Tag: nxivm

Feds fight Nxivm sex cult leader Keith Raniere’s bid at new trial on claims FBI planted child porn on his computer

Federal prosecutors slammed convicted Nxivm sex cult leader Keith Raniere’s bid for a new trial — denouncing his claim that he has “newly discovered evidence” that proves the FBI planted evidence on his computer.

In a response filed Friday in Brooklyn federal court, prosecutors wrote that Raniere’s third attempt at securing a new trial — like his first two — was “entirely without merit,” adding that the motion should be denied as “untimely, unfounded, legally unsupported, and contrary to the evidence adduced at trial.”

When the 62-year-old sicko — who is serving a 120-year sex trafficking sentence — filed for a new trial in May 2022, he claimed he had unearthed evidence showing the government “manufactured child pornography and planted it on a computer hard drive to tie it to him,” according to court papers.

Raniere’s lawyers also said the feds “falsified, fabricated, and manipulated all the key evidence it used” to convict him of child exploitation and child porn.

Prosecutors, in the Friday filing, detailed the evidence the FBI found in Raniere’s Halfmoon, NY, residence — including nude photos of his first sex slave, Camila, who was around 15 years-old at the time.

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Allison Mack, actress convicted in NXIVM case, released from prison

Former television star Allison Mack, who provided “slaves” to NXIVM leader Keith Raniere for his secret group that blackmailed calorie-starved and sleep-deprived women into sex acts and subjected them to physical branding on their pelvic areas, has been released from federal prison.

The 40-year-old Mack, formerly of Halfmoon, pleaded guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy in 2019 in a deal that required she cooperate with federal prosecutors in Brooklyn. She was released from custody on Monday, according to the website of the federal Bureau of Prisons. 

Two years ago, Senior U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis sentenced Mack to three years in prison, calling her “an essential accomplice” to Raniere. One female victim likened Mack’s role assisting Raniere in the secret group — Dominus Obsequious Sororium, or DOS, which translates in Latin to Lord/Master of the Obedient Female Companions — to that of convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell in her assistance to late sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

Mack is the first NXIVM defendant who received a prison sentence to complete their term. Former NXIVM president Nancy Salzman, 68, of Halfmoon, who pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy and received a three-and-a-half year sentence, is scheduled to be released in July 2024. NXIVM operations director Clare Bronfman, 44, the Seagrams’ heiress who lived in Manhattan and Clifton Park, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to harbor illegal immigrants for financial gain and fraudulent use of identification and received an 81-month sentence, is expected to be released in June 2025.

Two other defendants — NXIVM education director Lauren Salzman and bookkeeper Kathy Russell, both of whom lived in Halfmoon — received probation.

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FBI Accused of Doctoring Evidence in Child Sex Trafficking Case

A convicted child sex trafficker has accused the FBI of doctoring evidence in his case, which is under appeal.

Keith Raniere, the former leader and founder of NXIVM, was sentenced to 120 years in October 2020 after a federal jury found him guilty of sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy, and racketeering. Raniere’s alleged crimes have been the subject of multiple documentaries, including HBO’s August 2020 series, The Vow.

An appeal hearing is set for May 3 for Raniere, but the defendant said on April 28 that he has come into possession of evidence that could overturn his entire case. According to Raniere, the FBI manipulated digital photos to make it appear as if he had photographed a female under the age of 18.

“Specifically, there is evidence that computer data related to digital photographs taken of a nude female were materially altered to make it appear that these photographs were taken in 2005,” Raniere’s motion said. “The government used the year 2005 to establish the female as being under the age of eighteen, making the photographs contraband.”

Raniere’s motion contains sworn statements from three digital forensic experts, including one who worked for the FBI for 20 years.

Retired FBI special agent Richard Kiper, who was a computer forensic examiner for the bureau from 1999 to 2019, said in his sworn statement that he believes there was evidence tampering in Raniere’s case.

“In my 20 years serving as an FBI agent, I have never observed or claimed that an FBI employee tampered with evidence, digital or otherwise. But in this case, I strongly believe the multiple, intentional alterations to the digital information I have discovered constitute evidence manipulation,” Kiper said.

“My analysis demonstrates that some of these alterations definitely took place while the devices were in the custody of the FBI. Therefore, in the absence of any other plausible explanation, it is my expert opinion that the FBI must have been involved in this evidence tampering.”

Among his findings, says Kiper, are dates, file names, and timestamps of digital photos being altered while in FBI possession.  He also said photos were manipulated to appear as though they came from Raniere’s computer hard drive when they were actually placed there manually.

In addition, Raniere’s motion included sworn statements from Steven Abrams, an attorney and retired digital forensics expert, and computer scientist Wayne Norris.

They agreed with Kiper’s findings.

“Dr. Kiper’s third finding is that the filesystem access data metadata was overwritten on Sept. 19, 2018. I agree. This sort of mishandling of digital evidence is common among lay people. I regularly observe attorneys mishandle their client’s evidence produced in discovery in this manner, but this sort of mishandling of evidence is unexpected from the FBI,” said Abrams.

“This is either a rookie mistake or a purposeful act of digital sabotage.”

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Former NXIVM Second-in-Command Allison Mack Sentenced to Three Years in Prison

Allison Mack, the former star of the CW’s Smallville, was sentenced on Wednesday to three years in prison, as well as a $20,000 fine. In April 2019, she pleaded guilty to charges of racketeering and racketeering conspiracy related to her role in NXIVM, the Albany-based self-improvement group and multi-level marketing organization commonly referred to in the media as a “sex cult.”

Former member Jessica Joan, who revealed last December that she had been a Jane Doe in the case, gave an impassioned victim statement during the proceedings, in which she described Mack as “a demon of a woman” who had groomed her to be a “sex slave.” “Allison Mack and Keith Raniere are the most evil monsters I’ve ever met,” she said. “She sought me out like a predator stalking their prey.”

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NXIVM Sex Cult Slaves Speak Out: ‘It Was New, It Was Edgy, and It Was Good’

The saga of the DOS sex cult founded by Keith Raniere, called NXIVM within the larger organization, continues as former members of the secret sorority have come to the defense of their master, as reported by Frank Parlato, who broke the story of the sex cult. Eight women who were part of the DOS secret club, which required blackmail material from their pledges and branded women near their genitals, have come out with a written statement of support for the ideology that sent Raniere and billionaire heiress Clare Bronfman to prison for trafficking women and girls. Allison Mack is awaiting sentencing and facing forty years. The women posted their defense online.

We were driven by curiosity, vision, and a desire to challenge social conventions in exchange for increased self-awareness and self-esteem. DOS, which stands for Dominus Obsequium Sororum (Master, Allegiance, Sisterhood), was an experiment in its infancy. It was new, it was edgy, and it was good.

The eight women in the “first line” of DOS (seven of whom were co-founders) were mentored, yes, by a man, but not by just any man, a man with whom these women had built a combined 100 years of trust, friendship and collaboration.

It is incorrect to believe that we, a group of educated, intelligent, and financially independent women were driven by fear and faulty assumptions, and it is even further absurd to believe we were manipulated by an abusive, power-hungry patriarch. Yet, this is the role society has cast for us: that of hapless, unwitting victims who need to be saved from our own choices. Alternatively, we are seen by the general public as “brainwashed” followers who can’t think for ourselves and who are complicit in heinous crimes. Neither of these views is accurate, but understanding the truth is neither simple nor easy.

The binary narrative of “victim/perpetrator” is uninformed and reductive, and offensive to all the adult women who chose to participate in DOS, even the ones who have retroactively withdrawn their consent. It is also disrespectful to victims of actual crimes like human trafficking, none of whom receive the type of fame and opportunities that the so-called “victims” of DOS have enjoyed. While everyone is entitled to feel how they want about an experience, past or present, we believe that objective reality is still significant, if not essential, when discussing events with such damaging repercussions.

Of course, these eight women appear to have been some of the founding members of this cult, which victimized many women, according to Sarah Edmondson, who says she was told she was getting a tattoo that turned out to be a brand instead. She also claims she had no idea the brand was Mack’s and Raniere’s initials and that no one knew that Raniere was the head of the group. Edmondson told her story to the New York Times and wrote a book on the subject.

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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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