Don't Call it a Cult

by Sarah Berman

  At Raniere’s trial, prosecutor Tanya Hajjar read Raniere’s messages for the court, with FBI agent Maegan Rees reading the part of Camila. They read out Camila’s requests for permission to text her friends and parents or shave her pubic hair. They read Raniere’s many ultimatums: fix the damage or leave the country. They read Camila’s messages about her depression, her eating disorder, her suicidal ideation. They read Raniere’s warnings that Camila was not to reveal to anyone who she was texting, especially not Marianna.

  After many demands that Camila pack up her stuff and prepare to leave Albany forever, Raniere offered her another option. He told her to write down “a specific vow of obedience.” This language would be repeated to seven other women in an escalating scheme to secure lifelong indentured servants.

  “The vow doesn’t have to be that long,” he wrote.

  “I get fearful because I project you will abuse that power,” Camila replied. “But I understand it is my own horrible projection.”

  “There will be times it will seem like I am,” Raniere wrote. “I won’t. But it is part of proving trust. If it never seemed questionable, then it wouldn’t be trust. I’ve earned trust. Do it now please…text it now.”

  “I vow to do as u say,” Camila wrote.

  “100% obedience?” Raniere replied.

  “100% obedience. I don’t know why I’m scared shitless.”

  “You are scared because you are serious. That is good,” wrote Raniere. “You must be the model of restraint. No alcohol of any sort, not a sip and eat very little. You must build yourself to be a new woman, one that is serious about her future.”

  “Shit,” she responded. “I’m already questioning because I don’t understand why I have to do that since I don’t want to be that type of woman. Never have.”

  “Do you want honor, dignity, respect or love?” Raniere wrote back. “What I said serves many purposes. You actually do want to be that type of woman. You react to terms such as slut and whore. As you age you will be…more and more like that if you don’t change.”

  Though much of the transcript is crowded with Raniere telling Camila what to think and say and feel, there are many places where she pushes back, or tries to express a sense of injustice. She tells Raniere that he’s more like a parent or god to her, that she feels powerless to change her situation—as if there were a gun pointed to her head and she’s constantly trying to say the right thing to avoid being killed. In some cases she explicitly states that Raniere’s actions seem “controlling and abusive.” But she doesn’t appear to have any meaningful leverage, and Raniere doesn’t give an inch.

  “I feel like a prisoner,” she wrote on December 8, 2014. “This is your world and your rules, if you suddenly decide to change the rules (which you have) it is fine because this is YOUR kingdom. I can either abide by your ruling or leave. Unfortunately, I promised I wouldn’t so I am in your kingdom, under your rules. It doesn’t mean I agree.”

  Raniere then flipped the script, describing himself as the victim. He said he was physically damaged and did not receive any support, while Camila received plenty of it.

  Raniere’s victimhood story evolved over the next few months. He revealed that he was in great pain and might possibly die soon, because Camila’s unfaithfulness meant she could no longer be his “spiritual successor.” Though Camila said she had “no idea” that this was a thing, Raniere insisted she was chosen as a “pure” vessel for his spiritual teachings.

  “My lineage is not supposed to end with my death,” Raniere wrote on March 12, 2015, adding that he’d been transferring knowledge and “energy” to Camila that would have allowed him to live on through her. But because she’d had sexual contact with somebody else, this was no longer possible, he said, and would leave him mortally weakened.

  “I can’t even breathe when you say that, much less say anything,” Camila replied. “It is beyond heartbreaking.”

  * * *

  —

  AT RANIERE’S TRIAL, psychologist and expert witness Dawn Hughes named threats, isolation, gaslighting, surveillance, subjugation, and economic control as forms of nonphysical violence that can take away someone’s ability to freely give consent.

  I kept this in mind when reviewing Camila’s contradictory replies: at one moment she’d vow to trust and obey Raniere forever, and at another she’d say that this commitment made her feel dead inside. There were times when she was interested in sex and wanted to be tied up, and other times when she explicitly said she didn’t want to be touched.

  Hughes’s testimony was a reminder that threats and gaslighting can create a state of terror in which the need to placate an abuser comes before personal safety. “I had to become good at figuring out how to stay in his good graces,” Camila later recounted in court. “He had made himself my only lifeline and I was not going to mess with that.”

  After a blowout argument in April 2015, the WhatsApp conversation with Raniere turned to Camila’s safety. Camila had stopped replying for several hours, and when she returned to the chat, Raniere asked about a self-inflicted wrist wound.

  “How’s the injury feel?” he asked.

  “Deeper than I thought. I put a butterfly thingy on it. It hurts.”

  Raniere suggested that Camila tell Nancy Salzman about what had happened and ask her to examine it. “I think it’s best she knows you cut yourself,” he wrote. “She is very caring and could help you. And would keep it a secret.”

  Camila wrote that she didn’t want Salzman or anybody else to know.

  “I think we should get a medical person, but one who won’t force a psych evaluation and suicide watch,” Raniere countered. He later claimed that Camila’s suicide attempt was part of the reason he created the secret sorority known as DOS—to help her build discipline and character.

  * * *

  —

  JUST OVER a week later, Camila was preparing “collateral” to cement her vow of obedience to Raniere for life. She eventually pledged that if she ever broke her vow, she would resign from her job at Rainbow, give up all her belongings—including two computers, a hard drive, treadmill, bike, passport, and her email passwords—and deliver a letter that would ruin her relationship with Gaelyn, Raniere’s son. She also wrote up a statement alleging that her father, Hector, was gay.

  Raniere had referred to Camila as his “slave” before, but he used the term more frequently after she submitted her collateral. In September she went to New York City to pick out a “slave necklace” that would symbolize her vow—a chain she would never take off.

  “I’m so used to hiding our relationship that it feels like it goes against everything to say those words: my boyfriend,” she wrote. “When I was in nyc I went to macy’s to look for a slave necklace and I got to say ‘my boyfriend’ and I couldn’t say it without feeling like I was doing something wrong…but part of me liked it.”

  Raniere and Camila had an apparent history with bondage themes. In emails to Raniere as far back as 2009, when Camila was nineteen, she eagerly signed off as “slavey slave.” But in 2015 things with Raniere were different, given the collateral on the line. BDSM educator Carlyle Jansen is quick to point out that consent isn’t something you can give if someone is threatening to hurt you. “There should never be something hanging over your head, where you have to do something—or else,” she told me. “That totally violates free will and consent.”

  This bears mentioning, given what Raniere wrote to Camila next: “I think it would be good for you to own a fuck toy slave for me, that you could groom, and use as a tool, to pleasure me.”

  Camila replied, “huh? not disagreeing, just don’t understand.”

  “Get a slave…you’re her master.”

  Camila questioned why Raniere would even want that. “I am not as turned on by owning,” she said.

  * * *

  —

  IN EARLY OCTOBER 2
015, Camila discovered that Nicki Clyne was wearing a chain collar like her own. “I have her right next to me and it looks like she has one,” Camila texted to Raniere.

  Raniere deflected. “If you knew how I loved you, you would not care even if it were true!”

  Camila had to leave the room to catch herself. “I feel extremely betrayed. I feel insignificant. Worthless and disposable to you. I am wondering what else have you not told me.”

  “Your pride is over the top,” Raniere shot back. “Unless you can somehow make me believe you get it and are truly sorry this is very bad. If you are humble you can’t be betrayed by me. Only ugly pride does that.”

  On October 9, Raniere revealed more to Camila about the secret organization of women he was building. He claimed that Camila’s suicide attempt had “set off a chain reaction” that led to Nicki’s and others’ participation.

  “It caused there to be other slaves, all who want to be branded with my monogram plus a number,” Raniere wrote. “Your number is reserved…it is number 1. It is now a secret growing organization. I don’t know well some of the other people involved but I command them ultimately. They are not who you might think.”

  Camila was not happy about the branding. “Branded like cattle?” she asked. “You want to burn me?”

  “You don’t want to burn for me?” Raniere responded.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The Call

  Barbara Bouchey was speechless.

  It had been more than five years since she’d left her boyfriend and business partner Keith Raniere behind—though he continued to chase her with lawsuits in several states. NXIVM had accused Bouchey of defamation and breach of client confidentiality, and she was still fighting low-level felony charges for allegedly accessing their computer servers using a former client’s login credentials. (All those charges would eventually be dismissed.)

  So the last person she was expecting to call was Kristin Keeffe, one of Raniere’s most loyal girlfriends, mother to his child, and longtime overseer of the very lawsuits that had intimidated and silenced perceived enemies like Bouchey.

  “For five years I had sat across from her in all those lawsuits. She was their legal liaison, commanding seven law firms in four states,” Bouchey told me. When she took Keeffe’s call, in March 2015, she could in that moment have accused Kristin of ruining her life. But she was also kept in line with threats and group influence, so Bouchey decided to listen to whatever it was she had to say.

  Keeffe told her she’d left Raniere and NXIVM and was in hiding with her eight-year-old son, Gaelyn. This was an inconceivable development, and not just for Bouchey. Most people assumed Keeffe to be so committed to Raniere that she’d be prepared to go down with the ship—even to die for the cause.

  “I didn’t know if it was real. She said I was the first person she called,” Bouchey says of the phone call that would change the lives of both women. “The whole time I thought she was trying to set me up or frame me, maybe hoping I would slip up.”

  Despite her suspicions, Bouchey earnestly hoped she was telling the truth. Because if Keeffe really had defected from NXIVM, it meant that anyone could wake up and leave.

  “He’s not trying to succeed, he’s trying to enslave,” Keeffe told her.

  * * *

  —

  FOR NEARLY TWO hours Keeffe unloaded her knowledge of what she described as crimes and conspiracies committed by Keith Raniere, Nancy Salzman, Emiliano Salinas, and Clare Bronfman. This included an alleged plot to get Bouchey and others thrown in jail in Mexico.

  Keeffe asked whether Bouchey remembered being invited to an anti-cult conference in Mexico. Bouchey said she’d gotten a few calls from a Mexican journalist, but that she’d never picked up. (Another one of Raniere’s exes, Toni Natalie, had told Bouchey about similar calls.) Then Keeffe alleged that Raniere and Salinas had bribed a judge in Mexico to issue an indictment against Bouchey. “You were going to be lured into Mexico, and when you got to Mexico, they were going to put you in fucking prison. You should see the emails!”

  “Were they really?” Bouchey replied, shocked. “How serious were they?”

  “They were as serious as a fucking heart attack. I saw the judge’s decision. Keith helped write it, and there were issues about Emiliano translating it. He worked on this for years. Fucking years.”

  All Bouchey could say was “Wow.”

  At this point, in 2015, Raniere was still at the height of his power. In Vancouver the NXIVM community was celebrating new enrollment milestones, and recruitment in Mexico City was now outpacing every other center. NXIVM critics had their electronics seized and were losing in court. Bouchey, who’d been accused of computer trespassing, was still struggling to bring her new attorney up to speed and would later represent herself in court. Anyone who turned against Raniere could expect an onslaught of intimidating phone calls and spying. Given how much Keeffe knew, Bouchey thought even worse might happen to her.

  But now, after being sworn enemies for the last five years, Keeffe and Bouchey were suddenly going into battle on the same side once more. Bouchey says she felt a wave of forgiveness. For the first time in a long time, she thought they stood a chance against Raniere.

  “Do you have a prediction of what you think, how this will go down for Keith? Do you think that we’ll be able to hold him accountable?” Bouchey asked.

  “Yes, I do,” said Keeffe. “I think he will be thoroughly and utterly destroyed.”

  * * *

  —

  FOR BOTH WOMEN it felt like a game-changing moment. No one had had the means to take Raniere down before, and now Keeffe was giving Bouchey hope that it was possible. Most former members didn’t know the extent of what was going on behind the scenes, but Keeffe had more dirt than anyone who’d ever left.

  And yet, even with Keeffe’s inside knowledge of alleged fraud, tax evasion, hacking, obstruction of justice, and other crimes, the two women probably understood that the path ahead wouldn’t be easy. Keeffe said she knew Clare Bronfman was socking away an “off the grid” fund for Raniere. “There was $2.5 million in it,” she told Bouchey. “Now I’m sure it’s ten times that.”

  This recorded conversation would eventually become evidence presented in court, but it wasn’t the allegations of tax evasion, fraud, or even the plot to have enemies thrown in prison in Mexico that would finally catch law enforcement’s attention. It was an even larger conspiracy, involving sex slaves and branding, that pushed federal agents to arrest Raniere, Allison Mack, Lauren Salzman, Nancy Salzman, Clare Bronfman, and bookkeeper Kathy Russell in 2018.

  Some former members suspect it was Keeffe’s exit in 2014 that tipped Raniere into the dark, vengeful headspace that birthed the secret society called DOS. Others view Dominus Obsequious Sororium as a culmination of discipline and control practices he’d been developing since before NXIVM existed. By the time of his arrest, at least 102 women had been initiated into Raniere’s secret society. Not all of them had been branded, and not all of them had been coerced into sex, but court records and testimony would show that he considered all of them to be his slaves.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Vow

  Nicole’s dream was a simple one: become a great actor. Not just a good or competent actor, but a great actor—one who’d be appreciated for her range and skills as well as her beauty.

  “I think the first time that I was ever on stage I was four, and that was in like a Hans Christian Andersen story,” Nicole said at Raniere’s trial. (By court order, Nicole can be identified only by her first name.)

  It was through an acting class that Nicole met Mark Hildreth, a Canadian actor with a square jaw and vast collection of unsmiling headshots that undoubtedly helped him land acting roles in fantasy and action flicks. They worked with the same beloved acting coach in 2013, and they started dating soon after that. It wasn’t long into their relation
ship that Hildreth brought up NXIVM and other actors who were part of it. “I think we were talking about character work or something of that sort, which then got into a deeper conversation,” Nicole said. Hildreth told her he was working on becoming a better person through this program that taught business and psychology mixed together.

  “It kinda sounded like something that I had done when I was a kid, called Landmark,” she testified. Nicole thought some discipline and life coaching would be good for her. “Acting is tough, and sometimes your own fears get in the way of being in the audition room,” she said. “I was always trying to better myself in any way.”

  Of course, there were downsides she had to consider. She knew that one of Mark’s previous girlfriends, Smallville actor Kristin Kreuk, was associated in some way. Nicole, as the new girlfriend in a group of friends that went back nearly a decade, thought that could be a source of discomfort. And Hildreth also warned her not to read anything about the program online, as there were some naysayers who had apparently written some negative things.

  “Mark said that was the best way to go into the five-day…to go in completely open-minded, and to really not have any expectations,” Nicole recalled of her boyfriend’s pitch. He name-dropped Seagram heir Clare Bronfman and Emiliano Salinas, son of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the former Mexican president, as powerful, smart people who were moving mountains in the NXIVM community.

  In the end, Hildreth offered to lend Nicole the money so that she could take her first five-day intensive in 2013. “He said that he believed in it so much that he would pay—pay for me and I could pay him back as I could,” she said.

  Nicole was mostly impressed by her first NXIVM experience. She liked to explore her own personality and patterns; she equated it with character work in acting class. “I like to learn, and I can kind of get something out of anything,” she said.