NXIVM Founder Keith Raniere, Seen in The Vow, Is Facing Life in Prison
He'll be sentenced this fall.
By Elena Nicolaou
Aug 22, 2020
Keith Raniere is at the center of the new 9-part HBO documentary, The Vow, out August 23.
He's been called a cult leader. A high-priced executive coach. A pyramid schemer. A modern-day Svengali. A convicted felon. A daycare founder. Keith Raniere is many things—but easy to sum-up is not one of them.
The upcoming HBO documentary The Vow, out August 23, explores all the many facets of Raniere, a man best known as the founder of NXIVM (pronounced NEX-ee-um). Like Raniere himself, NXIVM is a complicated behemoth of a topic, which grows more gnarled the deeper one goes.
As a result, the nine-episode documentary series The Vow proceeds like a trip into a rabbit hole that keeps getting darker. In episode one, Raniere is presented as an eccentric intellectual with a powerful orbit, and NXIVM as the "empowerment" group he created to coach professionals. In later, more menacing episodes, Raniere's serene disposition is revealed to be a mask for his manipulations; and NXIVM, the organization that stole lives.
For years, Raniere lived in Albany, NY, where NXIVM's headquarters were based. Today, he's awaiting a prison sentence in a federal jail in Brooklyn, NY. Here's what you need to know about Raniere, 59, and where he is now.
In June of 2019, NXIVM founder Keith Raniere was convicted on 7 charges, including sex trafficking.In 2019, Raniere was found guilty on seven charges, including two counts of sex trafficking, racketeering and forced labor conspiracy.
"This trial has revealed that Raniere, who portrayed himself as a savant and a genius, was in fact a massive 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," Richard Donoghue, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, told reporters, per TIME. "Keith Raniere's crime spree has ended and his victims will finally see justice."
Raniere will be sentenced in October 2020, and faces life in prison.Today, Raniere is in a federal jail in Brooklyn, awaiting sentencing. Originally, Raniere was slated to be sentenced in September 2019, but the date was pushed back to 2020. Now, over a year after being found guilty, Raniere will be sentenced on October 27. He faces a possible life sentence.
In The Vow, whistleblower Mark Vincente explains Raniere's motivations in recruiting influential people. "We have to reach the people who 'run the motor of the world,' to use Ayn Rand's term," Vincente recalled Raniere saying.
Raniere has been described as a "stereotypical cult leader."In 2003, Forbes ran an article on Raniere that questioned ESP's validity as an organization. The article connected Raniere's new, buzzy group and his past multilevel marketing schemes, like one called Consumer's Buyline, for which he was sued.
Seagram's heir Edgar Bronfman Sr., whose daughters funded NXIVM with their $150 million trust fund, told Forbes his own misgivings: “I think it’s a cult." (In 2019, his daughter, Clare Bronfman, pled guilty to NXIVM-related charges). A 2006 article in the Albany Times-Union said NXIVM's activities were akin to "brainwashing." Later, Bronfman would be proven right. “Keith Raniere is the stereotypical cult leader," cult expert Cathleen Mann, who followed NXIVM for 15 years, told Off the Hook in 2019, after he was convicted. Mann cited the main components of a cult: A self-appointed leader; influential tactics; and deceptive recruiting—meaning that a member may recruit new members before knowing what the group really is. NXIVM had all three.
A former NXIVM member describes the slow erosion of intuition that occurred over time, thanks to NXIVM's psychological manipulations. “They get you to not trust your own decision-making process. They tell you that you need them to make decisions. You start to doubt everything," one of the plaintiffs in a suit against NXIVM told the New York Times.
The Vow explores Keith Raniere's time presiding over a sex cult called DOS alongside Allison Mack.If you've previously heard of NXIVM, chances are, you heard of the stories that came out of this one specific sector of the group, called DOS, which Raniere ran alongside Smallville's Allison Mack. Some of the most gruesome stories associated with NXIVM originated from DOS: Branding with Raniere and Mack's initials. Extreme calorie counting. Women, groomed for sexual relationships with Raniere.
Later episodes of The Vow unpack what happened in DOS–and what happened to people who joined. Ironically, DOS was founded under the pretenses of being a "women's empowerment group," though the opposite took place.
The name stood for "Dominus Obsequious Sororium," and also for "Dominant Over Submissive." Like the rest of NXIVM, DOS functioned as a pyramid scheme—but one of "masters" and "slaves," who had to follow their masters' orders. In order to join, women had to give up collateral of some sort, from personal secrets to nude photos.
In a story for the New York Times, Vanessa Grigoriades described the relationship between people up the DOS hierarchy. “Masters would dictate an act of ‘self-denial,’ like cold showers or rousing yourself from bed at 4 a.m. and standing stock still for a time. Slaves were told to do ‘acts of care’ for masters, perhaps bringing them coffee. Slaves might be told to abstain from orgasms, ostensibly to heal their negative sexual patterns. Mack said that this was ‘about devotion’ and ‘like any spiritual practice or religion.’ I thought about free will—did she believe in that? She said, ‘You’re dedicating your life one way or another.'"
Source https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainment/a33647899/keith-raniere-now/
He'll be sentenced this fall.
By Elena Nicolaou
Aug 22, 2020
Keith Raniere is at the center of the new 9-part HBO documentary, The Vow, out August 23.
- Raniere co-founded the controversial group NXIVM alongside Nancy Salzman.
- In June 2019, Raniere was found guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking, and will be sentenced in October of 2020.
He's been called a cult leader. A high-priced executive coach. A pyramid schemer. A modern-day Svengali. A convicted felon. A daycare founder. Keith Raniere is many things—but easy to sum-up is not one of them.
The upcoming HBO documentary The Vow, out August 23, explores all the many facets of Raniere, a man best known as the founder of NXIVM (pronounced NEX-ee-um). Like Raniere himself, NXIVM is a complicated behemoth of a topic, which grows more gnarled the deeper one goes.
As a result, the nine-episode documentary series The Vow proceeds like a trip into a rabbit hole that keeps getting darker. In episode one, Raniere is presented as an eccentric intellectual with a powerful orbit, and NXIVM as the "empowerment" group he created to coach professionals. In later, more menacing episodes, Raniere's serene disposition is revealed to be a mask for his manipulations; and NXIVM, the organization that stole lives.
For years, Raniere lived in Albany, NY, where NXIVM's headquarters were based. Today, he's awaiting a prison sentence in a federal jail in Brooklyn, NY. Here's what you need to know about Raniere, 59, and where he is now.
In June of 2019, NXIVM founder Keith Raniere was convicted on 7 charges, including sex trafficking.In 2019, Raniere was found guilty on seven charges, including two counts of sex trafficking, racketeering and forced labor conspiracy.
"This trial has revealed that Raniere, who portrayed himself as a savant and a genius, was in fact a massive 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," Richard Donoghue, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, told reporters, per TIME. "Keith Raniere's crime spree has ended and his victims will finally see justice."
Raniere will be sentenced in October 2020, and faces life in prison.Today, Raniere is in a federal jail in Brooklyn, awaiting sentencing. Originally, Raniere was slated to be sentenced in September 2019, but the date was pushed back to 2020. Now, over a year after being found guilty, Raniere will be sentenced on October 27. He faces a possible life sentence.
In The Vow, whistleblower Mark Vincente explains Raniere's motivations in recruiting influential people. "We have to reach the people who 'run the motor of the world,' to use Ayn Rand's term," Vincente recalled Raniere saying.
Raniere has been described as a "stereotypical cult leader."In 2003, Forbes ran an article on Raniere that questioned ESP's validity as an organization. The article connected Raniere's new, buzzy group and his past multilevel marketing schemes, like one called Consumer's Buyline, for which he was sued.
Seagram's heir Edgar Bronfman Sr., whose daughters funded NXIVM with their $150 million trust fund, told Forbes his own misgivings: “I think it’s a cult." (In 2019, his daughter, Clare Bronfman, pled guilty to NXIVM-related charges). A 2006 article in the Albany Times-Union said NXIVM's activities were akin to "brainwashing." Later, Bronfman would be proven right. “Keith Raniere is the stereotypical cult leader," cult expert Cathleen Mann, who followed NXIVM for 15 years, told Off the Hook in 2019, after he was convicted. Mann cited the main components of a cult: A self-appointed leader; influential tactics; and deceptive recruiting—meaning that a member may recruit new members before knowing what the group really is. NXIVM had all three.
A former NXIVM member describes the slow erosion of intuition that occurred over time, thanks to NXIVM's psychological manipulations. “They get you to not trust your own decision-making process. They tell you that you need them to make decisions. You start to doubt everything," one of the plaintiffs in a suit against NXIVM told the New York Times.
The Vow explores Keith Raniere's time presiding over a sex cult called DOS alongside Allison Mack.If you've previously heard of NXIVM, chances are, you heard of the stories that came out of this one specific sector of the group, called DOS, which Raniere ran alongside Smallville's Allison Mack. Some of the most gruesome stories associated with NXIVM originated from DOS: Branding with Raniere and Mack's initials. Extreme calorie counting. Women, groomed for sexual relationships with Raniere.
Later episodes of The Vow unpack what happened in DOS–and what happened to people who joined. Ironically, DOS was founded under the pretenses of being a "women's empowerment group," though the opposite took place.
The name stood for "Dominus Obsequious Sororium," and also for "Dominant Over Submissive." Like the rest of NXIVM, DOS functioned as a pyramid scheme—but one of "masters" and "slaves," who had to follow their masters' orders. In order to join, women had to give up collateral of some sort, from personal secrets to nude photos.
In a story for the New York Times, Vanessa Grigoriades described the relationship between people up the DOS hierarchy. “Masters would dictate an act of ‘self-denial,’ like cold showers or rousing yourself from bed at 4 a.m. and standing stock still for a time. Slaves were told to do ‘acts of care’ for masters, perhaps bringing them coffee. Slaves might be told to abstain from orgasms, ostensibly to heal their negative sexual patterns. Mack said that this was ‘about devotion’ and ‘like any spiritual practice or religion.’ I thought about free will—did she believe in that? She said, ‘You’re dedicating your life one way or another.'"
Source https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainment/a33647899/keith-raniere-now/