Ep. 125 | The DISTURBING NXIVM Cult

This episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. For 125 years, Nordstrom has been part of your story. The stylist who found the perfect outfit for your big interview. The first pair of walking shoes for your one-year-old. The tomato soup you shared with your sister at the cafe. These are the moments that make Nordstrom, Nordstrom. Big or small, we're here for all of it. Celebrating 125 years with new moments still ahead. Discover it all in Nordstrom stores and at Nordstrom.com. Tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college. That's why she shops at BJ's Wholesale Club, saving up to 25% off grocery store prices. Beef jerky, microwave meals, laundry pods, even they can't screw up. Have you met my kids? And with BJ's gas, she gets there for less. They call me the road warrior. This is your home, road warrior mom. Home of the Save. Join for just $20 at BJ's.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer, new members only. BJ's. Home of the Save. Self-improvement is supposed to be a gift you give yourself. Some join groups dedicated to their personal growth. A room full of people all trying to be their best. And for years, that's exactly what it looked like from the outside. The classes, the language of science, the man they called the vanguard. But something underneath had nothing to do with growth. And by the time it surfaced, it had already gone too far. This is the story of next. Crime, conspiracy, cults, serial killers, and murder. All things that I love to consume. And I know you do too, you sick, twisted, beautiful, intellectually minded freak. Today we are talking about quite an infamous cult. But one that I feel like a lot of people don't go fully into. And not only am I going to be deep diving into this cult today. This Saturday, I got to sit down with somebody that was inside of this cult. That experienced it firsthand. And it was an incredible conversation. And that's a big part of the reason I wanted to do this video. I wanted to be able to dissect this cult and it's disgusting leader from the inside out. While preserving her story that you can hear in a few days. So definitely tune into that this Saturday. And for right now, let's unbuckle our seat belts, go on Mach 5 down the highway, slam on the brakes, and bust through the windshield into this infamous cult together. *music* *music* *music* *music* *music* *music* *music* Let's take a quick pause to talk about one of our sponsors for today and that is Fume. Now if you have ever tried to quit vaping or smoking and always ended up going back, your willpower isn't the problem. How you're trying to quit is. Patches, gum, and pouches only address the nicotine while keeping you reliant on it. But vaping isn't just a nicotine problem. It's a. habit problem. The hand-to-mouth motion. The inhale, the stress-break you reach for automatically. Do that loop enough times and your brain learns to expect it. And that's why Fume works. It's a flavored air device made from real wood and metal that gives your hands, mouth, and brain something better to reach for when a craving hits. There's no nicotine though, no vapor, and no batteries. And third-party surveys have rated Fume twice as effective as other quit solutions. months shy of 18, a perfectly average age, by the way. And he did pursue three majors at RPI, mathematics, biology, and physics, and even claimed to be the school's first ever triple major, though RPI hasn't confirmed that either. And according to that same biography, he dove into PhD level math from day one at RPI and worked his way through a large portion of the graduate physics and math the school offered. His GPA was 2.26, and he graduated in 1982. So in 1988, Raniere took the MEGA test, created by Ronald Hoefflin for an organization called the MEGA Society. Not MAGA, but MEGA, M-E-G-A, just to clarify. And it was a take-home test with no time limit, no supervision, and no way to verify how the answers were reached. Why does this test exist? I don't know. So the whole thing just ran on a BS honor system. And by his account, the first 43 problems took him about two hours, and the final five stretched across four more days and another eight hours of work. And the completed test sat with him for weeks before he finally sent it in. But once it was submitted, Raniere called Hoefflin and told him one of the easier questions contained a copying mistake. And Hoefflin accepted the argument and credited him with the correct response. And without a point, Raniere would have scored below both Marilyn Vos Savant and Eric Hart. And the claim of being the smartest person in the world would have been off the table. So his final score was 46 out of 48. And then he would join the MEGA Society and essentially took charge of it. And the society had 26 members before Raniere showed up. And by the time he was done, three were left. And from there, he conducted his own study on the statistical rarity of his test score. Of course, because he needed to show everyone how awesome he was, even though it was just all BS because it was an honor system test. What the hell is this? You know, most of his data had no written documentation behind it. And Raniere said the underlying data had been given to him orally by educational testing service officials. And his conclusion was that he has problem-solving rarity of one in 425 million. Oh my gosh, he's so special and he's so rare and he's so smart. Just kidding. He's just really good at manipulating and just lying, basically. Now the whole foundation underneath his status as one of the planet's top three problem solvers was a study he built and ran on his own. And the 1989 Guinness Book of World Records listed him in the highest IQ category. And it showed up only in the Australian edition for a single year. And he was left out of both the UK and US versions, entirely. And the next year, Guinness pulled the highest IQ category altogether, deciding there was no reliable way to measure it because it's bullshit. Basically, he can lie. And Heidi Hutchinson, who knew Raniere from the mid-1980s, told CBC she was surprised that the test behind all of it was something you could take at your kitchen table for as long as you wanted with nobody watching over your shoulder, right? And she was blunt when she said, quote unquote, if he is a genius, it's in sales and manipulation. I'm with her. So after college, Raniere's resume was thin. His only real professional experience was a stint as a distributor for Amway, the health and beauty MLM. But the job gave him something more valuable than income. Three influences from the late 1980s helped shape everything that was to come. Scientology, neuro-linguistic programming, which is an approach to personal development that treats communication patterns as tools for rewiring thought and behavior, and the multi-level marketing model he'd seen up close at Amway. You know, those BS pyramid schemes you saw everywhere. And around this time, in like 90s, early 2000s, they were everywhere. It was like a disease. And according to Eric Rude, a close friend at the time, Raniere believed he could improve on Amway's models. He wasn't interested in selling beauty products for the rest of his life. He was studying the mechanisms underneath the sales pitch. So in 1990, he put that study to work. And he founded Consumers Byline, a MLM company based near Albany that offered discounts on groceries, dishwashers, and hotel stays. But of course, the real money wasn't in the product. Old members earned commissions by recruiting new ones. And the pitch spread fast. So he went city to city, running recruitment events, filling rooms with as many as a thousand people ready to buy into the dream. And every brochure and sales pitch circled back to the same claim. The man behind the company had one of the world's three highest IQs, which just was not true, and was in one Guinness World Record book in Australia that got retracted after one year because it was BS. But we already know that they didn't, though. And in 1992, the company reported $30 million in sales and projected revenues of $100 million. And he claimed that by the end of 1993. And Consumers Byline had moved a billion dollars in goods and services. And the operation, he said, ran on 80 employees. At one point, allegedly 160 employees even. And roughly 250,000 members, all paying $19 a month. And he put his personal net worth at that point at $50 million. But then it all collapsed. And in April of 1993, New York Attorney General Robert Abrams, filed suit, claiming that Consumers Byline was an illegal multi-million dollar pyramid scheme. Pyramid scheme. Pyramid scheme. Classic pyramid scheme. At the time, the company had 5,000 members in New York and 200,000 nationwide. And Arkansas filed its own suit. Maine launched an investigation. And before long, regulators in 23 states and two federal agencies were looking into the operation. And cases were settled in Arkansas, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. And Raniere settled the New York case for $40,000 without admitting any wrongdoing. And only 9,000 of it ever actually left his pocket, which is insane. And he said the balance was more than he could manage to pay, which was hard to believe given he claimed to be living comfortably off of savings. Because remember, he has a $50 million net worth. But the company had just been a recruitment-driven pyramid sold on the legend of a genius founder. Staffed largely by young women, in a service of his vision. And even before Consumers Byline, Raniere had been building a circle. His home base was a Clifton Park townhouse he shared with his girlfriend, Karen Uterina. And by the late 1980s, the place had taken on the feel of a commune. Now, it featured a rotating cast of visitors, most of them being women, that drifted through at all hours, staying up late to talk philosophy, spirituality, and money. And he never had money on him and slept while everyone else worked. And he didn't show up to his own office until 10 at night. And meetings could start at one in the morning, even. Hutchinson described that people would hang out for hours while Raniere sat among them, playing with a Rubik's cube in his hand or writing in a notebook. And everyone around him was focused on the same project, turning Keith into a literal guru. So they treated him like a visionary about to make history. So in 1991, Tony Natalie first learned about Raniere when her husband told her that quote unquote, one of the most intelligent men in the world was headed to Rochester to pitch consumers Byline. And she was struck by how unassuming he seemed in person and by how easily he held a room. And less than a year after meeting him, Natalie left her husband and relocated to Clifton Park. And in one early meeting, Raniere implied to Natalie that he could cure her smoking habit. And he pressured specific spots on her to do the same if the urge to smoke came back. And she thought that she was in his office for this meeting for just 15 minutes. But her husband told her it had been two and a half hours. Now, the cravings never came back, apparently. But for Natalie, those missing hours marked a turning point she couldn't fully explain. And she told Forbes that Raniere had convinced her she was put on earth to carry his child. Just textbook cult leader coming in real quick right now. A baby destined to transform history. And Raniere used a polyamory framework to hold his relationships together. Get the checklist. Get the cult leader checklist out right now. This guy, he's the fucking worst. You got the manipulation. You got the narcissistic personality. You got him thinking he's a deity guru. You got the commune that's going on right now. And now he's saying that up. Also, it's got to be polyamorous. Everybody's got to sleep with me and have my babies. It's just disgusting. But he would sell his girlfriends this theory that nature designed men to sleep with multiple women, but not the other way around. How convenient. And if that arrangement bothered anyone, it only proved how deeply society's broken values had taken hold. It's their problem. They're, they're the evil ones. Everybody out there. A tale as old as time. I swear to God, they all have. I say this in every single video where I talk about cult. I feel like there's a meeting that is held where they all have a how to be a cult leader playbook. And it's the same. thing every single time, and they all deserve to burn in hell. But that framework gave him both cover and access to the women around him. Hutchinson, first time seeing Rainier, was around Christmas of 1984. At the time, he was 24, and he was climbing through the bedroom window to get to her teenage sister, Gina. Gina had been involved with Rainier since she was 14 or 15, and he was eight years older. So from the get-go, he's literally a predator. And what Heidi described was essentially a takeover. Quote, he had sex with her, became her mentor, had her quit school to be tutored by him, and claimed she was born to be his consort and achieve enlightenment as a Buddhist goddess through him. Unquote. And Rainier was persuasive enough to convince Gina's mother that his intentions with her daughter were serious, and committed. But he had other girlfriends the entire time, as we know, and Gina would eventually find out. And at one point, another woman in Rainier's circle approached Gina and tried to bring her into the group relationship. And this pattern was already in place before any of his companies had names or curriculum to follow. So this was extremely early on, where he's already building a cult. And whether he knows it or not, he's a cult leader at this point. So when consumers byline folded in 1994, like we talked about, Rainier moved straight into his next multi-level marketing operation, National Health Network, selling vitamins. And he and Tony Natalie opened a health food store in Cliftonville. Park, New York. And while they worked there, a woman named Nancy Salzman showed up to get help with a chronic health issue. And she pitched them on private NLP, Neuro Linguistic Programming Sessions, telling them she could help fix whatever was going wrong between them. And before reinventing herself as an NLP practitioner, Salzman had worked as a registered nurse. So NLP blended hypnotherapy with methods like lymphocytosis, and her own body language, all aimed at breaking through the mental blocks that held people back. And most of the scientific community had dismissed NLP as pseudoscience, because it is. But Salzman believed in it. And she was good at making other people believe in it, too. She's also a master manipulator in this whole thing, and is also a ginormous POS, okay? She's evil. And we'll come to see that. Now, Rainier started meeting with her privately in the back of the house. And she said, I'm going to go to the hospital. And I'm going to go to the store. Now, he already had the mythology, from the genius IQ to the self-authored legend to the loyal following. And Salzman brought what he lacked, a structured therapeutic framework that could be packaged and sold to anyone. And Natalie watched the two of them come together, describing it as, quote, like putting two volatile chemicals together in a mad scientist's lab. The resulting compound was both explosive and dangerous, unquote. So, in 2000, Rainier patented what he called a rational inquiry. And the idea was, if you could train someone to think more consistently, you could get them to change how they acted. And that patent became the backbone of a new venture. And together, Rainier and Salzman founded Nexium. Now, he took the title Vanguard, meaning a trailblazer of new ideas. And she became Prefect, the organization's chief officer. And the pairing looked credible on paper. The self-proclaimed smartest man in the world and a trained nurse with a background in therapeutic technique. Pseudoscience, let's be real. And that combination drew high-profile supporters to Nexium before it had any real track record. And over the next two decades, more than 16,000 people would pass through Nexium's courses. And the roster included Sheila Johnson, a co-founder of Black Entertainment Television, Antonia Novello, a former U.S. Surgeon General, and Tonya Novello, a former U.S. Surgeon General, and Stephen Cooper, now CEO of Warner Music Group. And the entry point was a 12-hour session called an intensive. And it cost more than $7,500 per person. And the whole thing ran on Nexium's patented executive success programs. God, these names are just, just ridiculous. But I mean, these are incredibly smart, successful people joining this program. It's easy to see, you know, hindsight's 20-20. It's easy to see looking from the outside in that absolutely baloney. But when you're in it, it's like, you would never know. You would never know. And that's why my conversation that I will have on Saturday in post is so incredibly, incredibly interesting and heartbreaking, just that it could literally happen to anyone. So I don't want to downplay that at all. I don't think any of the people that joined are dumb in any way. I'm mostly just coming from a place of anger that Keith exists, pretty much. And Salzman. Salzman as well. So that's where that's coming from. But I digress. Let's continue. So where was I? We were at the whole thing ran Nexium's patented executive success programs. Buzzwords, buzzwords, buzzwords. So it was called ESP. And it pulled from all over. Self-help theory, religious philosophy, and hypnosis, which all showed up in the material. And people who studied it often compared the results to a collision between EST, a 1970s self-improvement program, and Ayn Rand's objective. Objectivism. And at the center of the coursework were exercises called EMs, short for explorations of meaning. And the exercise worked by forcing a student to sit inside a difficult memory and re-examine what about it still hurt. Often in front of a bunch of people also. So you're just going through like the worst thing that's ever happened to you in your entire life in a room full of people. And Nexium taught that going through this process of exploring the meaning of meaning, this process would drain the power out of those memories, along with the behavioral pattern they had left behind. And in Renier's framework, nearly everyone was held back by what he called disintegrations, a term used for the mental and behavioral dysfunctions he claimed were blocking a person's path to enlightenment. And the pitch was that rational inquiry and EMs would fix those disintegrations. And once a student was deemed healed, healed, quote, healed, healed, the door opened to move higher inside the organization. Pyramid scheme, right? You just want to keep moving higher and higher and higher. That's the whole point of Nexium was that you're like never quite good enough. There's always somewhere to, to step up. So you just, you never felt like you were in the right spot or like you were doing good enough. There was always something to keep you moving forward with this, which, which we'll get into more and which we go into an extent in the interview that I did. And cult expert, Diane Ben-Scotter, who worked closely with former members, saw nothing original in any of it, which I mean, we could see again from the outside looking in, this looks exactly like every single cult we've ever covered. And she called Nexium, quote, an old bag of tricks repackaged, recycling universal truths about how to improve yourself and how to look closer at things that are getting in your way of success and your fears, unquote, because Keith Renier is not a smart man. He's just really good at repackaging bullshit and shitting out recycled material that other stupid men before him came up with. But again, when you're in it, you don't see it like that. Now Tia Banks, a former member from Nexium's early days reached the same conclusion and she picked up a copy of stress management for dummies and found much of the same material inside. And the techniques may not have been original, but they worked. And that's the thing, like some of these techniques did work on some people. That's the, that's why so many people joined and so many people continue to stay in it. It's like, it's like, it wasn't completely useless. It's just, you know, it's almost like a placebo effect or like when somebody's convincing you of something, then you convince yourself of something. And then you think that they're like this, this magical deity that was able to cure you. It's just, it makes sense looking from the inside. And Gabriel Gendron, a former member from the Vancouver chapter said the courses sent her backward through her own life, pulling up the buried events. She believed had locked her into patterns. She could never break quote. It's like years of therapy in five days. You are mentally drained afterwards and you're crazy, but you've challenged everything in your entire life. Unquote. And Candid Clark, another former member called it quote unquote, a gym for personal improvement. They really talked about it. Like it was a scientific thing. Like we've studied and researched and we figured out how to grow the person, how to be happy, which makes sense. And like NXIVM, just like a lot of other cults isolated people and, and put them through these intensive sessions for hours and hours and hours. So you couldn't experience anything else or get any outside perspective. They were extremely good at just taking you away from everything you knew and making sure that like, this was the one thing that could change you. And it's extremely, extremely messed up. And Josh Block, the journalist behind CBC's investigation into NXIVM pointed out that slapping a patent on the method gave Rainier cover to wrap everything in the language of science and logic. So for anyone who would have walked away from something that sounded spiritual or new age, that framing was the hook. And cult expert, Dr. Steve Eichel, said the targets aren't people who are more broken than the average person. The recruits who were more susceptible are people who are in the middle of a life change, a job loss, a divorce, the birth of a child. And in Eichel's view, joining a cult comes down to bad luck more than anything else because those windows of vulnerability open for everyone sooner or later. And that is something like that is so clear in every single cult we've covered. They just prey on people who are in vulnerable parts of their lives or young, naive parts of their lives and take complete advantage of that. And it's disgusting. Now, Clark noted that NXIVM addressed the skepticism head on during the very first, intensive walking students through why the organization wasn't a cult, discussing the negative media coverage and dismissing the existing allegations about Rainier as too outlandish to even be real. And she also said the approach only worked because of who it attracted. Quote, it wouldn't work on people that are already horrible, selfish, cruel people. It worked because everyone there wanted to be better and help people and change the world, unquote. So they were praying, praying on empathetic, sympathetic, caring, you know, selfless people. And they knew it. So inside NXIVM, a ranking system called the Stripe Path organized the membership. And each rank came with a colored silk sash, white for students, yellow for coaches, orange for proctors, and green for senior proctors. And the ESP courses were taught by proctors. And the way to climb from proctor to senior proctor, pyramid scheme, was to bring in enough new recruits. And every August, members gathered for V-Week, an annual celebration of Rainier's birthday held at the Silver Bay YMCA on Lake George in upstate New York. Of course, it had to be around his birthday because he's a narcissistic fucking piece of shit. And according to Mark Vicente, a former senior member, what began as a one-day event eventually grew into a celebration that ran as long as 11 days. And attendees paid between $1,400 and $1,500 a day. And traveled from across the country, Canada, and even Europe. And Vicente called it, quote unquote, sort of like summer camp for adults. Now, members spent the week drumming, dancing, singing, writing poetry, and rehearsing plays they would perform before the group. And each of NXIVM's centers prepared its own tribute ceremony for the event, with singers and performances honoring Rainier and his work. And Vicente said all of it pointed in one direction, quote, "The entire thing was a celebration of him "and the civilization that he had built," unquote. And attendance wasn't exactly optional for anyone who held rank, as skipping was very frowned upon. And in November of 2002, an environmental consultant in her mid-thirties named Kristen Snyder enrolled in her first ESP course. And her first classes were in human potential, and she made the trip to NXIVM's upstate New York headquarters to sit down with senior members of the organization. And by fact, she said, in February 2003, she was attending a 16-day intensive in Anchorage, Alaska, and something had gone wrong. Snyder's spouse, Heidi Clifford, saw her falling apart. She stopped sleeping, became delusional, and turned suicidal. And on February 6th, she walked out of the Anchorage Hotel mid-intensive, and those who saw her said she was distraught, and it was the last time Clifford saw her. And investigators with Alaska State Police determined that Snyder drove the couple's truck to a campground along Resurrection Bay in Seward, Alaska, and deliberately capsized a kayak. And inside the truck was a spiral notebook holding an apparent suicide note. Quote, "I attended a course "called Executive Success Programs, aka NXIVM, "based out of Anchorage, Alaska, and Albany, New York. "I was brainwashed, and my emotional center of the brain "was killed/turned off. "No need to search for my body," unquote. And her body was never recovered, and her death was ruled a suicide. So when the Albany Times Union reached the investigating state trooper, he confirmed that nothing in Snyder's background pointed to psychiatric or emotional problems before her involvement with NXIVM. And cult expert Rick Allen Ross described Snyder's transformation in the star's docu-series "Seduced" inside the NXIVM cult, which I highly, highly, highly, highly, highly recommend you watch. Quote, "Before she was in NXIVM, Kristen Snyder was happy. "She had a master's degree. "She had her whole life ahead of her. "But when she got caught up in the endless maze of courses, "she had a meltdown," unquote. And Ross said Raniere dismissed the entire story to his inner circle, calling it a hoax, and insisting Snyder had never died, but was living somewhere in Mexico. But Snyder was not the only person close to Raniere to die, he was also a member of the NXIVM community and a member of a group of people who were trying to find out more about Snyder's life. He was also a part of the NXIVM community and a member of the NXIVM community. He was also a member of the NXIVM community and a member of the NXIVM community. He was also a member of the NXIVM community. I'm hungry and wiped out at the end of the day. The last thing I have in me is to cook something from scratch. And that's where Factor saves me. Factor is fully prepared meals designed by dieticians and crafted by chefs delivered right to my door. And with Factor, I'm actually hitting my nutrition goals this season without the planning and the grocery runs or the cooking. And my go-to lately has been the honey butter chicken breast. It is so delectable and you'd never know it was microwaved. But it is, and it's ready in two minutes and it's never frozen and it's always fresh with over a hundred rotating weekly meals. So I never get bored of what I'm eating. I use Factor and you should too. Let's eat real. Head to factormeals.com/cccm50off and use code CCCM50OFF to get 50% off and one free breakfast item per box for one year. While supplies last until October 31st, 2026. That's code CCCM530. Zero off at factormeals.com. [email protected]. See website for more details. Thank you so much to Factor for sponsoring this video, keeping me fed and supporting the channel. And let's get back to it. Now, Sarah Bronfman first walked into Nexium's Albany area headquarters as a student in 2002. And her father was Edgar Bronfman Sr., a billionaire who had retired as president and CEO of the Seagram company in 1994. Now, Sarah and Claire were his two youngest children. And once Sarah brought Claire in, the two of them started playing Nancy Salzman for one-on-one coaching. And Claire was 23 and competing as a show jumper. And to stay close to both the organization and her riding career, Claire bought a home near the Clifton Park headquarters and picked up a horse farm nearby. And her riding sponsor, a German clothing company, was dropped before long. And Claire chose to replace the gear with a purple and black jacket that had Nexium printed on it. Now, Renear had the opportunity to work for Nexium. He had never worked with horses, but he appointed himself Claire's coach and set the US Olympic team as the goal. Now, the logic was if Claire made the Olympics, Renear would be recognized as a world-class coach and gain access to an entire new circle of influence. And she earned a spot on the US team, but the 2004 Olympics remained out of reach. And she walked away from competitive riding not long afterwards. And Steve Pidgeon, who served as a political consultant for Nexium, along with Roger Stone, said Renear had persuaded Claire that her family's money carried a moral stain and that the Bronfman fortune traced back to her grandfather, Samuel, and the prohibition era. And Renear used that history against Claire, telling her the money would stay dirty unless she funneled it into something good. And Nexium was that something. So in early 2003, Edgar Bronfman Sr. enrolled in a five-day Nexium intensive himself. And the experience led him to the United States. It left him enthusiastic. And he described Salzman as, quote, "One of the most influential females in my life," unquote. And said the course offered, quote, "A new way of looking at the world," unquote. But it did not last. And he found out Claire had handed Renear and Salzman a $2 million loan and his opinion of the group shifted entirely. And later that year, Forbes released the first critical article examining Renear and Nexium. And Edgar Sr. went on the record saying, quote, unquote, "I think it's a cult." And Renear turned the fallout on Claire. And he said the Forbes piece was her fault. And he labeled what happened as an ethical breach, the most serious offense in Nexium's internal code. And people who later left the group said Renear never let her forget it, wielding that breach for years to keep Claire compliant in his debt. So from 2002 onward, Claire put roughly $150 million into Nexium, and that included, quote, Bankrolling Rainier's personal life with private flights running as high as $65,000 per trip. Between 2005 and 2007, Rainier gambled nearly $70 million on corn commodities and lost. And when the bet collapsed, Rainier pointed the finger at the Illuminati and told his followers that Edgar Bronfman Sr. was running it. And Claire and Sarah covered approximately $65 million of his losses. And another $26 million went toward a Los Angeles real estate venture that Rainier dreamed up, building high-end homes in neighborhoods like Sherman Oaks and Hollywood Hills. And in 2009, the sisters reportedly dropped $2 million just to get the Dalai Lama to come to Albany and sit down with Rainier. And in a January, 2011 email, Edgar Sr. tried one more time to reach his daughter. Quote, "Whether or not you want to believe me, I do not lie and I love you two very much. Someone is not telling you the truth. Why don't you try and figure out who that might be? Who has something to gain? Certainly not me. What would be my motive? Tons of love, even if not requited. Pops." Unquote. And Claire and her father never repaired what was broken between them. And Edgar Sr. died in 2013. Now, NXIVM's reach extended well beyond upstate New York. And out of Rainier's inner circle of 25 men and women, close to half of them were Mexican. And Emiliano Salines, whose father, Carlos Salines, had served as Mexico's president, was on that list. And so was Rosa Laura Junco from a family that controls one of the country's most powerful newspaper groups. And for more than 15 years, Salines and his business partner, Alejandro Betancourt, had been building and operating ESP's presence in Mexico. And Marc Vicente directed a documentary called "Escendar el Corazon," or "Turn on the Heart." And Rainier turned it into a tool for bringing new people in. And it centered on Julian LeBaron, a man from a more, from a Mormon community in Northern Mexico. And his brother, Benjamin, was kidnapped and killed in 2009 because the family refused to pay ransom for another brother. And Rainier cast himself as a guide to nonviolent resistance throughout the documentary. But the closing message had nothing to do with LeBaron or Mexico's violence. And it told viewers to just join Rainier's movement. And LeBaron said afterward that nobody asked his permission to use the documentary for recruitment. And the Bronfman, fortunately, and Fortune also bankrolled a legal war against anyone who criticized NXIVM because Edgar Sr. was now deceased. And by attorneys Peter Skolnick's estimate, the legal campaign cost was around $50 million across 15 years. And Clare cycled through 50 to 60 lawyers from roughly 30 firms, targeting close to a dozen critics of the organization. And concerned parents recruited cult expert, Rick Allen Ross, to look into ESP's course materials. And he brought in mental health professionals for the review and put the conclusions on his website, where he called NXIVM's classes expensive brainwashing. And NXIVM responded with a lawsuit and the fight lasted 14 years. And Ross estimated the organization burned through at least $5 million fighting him in court. And he told Oxygen that number was conservative. Now the playbook, according to Ross, was to slow everything down, rotate attorneys, jump between jurisdictions and bury the other side in costs until they couldn't fight anymore. And Ross said the campaign against him did not stop at the courthouse. And he claimed the organization paid private investigators hundreds of thousands of dollars to surveil him, including digging through his trash. And he also alleged they invented a fake client whose sole purpose was to get him onto a cruise ship stranded in the middle of the ocean. And NXIVM also filed patent infringement claims against AT&T and Microsoft, both of which collapsed, leaving Rainier ordered to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in company's legal costs. And journalists who covered Rainier were targeted as well. James Odato at the Albany Times Union and Susanna Andrews at Vanity Fair, both faced lawsuits over their reporting and the legal cost crushed people. And Boushey, Natalie and former consultant Joseph O'Hara all ended up filing personal bankruptcy after years of fighting NXIVM in court. And for Boushey, this came in part from her decision to walk away from NXIVM in 2009, because she had been one of the highest ranking members in the organization, and one of Rainier's girlfriends. But she wasn't the only one to leave. And that year, Boushey and eight others known as the NXIVM Nine confronted Rainier about his conduct before they left. And in response, Rainier filed lawsuits to prevent them from harming the company. Boushey described, "It's been almost nine years that they have been legally stalking me and abusing and harassing me, and I have not felt safe." And Sarah Edmondson, a member who would be one of the first to open up about the darker aspects of the organization, compared life inside NXIVM to being a frog in a pot where the water heats up so gradually you don't realize you're being boiled. And my talk with one of the former members on Saturday, we go into that specific aspect of this in great detail. And that comparison is true for so many. So Daniela ranked among Mexico's top students when NXIVM found her. An elite high school in Switzerland had already accepted her, but NXIVM members convinced her to drop out and relocate to Albany. And she arrived in 2002, still a teenager. And shortly after she turned 18, she became sexually involved with Rainier. And her parents and all three of her siblings eventually joined her in Clifton Park. And by 2005, the whole family was inside the NXIVM community. And her two sisters, Camilla and Mariana, also became involved with Rainier. And all three became best friends. But Rainier became pregnant by him at different points. And each time he ordered them to end the pregnancy. And in 2007, Daniela kissed another NXIVM member named Ben Myers. And she told Rainier about it and he completely erupted. And the relationship was minor, a kiss and some underclosed contact. But with NXIVM's framework, it qualified as an ethical breach. And the same concept that had kept Claire Bronfman in line for years. However, for Daniela, the consequences were far worse. And they started stripping things from her life. First her iPod, then her phone, then her computer. And after that came her immigration papers and ID, which were the only thing standing between her and a way out of the country. And then on March 9th, 2010, Daniela was isolated into a room at 12 Wilton Court, her family's home in Clifton Park. And the room had a mattress and nothing else. And someone had blacked out one of the windows, leaving her with barely any natural light. And Rainier and other NXIVM members set up cameras to monitor her, but the door was left unlocked the entire time. But she would stay in there for close to two years. And every so often, someone would hand her a piece of paper and a pen, and she would use them to write Rainier, apologizing for what she'd done and pleading for her freedom. But he never read them. And she described, "I'm so sorry." She described how time felt. Quote, "There would be entire days when I would just sit against the wall," unquote. And she frequently spiraled, losing control, and thinking about ending her life. But something small changed her mind, a bird outside the window, sitting on a nest with its babies. So she held on. And eventually, one of her notes made it to Lauren Salsman and Rainier. And it said, quote, "Let me out. I've come undone." And she cut her own hair because it felt like the last thing in her life she still had power over. And NXIVM labeled the haircut yet another ethical breach and informed her she would stay confined until it grew back, a process that could stretch on for years. So in February of 2012, Daniela walked out of the room. And her father and another NXIVM member took her to the U.S.-Mexico border and sent her across with less than $80 in her pocket. And according to Lauren Salsman, Rainier's original instruction was that, "Daniela's stay would last only a few days." And of everything Salsman had done inside the organization, she considered Daniela's confinement the worst. And Camilla's story started even younger. Now, she was 13 when her parents joined NXIVM and she first met Rainier. And at this point, he was 45 when they had sex for the first time, and she was 15. And in the months before the sexual abuse started, Rainier would walk with her late at night, steering their conversations toward sexual subjects and pushing further each time. And once the abuse was underway, he demanded total secrecy and isolation. Quote, "He told me to keep it all secret, immediately severing me from my family and friends and effectively making himself my only resource," unquote. And at 17, Rainier talked Camilla out of going back to Mexico to renew her visa and letting her immigration status lapse, gave Rainier total control over whether she could leave. She ended up in a hidden apartment near Albany that one of Rainier's fixers rented under the table, paying cash for the lease and hanging heavy velvet drapes to block out every window. And Rainier tracked her body obsessively, demanding her weight every single day, starting from the moment their sexual relationship began. He wanted her at a hundred pounds or under, and the constant pressure over weight pushed Camilla to attempt to end her life. And when she tried to get sighted, to get psychiatric care afterward, Rainier refused to let her see anyone. And Camilla got out in 2017 with her sister's help. And she was 27. years old, but 12 years under his control had frozen her in place. Quote, when I walked away, I had the mind of a 15-year-old in the body of a 27-year-old. I missed out on incredibly basic things people learn in their youth, unquote. And as mentioned, Rainier had a sexual relationship with Mariana as well, and he ordered her to end her pregnancy just as he had with her siblings. And far less is known about her time in the organization, but the pattern was the same. And the tools Rainier used on the three sisters appeared across his inner circle. He could sleep with anyone he wanted, but the women around him could not develop feelings for anyone else. And violating that rule triggered an ethical breach, a label that carried real punishment. And Lauren Salzman once asked Rainier for permission to pursue a relationship with another man, and he convinced her to stay by promising they would have children together. And that promise evaporated years later when Salzman leaped onto a man during a volleyball celebration, and Rainier declared it an ethical breach. And Salzman wrote him a seven-page confession cataloging every way she believed she had acted out of line. Quote, I committed to stay with nothing. No relationship, no baby, nothing, unquote. And by the mid-2000s, Alison Mack had been pulled into the fold. Now, Mack had spent 10 seasons and 204 episodes playing Chloe Sullivan, in Smallville, making her a very recognizable face from television. And Kristen Crook, her Smallville co-star, signed up with NXIVM in 2006 and recruited Mack soon after. And Mack was 23, and according to the New York Times, unhappy with her television career. And she reportedly wanted Rainier to transform her into a top-tier actress. So Mack went on to represent NXIVM publicly, starring in promotional videos for its women's empowerment arm, Jay Ness. And she called the work the most gratifying thing she's ever done. And Mack became one of Rainier's most trusted enforcers, personally recruiting women into a secretive inner circle. And she tried to bring in other actresses, including Emma Watson. And another woman Mack approached was Samia Shoaib, who felt the friendship was genuine at the time. Quote, we got close very quickly, and looking back, it was a very contrived effort, but at the time she seemed so sincere, unquote. Let's take a quick pause to talk about some of the things that made her so sincere. Let's talk about something a little uncomfortable, okay? Be honest with me. How long has that one appointment been sitting on your to-do list? Mine sat there for months, maybe even years, honestly. I just think about calling, picture the hold music and the phone tag and the questions I didn't have answers to, and decide I'll just deal with it tomorrow. But tomorrow never came, newsflash. And then I would finally call, and then it would say that the appointment's going to be like 12 weeks out. It's just silly. And I don't want you to have to deal with that, so I highly recommend you to do that. And I don't want you to have to deal with that, ZocDoc. Because ZocDoc lets you search and compare local in-network doctors, and you can see actual appointment openings and click to instantly book and visit. So no phone call at all, which I personally love as an introvert. And appointments happen fast, usually within 24 to 72 hours. And you can even score same day doctor's appointments. I literally made a doctor's appointment last week, and the doctor saw me like three hours later, and I was able to get a doctor's appointment. It was not feeling too good, okay? And it was super easy, super fast, and super reliable. And I was able to choose the doctor based off my preferences as well, which is also really nice. Your health matters, and taking care of yourself shouldn't be complicated. So find and book the right doctor with ZocDoc. And head to ZocDoc.com slash CCCM to get started and check that appointment off your to-do list. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C.com slash CCCM. Thank you so much to ZocDoc for sponsoring the video. And I'll see you in the next video. Now, Buried Inside NXIVM was a second organization that most members never knew existed. And it was called DOS, or D-O-S, sometimes referred to as The Vow. And it operated as a secret sisterhood built on a single principle, total submission. And the whole organization was structured as, believe it or not, a pyramid. And at the top sat Rainier, the only leader of the group. And Rainier was called Grand Master. Now, beneath him were eight women known as First Line Masters. And each were responsible for recruiting and managing her own network of slaves. Now, Lauren Salzman, one of the First Line Masters, had 22 slaves reporting to her alone. And every woman who joined was told she was entering a group designed to make women stronger. And Rainier controlled every aspect of the women's lives. But the framing was always about sisterhood and strength. And there were rules about who got in, and Rainier set every single one. And recruits needed to be attractive, young, and thin. If they weren't thin already, they were expected to drop weight quickly. And the group also required women to be single, with rare exceptions. Because a husband asking questions, of course, would make the whole system harder to run. And before a woman could enter, she was required to turn over something the group called collateral. And that meant, in a lot of cases, naked photographs of themselves. Always with their faces visible, so they could be identified. So, it was blackmail. They were blackmailing these poor girls. And it also meant giving letters containing their darkest secrets and fabricated confessions about the worst things you could imagine. And once a woman was inside, the control over her life was constant. The women were put on restricted eating plans and sex with anyone, in a lot of cases, other than Rainier, was off limits. And in the middle of the night, readiness drills would arrive by text. And a slave who failed to respond fast enough could be paddled. Or there could be some sort of penalty for that. And the group's own written rules spelt out the expectation clearly, quote, you should be a hungry dog for your master, unquote. And punishments included being locked inside a cage for days, standing barefoot in snow, and enduring cold showers. And Salzman said that the cage was positioned as a growth tool, something only the most devoted members would be asked to endure. And one woman, referred to only as Nicole, was an actress in her late 20s trying to build a career. And Mack recruited her with a pitch about, quote, an intense growing empowerment group where women pushed each other to be stronger physically and mentally, unquote. And for collateral, Nicole would be made to make a video of herself doing inappropriate things and, quote, a false letter alleging that her father had SA'd her, then turned both over to Mack. And before long, Mack told Nicole to seduce Rainier. And soon after that, she was branded. And Nicole described, quote, I thought I was getting into a woman's empowerment group. Somehow, I'd become a man's sex slave, unquote. And Rainier personally scripted the branding ceremony the women would go through down to the smallest detail, even explaining exactly how the ritual should be done. And she said, quote, should look. And that was that the woman should be naked, he said in a private recording with, quote, legs spread straight, like feet being held to the side of the table, hands probably above the head, being held almost like tied down, sacrificial, whatever, unquote. Heartbreakingly awful what these women had to go through. And he also said the woman should verbally request to the brand before anyone held her down, quote, so it doesn't seem like they're being coerced, unquote. And he said, quote, and they would get that on video. Because filming the ritual was part of the plan, too. And Rainier pointed out that recording it, quote, from different angles gives collateral, unquote, meaning yet another piece of leverage to hold over the women. More blackmail. And in a separate recording from January 2016, Rainier told Mack what the women should be thinking as the pen touched their skin. Quote, pain is how we know how much we love. We know the depth of our love through pain. When they feel the pain, they feel the pain. Think of that love, unquote. And he selected the design for the brand himself, of course. And according to Lauren, once her mother found out about the brandings, she was enraged that her daughter and other women, quote, went out and got Keith's initials branded next to their vaginas, unquote. Now, one night in March 2017, Sarah Edmondson was summoned to a house outside Albany along with four other women. And she'd spent 20 years working as an actress out of Vancouver. With credits that included a lead on the TV show Continuum and voice work on My Little Pony. And her introduction to NXIVM came in 2005 when she enrolled in a five-day seminar and never looked back, staying for more than 10 years. And they were told to strip and wear blindfolds, then sit on a sheepskin rug. And the five of them formed a semicircle. And she thought she was getting a tattoo. But instead, a cauterizing device was pressed into the skin below her hip. With no anesthesia, searing a two-inch square symbol into her flesh over roughly 30 minutes. And Dr. Daniel Roberts performed the branding. And Edmondson called the pain, quote, unquote, worse than childbirth. It was a horror movie. It was the most inhumane, horrific way to treat anybody. But the most horrific thing is that it's women doing it to women, unquote. And afterward, she examined the mark and realized the design, it wasn't a special symbol at all. all the letters k and r were seared into the design and as we said before they were keith rainier's initials quote i lost it when i figured that out i'm not cattle i'm not owned by keith unquote and she filed a complaint with the new york state department of health and then she picked up the phone and called frank perlato now parlato had his own history with nexium and in 2007 the organization hired him to clean up their reputation and facilitate a five million dollar real estate loan and he spotted fraud in the finances and rainier just cut him loose and by 2012 claire bromfin had filed a criminal complaint against him with the fbi and parlato brought what he'd learned about nexium to the federal prosecutors running his own fraud case but the team didn't seem to care and his former counsel brian feldman said the team in the western district of new york was not responsible for the fraud cases and he said the team was not responsible for the fraud cases and the team didn't seem to care and his former counsel brian feldman said the team in the western district of new york was not responsible for the fraud cases york was wholly uninterested and law enforcement wouldn't listen so parlato built his own platform and he launched a blog called frankreport.com and his first post on dos carried the headline quote part one branded slaves and master rainier unquote and it exposed the hidden group inside nexium that was burning rainier's initials into women's skin and holding compromising material over their heads to keep them from leaving and edmondson had reached out to him to make sure what happened to her wouldn't happen again and in her book scarred she wrote quote i told frank about my branding experience so that he could expose dos in time to stop the next session i told frank everything releasing that secret was the biggest relief so far unquote so the word spread and the next ceremony was actually called off and from that first post memberships began to hemorrhage and as nbc's dateline put it parlato had cratered the cult and nicole the dos slave who'd been recruited by allison mack described what reading the frank report felt like from the inside quote there was this blog called the frank report that started blogging about dos an article came up online that said that i was like sex slave of keith renears it was just that like a tiny bit of like courage or whatever i needed it was like that flash of reality like now is this little window when i can get out and i'm taking it unquote and india oxenberg the incredibly brave woman i got to sit down with and that i will be posting an interview of in a few days said that those posts shattered the secrecy dos depended on quote even within nexium no members outside of dos were supposed to know that it existed as soon as the frank report posts started coming up there were a ton of questions and a lot of chatter unquote and in october 2017 the new york times published barry meyer's investigation and the story went mainstream and the report described the initiation process in detail women restrained instructed to say master please brand me it would be an honor and branded one by one and once nexium members found out about the branding the organization went into damage control and women were told to wipe encrypted messages and destroy documents and as the first stories about dos leaked out rainier publicly denied having anything to do with it and he drafted a statement and distributed it to his top line masters quote i feel it is important to clarify the sorority is not part of nexium and that i am not associated with the group unquote and he added that quote are experts in forensic psychiatrists of international repute psychologists and forensic psychiatrists and hermeneutics and hermeneutics and women were told to wipe encrypted messages and destroy documents and as the first stories about dos leaked out rainier publicly denied having anything to do with it and he drafted a statement and distributed it to his top line masters quote i feel it is important to clarify the sorority is not part of nexium and that i am not associated with the group unquote and he added that quote are experts in forensic psychiatrists of international repute psychologists and ex-law enforcement to say members of the sorority are thriving healthy happy better off and haven't been coerced unquote a.k.a bullshit but his own recordings contradicted every word capturing a man who choreographed every detail of the ritual while claiming he had never heard of it and in a recorded conversation rainier had called the branding a monogram of his initials and so faced with mounting scrutiny he tried to rewrite the story claiming he had never heard of it and in a recorded conversation rainier had called the branding a monogram of his initials and so faced with mounting scrutiny he tried to rewrite the story and in a recorded conversation rainier had called the branding a monogram of his initials and so faced with mounting scrutiny he tried to rewrite the story claiming the design was inspired by the greek alphabet the seven chakras and the four elements is the seven chakras and the four elements is the seven chakras and the four elements is what he would say and catherine oxenberg what he would say and catherine oxenberg what he would say and catherine oxenberg india oxenberg's mother who'd been india oxenberg's mother who'd been india oxenberg's mother who'd been watching her daughter india slip deeper watching her daughter india slip deeper watching her daughter india slip deeper into rainier's world later credited the into rainier's world later credited the into rainier's world later credited the timing and she told the daily beast that timing and she told the daily beast that timing and she told the daily beast that the times had originally treated the the times had originally treated the the times had originally treated the piece as an evergreen story with no piece as an evergreen story with no piece as an evergreen story with no urgency to publish quote i really think urgency to publish quote i really think urgency to publish quote i really think that if me too hadn't coincided that if me too hadn't coincided that if me too hadn't coincided they may have never run the story they may have never run the story they may have never run the story unquote and again their story unquote and again their story unquote and again their story is is so much more than what i am saying is is so much more than what i am saying is is so much more than what i am saying right now right now right now and that conversation i had with india and that conversation i had with india and that conversation i had with india was absolutely incredible so please was absolutely incredible so please was absolutely incredible so please tune into that on saturday and she would tune into that on saturday and she would tune into that on saturday and she would also point out to the albany times union also point out to the albany times union also point out to the albany times union which had published its own exposés in which had published its own exposés in which had published its own exposés in 2010 and 2012 with no result quote they 2010 and 2012 with no result quote they 2010 and 2012 with no result quote they ran this huge expose they did run ran this huge expose they did run ran this huge expose they did run stories and still nothing happened and stories and still nothing happened and stories and still nothing happened and so the climate had changed drastically so the climate had changed drastically so the climate had changed drastically thank god unquote and the article thank god unquote and the article thank god unquote and the article landed on the desk of moira kim penza a landed on the desk of moira kim penza a landed on the desk of moira kim penza a federal prosecutor in the eastern federal prosecutor in the eastern federal prosecutor in the eastern district of new york and she saw crimes district of new york and she saw crimes district of new york and she saw crimes in the reporting and decided to move on in the reporting and decided to move on in the reporting and decided to move on it and the fbi opened an investigation it and the fbi opened an investigation it and the fbi opened an investigation and before the times peace oxenberg had and before the times peace oxenberg had and before the times peace oxenberg had tried everything else first tried everything else first tried everything else first she attempted a direct intervention she attempted a direct intervention she attempted a direct intervention with india which she said failed with india which she said failed with india which she said failed horribly and she went to law horribly and she went to law horribly and she went to law enforcement and hit walls letting the enforcement and hit walls letting the enforcement and hit walls letting the public know became the only remaining public know became the only remaining public know became the only remaining option but catherine would say quote if option but catherine would say quote if option but catherine would say quote if law enforcement isn't going to listen law enforcement isn't going to listen law enforcement isn't going to listen and i really believe with every fiber of and i really believe with every fiber of and i really believe with every fiber of my being that laws are being broken my being that laws are being broken my being that laws are being broken there are abuses that are happening there are abuses that are happening there are abuses that are happening then the media was the only option that then the media was the only option that then the media was the only option that i had because they had the power to get i had because they had the power to get i had because they had the power to get the attention of law enforcement and i the attention of law enforcement and i the attention of law enforcement and i certainly didn't have hundreds of certainly didn't have hundreds of certainly didn't have hundreds of millions of dollars at my disposal like millions of dollars at my disposal like millions of dollars at my disposal like the bronfman's to fight them with a the bronfman's to fight them with a the bronfman's to fight them with a legal arsenal so i was kind of limited legal arsenal so i was kind of limited legal arsenal so i was kind of limited in what i could do but i couldn't sit in what i could do but i couldn't sit in what i could do but i couldn't sit back and do nothing unquote so that back and do nothing unquote so that back and do nothing unquote so that november oxenberg went on megan and november oxenberg went on megan and november oxenberg went on megan and kelly today and told a story on kelly today and told a story on kelly today and told a story on national television and from that point national television and from that point national television and from that point on she was the most visible figure in on she was the most visible figure in on she was the most visible figure in the campaign to bring down rainier and the campaign to bring down rainier and the campaign to bring down rainier and nexium and she teamed up with a group nexium and she teamed up with a group of defectors that led to working with of defectors that led to working with of defectors that led to working with parlato and they co-authored a parlato and they co-authored a parlato and they co-authored a memorandum of criminal allegations that memorandum of criminal allegations that memorandum of criminal allegations that she delivered to authorities that same she delivered to authorities that same she delivered to authorities that same month so by late 2017 rainier knew the month so by late 2017 rainier knew the month so by late 2017 rainier knew the walls were closing in and he fled the walls were closing in and he fled the walls were closing in and he fled the country once the times article dropped country once the times article dropped country once the times article dropped and court papers allege he switched to and court papers allege he switched to and court papers allege he switched to encrypted emails and ditched his phone encrypted emails and ditched his phone encrypted emails and ditched his phone entirely and parlato tracked his entirely and parlato tracked his entirely and parlato tracked his movements from the blog and in february movements from the blog and in february movements from the blog and in february of 2018 the frank report reported that of 2018 the frank report reported that of 2018 the frank report reported that rainier had surfaced in the coastal rainier had surfaced in the coastal rainier had surfaced in the coastal resort city of puerto vallarta after resort city of puerto vallarta after resort city of puerto vallarta after leaving monterey and in an fbi affidavit leaving monterey and in an fbi affidavit leaving monterey and in an fbi affidavit supporting a search warrant the bureau supporting a search warrant the bureau supporting a search warrant the bureau noted that quote the blog has noted that quote the blog has noted that quote the blog has previously had accurate information previously had accurate information previously had accurate information regarding rainier's whereabouts regarding rainier's whereabouts regarding rainier's whereabouts unquote so agents located him in unquote so agents located him in unquote so agents located him in puerto vallarta that month and on march puerto vallarta that month and on march puerto vallarta that month and on march 26 2018 mexican federal police moved on 26 2018 mexican federal police moved on 26 2018 mexican federal police moved on a luxury gated community where rainier a luxury gated community where rainier a luxury gated community where rainier then 57 had been living with several then 57 had been living with several women and when officers entered they women and when officers entered they women and when officers entered they found him hiding just crumpled up like a found him hiding just crumpled up like a found him hiding just crumpled up like a little pathetic loser in a walk-in little pathetic loser in a walk-in little pathetic loser in a walk-in closet and he was arrested and deported closet and he was arrested and deported closet and he was arrested and deported on a u.s warrant charged with sex on a u.s warrant charged with sex on a u.s warrant charged with sex trafficking and once rainier was in trafficking and once rainier was in trafficking and once rainier was in handcuffs several of the women at the handcuffs several of the women at the handcuffs several of the women at the villa jumped into a car and sped off villa jumped into a car and sped off villa jumped into a car and sped off triggering a high-speed chase and then triggering a high-speed chase and then triggering a high-speed chase and then back in new york that same month the fbi back in new york that same month the fbi back in new york that same month the fbi executed a search warrant at nancy executed a search warrant at nancy executed a search warrant at nancy salzman's residence in waterford and the salzman's residence in waterford and the salzman's residence in waterford and the organization that keith rainier had organization that keith rainier had organization that keith rainier had spent two decades building was now spent two decades building was now spent two decades building was now finished so one by one the people finished so one by one the people finished so one by one the people closest to rainier turned on him and closest to rainier turned on him and closest to rainier turned on him and nancy salzman pleaded guilty to nancy salzman pleaded guilty to nancy salzman pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy and her racketeering conspiracy and her racketeering conspiracy and her daughter lauren also pleaded guilty for daughter lauren also pleaded guilty for daughter lauren also pleaded guilty for racketeering conspiracy and racketeering conspiracy and racketeering conspiracy and racketeering and she agreed to cooperate racketeering and she agreed to cooperate racketeering and she agreed to cooperate with prosecutors which meant taking the with prosecutors which meant taking the with prosecutors which meant taking the witness stand against rainier and witness stand against rainier and witness stand against rainier and allison mack pleaded guilty to allison mack pleaded guilty to allison mack pleaded guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy racketeering and racketeering conspiracy racketeering and racketeering conspiracy in april of 2019 as well and claire in april of 2019 as well and claire in april of 2019 as well and claire braunfman whose fortune had kept the braunfman whose fortune had kept the braunfman whose fortune had kept the operation alive for nearly two decades operation alive for nearly two decades operation alive for nearly two decades pleaded guilty to identity theft and pleaded guilty to identity theft and pleaded guilty to identity theft and immigration fraud and the charges came immigration fraud and the charges came immigration fraud and the charges came down to two acts keeping an down to two acts keeping an down to two acts keeping an undocumented immigrant working without undocumented immigrant working without undocumented immigrant working without elsa's personal identification to do it elsa's personal identification to do it elsa's personal identification to do it and kathy russell the organization's and kathy russell the organization's and kathy russell the organization's bookkeeper pleaded guilty to a single bookkeeper pleaded guilty to a single bookkeeper pleaded guilty to a single count of visa fraud so out of renier and count of visa fraud so out of renier and count of visa fraud so out of renier and his five co-conspirators only renier his five co-conspirators only renier his five co-conspirators only renier decided fully to go to trial and the decided fully to go to trial and the decided fully to go to trial and the case was heard in the united states case was heard in the united states case was heard in the united states district court for the eastern district district court for the eastern district district court for the eastern district of new york and it lasted more than six of new york and it lasted more than six of new york and it lasted more than six weeks and the testimony was brutal women weeks and the testimony was brutal women weeks and the testimony was brutal women would describe being pinned down while would describe being pinned down while would describe being pinned down while the brand was applied punished with the brand was applied punished with the brand was applied punished with paddles and pushed into sexual paddles and pushed into sexual paddles and pushed into sexual encounters with her near and when encounters with her near and when encounters with her near and when daniella took the stand she told the daniella took the stand she told the daniella took the stand she told the jury about the room she had been jury about the room she had been jury about the room she had been confined in and she described how the confined in and she described how the confined in and she described how the door was never locked and prosecutor door was never locked and prosecutor door was never locked and prosecutor mori rapenza asked the obvious question mori rapenza asked the obvious question mori rapenza asked the obvious question could she have left daniella said no could she have left daniella said no could she have left daniella said no leaving meant losing her family leaving meant losing her family leaving meant losing her family entirely and without documents she had entirely and without documents she had entirely and without documents she had no way to start over and the jury heard no way to start over and the jury heard no way to start over and the jury heard a recorded phone call between rainier a recorded phone call between rainier a recorded phone call between rainier and daniella's mother and in it he and daniella's mother and in it he and daniella's mother and in it he pressured her to crack down harder pressured her to crack down harder pressured her to crack down harder insisting again and again that the insisting again and again that the insisting again and again that the ethical breach her daughter did amounted ethical breach her daughter did amounted ethical breach her daughter did amounted to having killed a child and what to having killed a child and what to having killed a child and what daniella had actually done as she daniella had actually done as she daniella had actually done as she testified was kiss another man and testified was kiss another man and testified was kiss another man and camilla did not testify at trial but her camilla did not testify at trial but her camilla did not testify at trial but her presence filled the courtroom anyway presence filled the courtroom anyway presence filled the courtroom anyway and prosecutors showed the jury and prosecutors showed the jury and prosecutors showed the jury photographs of her recovered from photographs of her recovered from photographs of her recovered from rainier's computer taken when she was rainier's computer taken when she was rainier's computer taken when she was only 15 years old and they had been only 15 years old and they had been only 15 years old and they had been stored inside a folder named stored inside a folder named stored inside a folder named studies and that same folder held hundreds of photographs, all depicting NXIVM women positioned so their genitalia were fully visible. And the women, known in court only as Nicole, described more of what Doss did to her. She was blindfolded, tied down to a table, and forced to endure oral sex from a stranger she could not see. And Lauren Salzman took the stand as a cooperating witness. And according to her testimony, Raniere told her to keep new recruits in the dark about what Doss actually was. And Raniere's defense team did not call a single witness. So on June 19th, 2019, the jury returned after four hours of deliberation, and he was found guilty on all seven counts. Racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, and attempted sex trafficking. And the racketeering charge had its own threshold. Jurors needed to agree on at least two of 11 underlying acts, and among them child pornography possession, extortion, sexual exploitation of a child, and forced labor. And they found him guilty on all 11, thankfully. And outside the courthouse, Katherine Oxenberg wept saying, quote, unquote, "I'm so damn grateful." And she would also say, "Justice has been served." And Raniere's lead attorney, Mark Agnifilo, offered a different version of how the day played out. Quote, "We knew it was a tough case going in. We do plan on appealing. Keith maintains his innocence. It's a very sad day for him," unquote. Where do these lawyers get off? Like, you lost the case. Just pack it in. Don't say you're sad for a man that exploited literal children, you freak. And sentencing would come on October 27th, 2020, more than a year later. And at the Brooklyn courthouse, 15 victims gave statements to the court. Camilla, who had been silent through the trial, finally spoke, and her statement showed a catalog of abuse. Raniere sexually assaulted her. At 15, when she was still a virgin. And he gave her HPV, got her pregnant, along with both of her sisters, and forced all three to end their pregnancies. And the brand carrying his initials was seared into her skin. Quote, "He robbed me of my youth. He used my innocence to do whatever he wanted with me." Unquote. And Daniela addressed the judge directly, saying, quote, "He showed me and my little sister no mercy. He deserves no mercy." Unquote. And Marc Vincent, the filmmaker, who had once helped build NXIVM's promotional materials, delivered his own statement, saying, quote, "You have done irreparable harm to people's psyches, to their self-esteem, their belief in themselves, and their experience of sanity and wellbeing." Unquote. And Raniere spoke last. And he told the court he believed he was innocent of the charges and that he was, quote, "Not remorseful of the crimes. I do not believe I committed at all." Unquote. Just fiery pits of hell for this guy. And the closest he came to an apology was saying he was truly sorry that things had reached a point where there is so much anger and so much pain. And his defense attorneys had asked for 15 years, framing the case as something that never belonged in a federal courtroom. And their sentencing memo argued, quote, "This complex situation of personal motives, individual regrets, and life choices has no place in a federal courtroom. Yet, government seeks a life sentence for Keith Raniere in a case that has no guns, no knives, and no force. No one was shot, stabbed, punched, kicked, slapped, or even yelled at." Unquote. How do these people sleep at night? And his attorneys also wrote that Raniere, quote, "Remains proud of his life's work and remains determined to fight this case, which he views as a terrible injustice." Unquote. And Judge Nicholas G. Garafas was not convinced, thankfully. And he also wrote, quote, "Invinced, thankfully." And he pointed out that Raniere had dismissed some of what the victim said as lies. Then he turned to Daniella and said, quote, "What happened to you is not your fault." Unquote. And he said the same applied to every victim in the courtroom. Prosecutors had sought a life sentence, and Garafas handed down 120 years, respectively. So over the months that followed Raniere's sentencing, the people who had helped him build NXIVM learned what their cooperation was worth, and what they did. And in June, 2021, Mac received a three-year sentence for racketeering and racketeering conspiracy. And she had faced a potential range of 14 to 17 and a half years. And the prosecution credited her cooperation, which had begun just a week before she pleaded guilty, and recommended a reduced sentence. And in a letter submitted before sentencing, she addressed the people she had harmed directly, saying, quote, "I devoted my loyalty, my resources, and ultimately my life to him." This was the biggest mistake and greatest regret of my life. Unquote. And she told victims she was, quote, "Sorry I ever exposed you to the nefarious and emotionally abusive schemes of a twisted man." Unquote. And that September, she entered the federal correction institution, Dublin in California. And she walked out on July 3rd, 2023, about two years into her three-year term. And Clara Brompman received 81 months for identity theft and harboring an undocumented immigrant for financial gain. With a projected release in June, 2025. And she is now under supervised release. And Nancy Salzman got 42 months on a racketeering conspiracy plea with a July 2024 release date. And she is also under supervised release. And Lauren Salzman, whose testimony had helped convict Raniere, received five years of probation and 300 hours of community service. And the prosecution asked for a lighter sentence due to her willingness to cooperate, as the judge said, as they put their case against Raniere together. And Kathy Russell was the last defendant sentenced in October, 2021. And she received two years of probation and 200 hours of community service for her visa fraud conviction. And at sentencing, she told the court, quote, "I denounce NXIVM and I denounce Keith Raniere." Unquote. And she called him, what he is, a monster. And in July, 2021, a federal judge ordered Raniere to pay $3.46 million in restitution to 21 claimants. And part of that money was to cover surgical removal of the brands seared into their skin. And a separate order required him to give back every piece of collateral collected from DOS members, but the court paused enforcement while his appeal played out. And Raniere continued to insist he was innocent. And his appeal rested on the accusation that federal investigators had fabricated child pornography evidence. And he said agents had placed the material on a hard drive to connect him to charges built around photographs of Camilla. And in April, 2024, Judge Garafas rejected his motion for a new trial, thankfully, and Raniere appealed again, and this time to the Second Circuit. And on October 27th, 2025, a three-judge panel shut it down completely. And the panel pointed to a mountain of evidence behind the guilty verdict. And Raniere had failed to identify any newly discovered or suppressed evidence that would change the outcome. And even setting aside his claims about the tampered evidence, the panel wrote, there was no, quote, "real concern that an innocent person may have been convicted," unquote. And according to the Frank Report, USP Tucson was Raniere's home for five years, a federal prison designated for sex offenders and inmates who cannot safely mix with general population, or gen pop. And by one account, he clashed with at least four other inmates after leaving the special housing unit. So for his own protection, he rarely left his cell. And people who recently broke away from his remaining circles say his body is failing him, his teeth are in bad shape, and his mind is starting to go. Womp, fucking womp. And by December, 2025, he had been moved out of Tucson and was sitting at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City, waiting to be assigned a new prison. And his projected release date is June 27th, 2120. So he'll be dead. After decades of followers who catered to his every need, he now lives in a world where he's not alone. In a world where no one does. But not everyone walked away. Because while he sat in a Brooklyn jail, awaiting his sentence in the summer of 2020, some of his remaining followers showed up outside to dance. And visitation was shut down due to the pandemic at the time, so they performed nightly on the sidewalk beneath his window. Nikki Klein, an actress and DOS member, was among the most visible of them. And as of late 2025, Raniere still maintained a circle of followers, some of whom, who tracked his condition and relayed updates to the "Frank Report." And others had only recently defected. And one question kind of lingers over all of it. And that is, was Keith Raniere actually a mastermind or just a mediocre man who found the right people at the right time? And I'm gonna safely choose the latter. Because his IQ was self-tested at a kitchen table with no supervision, his GPA was 2.26, and his first company was shut down as a pyramid scheme after investigation. So he had to go back and look at all of that. He had to go back and look at all of that. And the conversation was with India Oxenberg and will be coming out on Saturday. So I highly recommend you tune in because there's so much other stuff that we go over that I think is just so important. And even everyday life with, you know, relationships and whether it be romantic or familial or just friendship, these types of grooming behavior can happen in so many different aspects of your life. And we really delve into that. So yeah, I really hope that you guys tune into that. And thank you to India again for speaking with me. I look forward to you guys being able to listen to that. But for now, that is the NXIVM cults. If you guys have any other cases or cults or conspiracies you want me to look into, please let me know in the comments below. And until then, I will see your beautiful face and please, please stay safe out there. Okay, bye. Off grocery store prices, 30 pounds of pasta, three cases of protein bars, 75 sports drinks. And that's just pregame. He knows teamwork and BJ's knows savings. This is your home coach, home of the save. Join for just $20 at bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. BJ's, home of the save. This episode is brought to you by DeeDee's Discounts. Back to school season is officially here. And DeeDee's has everything on your list. I'm talking bold styles, cool kicks, backpacks, and even dorm room essentials. All the prices that won't hurt your wallet. So don't sleep on DeeDee's. 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