Nxivm trial: Keith Raniere found guilty on all counts in sex cult case
June 21, 2019Jury sided with prosecutors, who said Raniere used blackmail and starvation and to force women into becoming first-line slaves
Keith Raniere, a self-help guru, has been found guilty of presiding over an ultra-secretive society that imprisoned women as sex slaves branded with his initials.
The case established an unexpected link between an organization preaching self-empowerment and an internal, cultlike subgroup dedicated to serving the carnal and now criminal demands of its founder.
Raniere, who claimed to be one of the smartest people in the world and boasted a devoted following, was found guilty of all counts against him, including racketeering, forced labour, sex trafficking and child abuse images charges. The jury reached their decision in less than five hours of deliberations.
After the verdict was handed down, Richard Donoghue, United States attorney for the eastern district of New York, told reporters Raniere was truly a modern day Svengali whose crimes, and the crimes of his co-conspirators, ruined marriages, careers, fortunes and lives.
Raniere, who portrayed himself as a savant and a genius, was in fact, a master manipulator, a con man and the crime boss of a cult-like organization involved in sex trafficking, child pornography, extortion, compelled abortions, branding, degradation and humiliation, Donoghue added.
Throughout the seven-week trial, the 58-year-old former multivitamin salesman sat stony-faced and attentive as prosecutors presented lurid and often disturbing evidence that has shocked New York and much of America with testimony of how abuse and exploitation mingled with celebrity and a cult of personality at the self-help organization Nxivm.
But aside from entering a plea of not guilty, Raniere himself revealed nothing. The man known to his followers as supreme master or Vanguard did not take the stand.
Nor did he call any witnesses to rebut prosecutors narrative that he used Nxivm to recruit victims for a group known as DOS, or Dominus Obsequious Sororium (Latin for Lord of the Obedient Female Companions), which was committed to the enslavement and abuse of young women. Nor did he seek to challenge physical evidence against him, which included pornographic pictures allegedly taken for the purposes of blackmail and apparatus related to sexual domination.
Only in opening statements and closing arguments did Raniere present any explanation, offering through his defense counsel that whatever had taken place was consensual. On Monday, before Judge Nicholas Garaufis handed the case to the jury, Ranieres lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, simply described DOS as a social club, arguing that his clients followers acted of their own volition, making adult choices.
He doesnt need DOS to generate intimate partners, Agnifilo said of his client. One has nothing to so with the other. This is just his lifestyle.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us