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Thread: Inside a Secretive Group Where Women Are Branded

  1. #1

    Inside a Secretive Group Where Women Are Branded

    Last March, five women gathered in a home near here to enter a secret sisterhood they were told was created to empower women.
    To gain admission, they were required to give their recruiter — or “master,” as she was called — naked photographs or other compromising material and were warned that such “collateral” might be publicly released if the group’s existence were disclosed.
    The women, in their 30s and 40s, belonged to a self-help organization called Nxivm, which is based in Albany and has chapters across the country, Canada and Mexico.
    Sarah Edmondson, one of the participants, said she had been told she would get a small tattoo as part of the initiation. But she was not prepared for what came next.
    Each woman was told to undress and lie on a massage table, while three others restrained her legs and shoulders. According to one of them, their “master,” a top Nxivm official named Lauren Salzman, instructed them to say: “Master, please brand me, it would be an honor.”
    A female doctor proceeded to use a cauterizing device to sear a two-inch-square symbol below each woman’s hip, a procedure that took 20 to 30 minutes. For hours, muffled screams and the smell of burning tissue filled the room.

    State medical regulators also declined to act on a complaint filed against another Nxivm-affilated physician, Brandon Porter. Dr. Porter, as part of an “experiment,” showed women graphically violent film clips while a brain-wave machine and video camera recorded their reactions, according to two women who took part.
    The women said they were not warned that some of the clips were violent, including footage of four women being murdered and dismembered.
    “Please look into this ASAP,” a former Nxivm member, Jennifer Kobelt, stated in her complaint. “This man needs to be stopped.”
    In September, regulators told Ms. Kobelt they concluded that the allegations against Dr. Porter did not meet the agency’s definition of “medical misconduct,” their letter shows.


    The proposition seemed like a test of trust. After Ms. Edmondson wrote a letter detailing past indiscretions, Ms. Salzman told her about the secret sorority.
    She said it had been formed as a force for good, one that could grow into a network that could influence events like elections.


    “No one goes in looking to have their personality stripped away,” he said. “You just don’t realize what is happening.”

    More at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/17/n...&nlid=63626917




    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

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    Groucho Marx

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    Don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows

  4. #3

    Leader of alleged cult, sex-slave network called NXIVM, arraigned in federal court

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ged/462685002/

    March 27, 2018

    ALBANY, N.Y. — The leader of a controversial cult-like self-help group in New York will remain in custody as he's transported to Brooklyn to face charges that he led a secret society that used woman as sex slaves and branded them with a logo bearing his initials.

    Followers of NXIVM know Keith Raniere, 57, as "The Vanguard." The FBI arrested him Monday and charged him with sex trafficking, sex trafficking and forced labor conspiracy.

    He did not make an argument for bail Tuesday during an initial court appearance in Fort Worth, clearing the way for him to be transported to Brooklyn to face bail and preliminary hearings, according to John Marzulli, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for New York's Eastern District.

    Prosecutors have accused Raniere of leading a secret group called DOS in which women who joined were known as masters and slaves. The women were recruited under the guise of DOS being a mentoring group.

    In actuality, the women were treated as slaves, and in some cases Raniere used them as sex slaves, according to the FBI.

    After The New York Times published a report in October on his group's branding of women, Raniere fled to Mexico.

    Agents found him outside Puerto Vallarta in a luxury villa and brought him to U.S. District Court in Fort Worth on charges brought in New York, where NXIVM has its headquarters in the Albany suburb of Colonie.

    When Mexican officials took Raniere into custody, a group of women followed behind in a car being driven at high speeds, according to prosecutors. They want him in jail until his trial.

    "The defendant, who was living in Mexico prior to his arrest and has access to vast resources, poses a significant risk of flight," according to court papers unsealed Tuesday. "In addition, his long-standing history of systematically exploiting women through coercive practices for his own financial and sexual benefit demonstrates that, if released, he would pose a danger to the community."

    Clare Bronfman, an heiress to the Seagram's liquor fortune, is one of his longtime followers and already has provided him with millions of dollars he can tap, prosecutors argued.

    Toni Natalie, who now lives in the Rochester area and dated Raniere in the 1990s, said seeing the news of Raniere's arrest Monday was surreal.

    She has spoken out against Raniere and NXIVM for nearly 20 years, warning of his manipulative techniques and assisting women who defected from the group. Raniere has tied Natalie up with lawsuits and court proceedings since they broke up in 1999.

    “To hear the relief from these women — for all of us — it’s really over," Natalie said Tuesday.

    "Every five or six years, a group of women comes out and I sit down with them and support them any way I can," she said. "And every time, he walks away. He’s not walking away this time."

    Participants in the programs of NXIVM, whose initials don't stand for anything but instead are pronounced Nex-ee-em, signed up for a weeklong course that could cost $5,000. When members couldn't pay, they "remained obliged to NXIVM," according to the allegations in the federal complaint.

    The organization was started in 1998, first calling itself Executive Success Programs, and its website now says it is "a company whose mission is to raise human awareness, foster an ethical humanitarian civilization, and celebrate what it means to be human."

    Among the recognizable names who have taken NXIVM courses, according to the (Albany, N.Y.) Times Union: Linda Evans, who played Krystle Carrington on the 1980s nighttime soap opera Dynasty; and Richard Branson, founder of Virgin America airline and the Virgin Group of companies.

    Raniere's charismatic personality, on display onstage at NXIVM human-potential sessions, persuaded women to trust him. A 2003 Forbes magazine story on the organization was titled "Cult of Personality."

    "Ranerie has maintained a rotating group of 15 to 20 women with whom he maintains sexual relationships," the federal complaint states.

    Masters required the slaves to provide "collateral," such as sexually explicit photos or other damning information to keep them from leaving, the complaint said. Many of the victims ended up being branded in their public regions during a 20- to 30-minute ceremony.

    “As alleged in the complaint, Keith Raniere created a secret society of women whom he had sex with and branded with his initials, coercing them with the threat of releasing their highly personal information and taking their assets,” U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue in the Eastern District of New York said in a statement.

    In the Albany area Tuesday, media reported raids at homes associated with the group.

    Raniere did not respond to emails seeking comment Monday, and Brian Poe, a Fort Worth-based lawyer who represented Raniere just for his hearing Tuesday, said the next proceedings would be in Brooklyn. Another court date has not been set.

    Catherine Oxenberg, who played Amanda Carrington on Dynasty and whose daughter remains involved in NXIVM, issued a statement Monday saying she wants to "help all the young women affected by this cult."

    Oxenberg has been out of touch with her daughter in recent months and had raised concerns about her well being.

    "They are the victims of human trafficking, which is slavery," she said in the statement. "For months, I have worked to expose Keith Raniere and NXIVM, and today’s arrest vindicates my efforts. I want my daughter to know I love her and that I want her back in my life.”

  5. #4

    Actress Allison Mack Arrested in Connection to NXIVM Sex Cult Case

    https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/loca...480387783.html

    Apr 20, 2018


    "Smallville" actress Allison Mack has been arrested in Brooklyn in connection with alleged sex cult NXIVM founder Keith Raniere.

    Actress Allison Mack recruited slaves into a pyramid scheme for the benefit of alleged sex cult leader Keith Raniere, federal prosecutors said in an indictment unsealed against her Friday.

    Mack, best known for the TV show "Smallville," was arrested by the FBI in Brooklyn. According to prosecutors, the 35-year-old actor forced women to have sex with Raniere under threat of having damaging information about them released. FBI officials described it as an "inconceivable crime."

    Raniere, co-founder of the group called NXIVM (pronounced "Nexium"), was arrested in Mexico and returned to Texas last month. Mack has been widely described in reports about the group as one of his top subordinates.

    Prosectors said Friday that Mack stood at the level directly below Raniere in a pyramid scheme called DOS, into which she recruited fresh slaves. The government alleges that Mack forced those slaves to have sex with Raniere in exchange for what were described as "financial and other benefits."

    In a letter attributed to Raniere previously posted on a website related to NXIVM, he denied the practices were sanctioned by the self-described self-help group.

    The complaint against Raniere - known in the group as "Vanguard" - said that many victims participated in videotaped ceremonies where they were branded in their pelvic area with a symbol featuring Raniere's initials.

    "During the branding ceremonies, slaves were required to be fully naked, and the master would order one slave to film while the other held down the slave being branded," the complaint says.

    Raniere left the United States late last year after The New York Times reported the stories of some women who defected from their secret sorority and the government began interviewing potential witnesses. He sought to cover this trail by using encrypted email and ditching his phone, court papers say.

    Both Raniere and Mack face charges of sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy and forced labor conspiracy, for which they could receive 15 years to life in prison.



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