What happened to the predatory founders of the creepy NXIVM cult?
NXIVM was a sex-cult masked as an organization of executive progress, founded by Keith Raniere in 1998. The cult, disguised as a community guided by “humanitarian principles”, offered profit programs & workshops of personal development and professional success.
There are various cases of people who actually improved their fears & anxiety through this method, even the Dalai Lama recognized Raniere’s humanitarian effort in 2009. Little did he know what was behind it: the subgroup D.O.S, also known as The Vow, where women were threatened and obligated to have sex with Raniere, who was referred to as “Vanguard”.
Keith Raniere acquired compromising evidence from all of the women and had their intimate pictures as well. These materials were required to enter the NXIVM group, so women were fully controlled. Some of the members even starved in order to be attractive to him and had his initials branded on their pelvises in a ritual.
Things eventually come to light
In 2017, multiple ex-members of NXIVM asked the New York State authorities to start an investigation towards the organization. When the investigation started, Keith Raniere conveniently decided to leave the U.S. and spent some months in Mexico, where he eventually got caught.
India Riven Oxenberg, daughter of the actress Catherine Oxenberg, recognized by her role on Dynasty, was a NXIVM victim and is currently one of the most recognized voices of this case, her story has been shared in multiple interviews and in the STARZ documentary by Cecilia Peck & Inbal B. Lessner, SEDUCED: INSIDE THE NXIVM CULT (2020).
India speaks from her personal experience when she entered there at the age of nineteen and recognizes to have been completely indoctrinated before getting to meet Raniere. India has spent more than fifty hours on psychotherapy and tattooed a mandala over the cult mark.
Was Keith Raniere alone?
It’s impossible to hold a corporation (of any kind) on one’s own, especially an illegal one. Nancy Salzman, a former psychiatric nurse, was the co-founder of NXIVM, and Raniere’s right hand since the beginning. During a trial, she claimed to have been manipulated by him and to profoundly regret their romantic affairs.
In the summer of 2018, charges were pressed towards Keith Raniere, and 5 other women including Nancy Salzman, her daughter Lauren Salzman, Smallville actress Allison Mack, and Claire Bronfman.
Each one of them developed different tasks and committed different crimes as well, so all of them received different charges from sex trafficking to money laundering. They also manifest different kinds of regret, but what is a fact is that all women were completely manipulated. However, manipulation doesn’t take back all the harm they caused.
What’s next for NXIVM founders?
In October 2020, Keith Raniere was sentenced to 120 years which means life in prison for sex trafficking, racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy, and wire fraud conspiracy. His lawyers notified in a court filing that Mr. Raniere wasn’t sorry for his actions.
Allison Mack was sentenced to three years of prison for racketeering & racketeering conspiracy. Claire Bronfman was found guilty of conspiring to conceal and to harbor an undocumented immigrant and took economic profit from it, so she’ll be facing six years and nine months of prison.
On the other hand, mother & daughter Nancy and Lauren Salzman were charged with racketeering & racketeering conspiracy. Nancy was condemned with three and a half years in prison and Lauren with 5 years of probation.
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Do you think NXIVM founders will go through a fair sentence? Tell us in the comments below!
