s Time We Have a Discussion About the Lack of Punishment for Child Predators

Earlier this week, QAnon and any material related to it was banned from YouTube. For months, QAnon has been muddying the waters of actual child sex trafficking by claiming it is reserved to high-profile Democrats and Hollywood celebrities who are ritually sacrificing children as part of some satanic cabal. President Donald Trump is portrayed as the hero who is fighting this cabal behind the scenes.

It is important to note that TFTP never supports censorship of peaceful information on any level even if it is misguided and verifiably false. It is not up to some big tech or government arbiter of truth to tell us what to believe. And, as we can tell from the massive spread of disinformation among unprecedented censorship, it doesn’t work and only creates divide and extremism. Despite the ban, rest assured that the disinformation will continue to flow out of the QAnon arena further muddying the waters even more. As YouTube bans QAnon, the group will likely claim that it validates their claims and the elite are trying to silence them for exposing the democrats for trafficking children.

In the meantime, however, real, Federally and State prosecuted cases involving the abuse and trafficking of actual real children will remain a topic in the back seat to the drama and censorship playing out before us. This is a problem.

Contrary to what many disinformation agents will lead you to believe child sex abuse is not reserved to the the Deep State, Democratic party, and Hollywood, Republicans are regularly caught committing the same acts. What’s more, while elite politicians are caught committing these child sex crimes like former Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, the scope of the problem is far greater. A potential reason this problem has reached epidemic proportions is the lack of punishment these monsters face after hurting children.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans are currently incarcerated in the land of the free for “crimes” which have no victims. Innocent people, whose only crime was getting caught with small amounts of a plant are serving years behind bars, yet child predators routinely receive insultingly low sentences — especially child predator cops.

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