Keith Raniere, the convicted self-help guru whose organization NXIVM was described as a sex cult, was sentenced Tuesday to 120 years on charges including sex trafficking and forced labor conspiracy.
U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis handed down the sentence following a lengthy hearing where he heard from Raniere’s victims as well as some supporters.
One woman named Camilla testified she met Raniere when she was 13 years old. She and her two older sisters left their home in Mexico and moved to upstate New York to be with him. He got all three pregnant and forced them to have abortions.
Camila said she was a 15-year-old virgin when the then-45-year-old Raniere raped her. He also took naked pictures of her, an act that led to child pornography charges being brought against him.
“He screwed with my mind for so long,” Camilla said.
Another victim, India Oxenberg, cried in court as she told the judge that Raniere starved her to look like a 12-year-old while raping her. She also described herself as Raniere’s “human science experiment” because he severely restricted what she ate to keep her looking like a child and deprived her of sleep.
Oxenberg, the daughter of Dynasty actor Catherine Oxenberg, also called Raniere an “entitled little princess” and a sexual predator.
Ahead of the hearing, Raniere’s lawyers said the convicted con man has no remorse, nor will he seek forgiveness. He has also accused the judge of corruption and demanded a new trial.
Raniere’s sentence is likely the final blow to NXIVM, which has lured in famous actresses like Smallville’s Allison Mack and Kristin Kreuk and Seagrams heiress Clare Bronfman. Bronfman was sentenced in late September to close to seven years in prison for fraud and forced labor. Prosecutors had asked for five years. Bronfman was in NXIVM for 15 years and became part of the group’s executive board. Victims said she tapped into her trust fund to hire an army of lawyers and investigators to go after NXIVM’s critics.
Several other high-ranking NXIVM members have taken plea deals in federal court after being arrested on charges that range from sex trafficking to possession of child pornography to extortion.
As the leader of NXIVM, Raniere had been revered by hundreds of loyal followers who promoted him as the smartest man in the world and even called him “Vanguard,” believing that his teachings were so powerful that they could influence elections and bring world peace.
Tuesday’s sentencing in Brooklyn culminates years of revelations about NXIVM, which was billed as an exclusive invitation-only self-improvement class that ended up bilking thousands of dollars from its followers to take classes at its headquarters in Albany, New York. NXIVM also had branches in Mexico and Canada.
At trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanja Hajjar painted Raniere as a power-hungry predator who “maintained control over his followers and his criminal organization … by ensuring that no one questioned him.”
“No one could challenge his authority,” she said. “The defendant used shame and humiliation as ways to break people down.”
Raniere, 60, was found guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking in June 2019 following a six-week trial that exposed the disturbing details of what took place in his organization.
To honor Raniere, the group formed a secret society of female “slaves.”
Among the most shocking allegations was the secret group’s ceremonial branding ritual.
To gain VIP admission, the women were forced to hand over naked photographs of themselves or other compromising material and were warned that if they told anyone about the ritual, the photographs would be released, and their reputations would be ruined.
The handful of NXIVM women who made the cut also had to promise complete obedience to Raniere. If they passed the first two requirements, they were then told to undress and lie on a massage table while three people held their legs and shoulders down.
Their “master,” a top NXIVM official named Lauren Salzman, instructed them to say, “Master, please brand me, it would be an honor.”
She would then start to sear their skin with a cauterizing device in an agonizing procedure that took up to 30 minutes.
Sarah Edmondson, one of the women who went through the ritual, said muffled screams and the smell of burning flesh filled the room for hours. “I wept the whole time,” she told the New York Times. “I disassociated out of my body.”
At Raniere’s trial, prosecutors played four recorded conversations he had with Mack about the ritual.
“Do you think the person who is being branded should be completely nude and sort of held to the table like a sort of, almost, like a sacrifice?” he asked Mack in a recording. He then laid out his vision for how women’s bodies should be arranged before being branded: “Legs spread straight, like feet being held to the side of the table, hands probably above the head, being held almost like tied down.”
The jury in Raniere’s trial deliberated less than half a day before finding him guilty of all seven counts against him. Raniere stared straight as the verdict was read.
NXIVM has been the subject of two TV documentaries in 2020, HBO’s The Vow and Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult on Starz.
