Don't Call it a Cult

by Sarah Berman

  Prosecutors then showed their second and final piece of evidence: a separate clip of Raniere, filmed at another time, dictating this statement to Nancy Salzman and others, word for word.

  * * *

  —

  IN HER CLOSING arguments, prosecutor Moira Kim Penza stood in front of an oversized chart with Raniere’s face in the center, surrounded by a circle of thumbnail photographs of his closest allies. Penza was assembling elements of each crime like puzzle pieces, the acts spanning more than a decade.

  The first racketeering act was the fake ID made for Daniela to cross the Canadian border into the United States. The two acts of sexual exploitation of a child happened on November 2 and 24, 2005, when Raniere took photos of fifteen-year-old Camila. The photos themselves counted as child pornography possession. The identity theft occurred after Daniela was told to hack into Edgar Bronfman’s and others’ emails.

  Daniela herself was trafficked when she spent twenty-three months in a room, Penza said. That was different from the sex trafficking and attempted sex trafficking of Nicole and others. Then there was the DOS scheme itself, which Penza said constituted wire fraud conspiracy and forced labor conspiracy. Penza did not once say the word cult, and she didn’t need to.

  It wasn’t guaranteed that all these pieces would fit neatly in jurors’ heads, but when the jury emerged after less than five hours on the first day of deliberation, there was a sense that it was going that way.

  “I hope he cries,” I heard someone whisper. To my left and right were former slaves mentioned in testimony but spared from testifying themselves.

  ID theft: guilty. Exploitation of a child: guilty. Trafficking: guilty. Extortion: guilty.

  After hearing the word “guilty” four times in a row, your ears start to ring with anticipation waiting for the next one. I heard gasps behind me and saw people squeezing each other’s arms in my peripheral vision.

  Wire fraud conspiracy: guilty. Forced labor conspiracy: guilty. Sex trafficking: guilty. Sex trafficking conspiracy: guilty. Attempted sex trafficking: guilty.

  * * *

  —

  MORE THAN A year went by before Keith Raniere faced Judge Nicholas Garaufis for sentencing in October 2020. Raniere’s remaining followers, Nicki Clyne and four other DOS loyalists among them, lined up outside the courthouse at dawn as part of a coordinated effort to discredit the prosecutors and maintain their Vanguard’s innocence. But after two years in federal custody, Raniere’s influence had faded. The women who risked so much to expose his lies and manipulations no longer feared the “flat earthers” who held on.

  Camila, who had been advised to “stay invisible” during the trial, was the first of fifteen victims to give a statement detailing the grooming, gaslighting, torment and isolation she endured for twelve years. “He hid his abuse behind ideas and concepts of nobility, but there is nothing noble about abusing a child,” she said. “I never got to live like a normal teenager. I never went on a date until I was twenty-nine. I never went to college. I never—and this is where I go blank because I missed so much of my own life, I find it difficult to even conceptualize what I have missed.”

  Raniere told the judge that he did not feel remorse for crimes he did not believe he committed. “I believe I tried my best and I had good intent, but I see that I have led to this place where there is so much anger and so much pain,” he said. Judge Garaufis was incensed when Raniere’s lawyer circled around this point, implying that women’s changing perceptions and feelings had manufactured a scenario of abuse in retrospect. “I am not going to tolerate spending time on what his intent was when he seduced a fifteen-year-old girl,” Garaufis interjected. “It’s an insult to the intelligence of anyone who listens.”

  Raniere’s belief in his own innocence did not spare him. He was sentenced to 120 years in prison and ordered to pay a $1.75-million fine. Raniere’s victims, no longer silenced by shame or blackmail, welcomed the lifetime judgment. “It has taken me three years and a substantial amount of space from your manipulation to realize that the shame that has been weighing so heavily on my shoulders is not mine to carry,” Nicole said. “It’s yours.”

  APPENDIX

  LETTER TO RANIERE

  Hi Keith,

  I’m reaching out in the fourth month of COVID-19 lockdown at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center; I hope this letter makes it to you. I’m Sarah Berman, a reporter and editor based in Vancouver. I’ve been following NXIVM and the charges against you since 2017.

  I’d like to offer a chance to respond to questions that I think only you can answer. I want to know more about what you actually think and believe. Forgive me for cutting to the chase:

  Many people have put immense faith in your intellect and ability over the years. They have trusted you with their life savings, their psychological trauma, their medical decisions. Do you think they were right to place that faith in you? Why or why not?

  When people say you are the smartest, most ethical man in the world, do you believe them? Why or why not?

  You have said in various ways that adults having sex with children isn’t necessarily wrong. A jury of your peers has found that you sexually exploited fifteen-year-old Camila in 2005. Do you look back at your relationship with her as wrong? Why or why not?

  Do you believe you have done psychological harm to any of the women you were involved with?

  Do you think, on balance, the good in NXIVM has outweighed the bad?

  Do you think you were treated fairly by the criminal justice system?

  Do you think your adversaries were treated fairly by the legal system?

  Do you have anything to say to the people who testified at your trial?

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writing about trauma and shame is hard, but opening up about trauma and shame to a journalist is a thousand times harder. So I am grateful first and foremost to everyone who trusted me with their stories as I struggled to figure this out. Thank you Sarah Edmondson, Anthony Ames, Barbara Bouchey, Maja Miljkovic, Toni Natalie, and others who I can’t name here for going the extra mile to explain the unexplainable.

  I’m indebted to the many reporters who went down this rabbit hole before me, especially Dennis Yusko, Michael Freedman, Suzanna Andrews, James Odato, and Chet Hardin. I know that each of you has faced the worst kind of journalistic headwinds and kept going. I’ve tried my best to carry that spirit forward.

  Thank you Carolyn Forde for believing in me and this book. Your hunger to know what happened next propelled me on many occasions. Jennifer Croll, your advice and friendship have been indispensable. I hereby declare you godmother to this paperback. Harrison Mooney! You read fast and close and I will remember that forever. Can’t wait to return the favor.

  To my editors Diane Turbide, Helen Smith, Alex Schultz, and editorial assistant Alanna McMullen, thanks for coming on this wild journey with me. You knew where I was going when I didn’t, asked brilliant questions, and made me laugh when I needed it. David Ball and Matt Chambers, thank you for looking at drafts that didn’t yet have a beginning, middle, or end. Sorry about that.

  I’m so lucky to have met extremely good and cool reporters while covering this trial. Sonia Moghe, Rob Gavin, Karim Amer, Claire Read, Jehane Noujaim, Yahia Lababidi, Grace McNally, Laura Sepulveda, Pilar Melendez, Molly Crabapple, EJ Dickson, Michael Blackmon, Mary Ann Georgantopoulos, Vanessa Grigoriadis, and Lucien Formichella right at the end. There was never enough time to unpack but I’m so glad we tried.

  I owe a special thanks to Ryan McMahon for helping me recover my personal belongings after more than one late night of drinking at the Banff Centre in 2019. Thank you to everyone who read my work or listened to me think out loud while we were on Treaty 7 territory. Liz Howard, Cherie Dimaline, Syd Lazarus, Jean Hurtig, Christy-Ann Conlin, Shannon Webb-Campbell, Cody Caetano, Luciana Erregue, Silmy Abdullah, Kara Sievewright, Elizabeth Aiossa, Kerri Huff
man, Razielle Aigen, Darlene Naponse, you’re all legends.

  Thanks to my Vice colleagues, who I won’t call fam in public. Josh Visser and Chris Bilton, you gave this project a fighting chance in the beginning. Thank you Manisha Krishnan and Mack Lamoureux for hearing out my complaints in the home stretch. Tash Grzincic, Anya Zoleziowski, I miss your faces.

  Blessed thanks to my actual family! My mom for being both a cheerleader and a critic as needed, my dad for teaching me about the power of belief at a young age, and my brother for not caring about Twitter at all. I love and thank you for putting up with me being perpetually, terminally busy since 2018.

  To my friends who’ve heard about this nonstop for years now: it’s over! Aurora, Jackie, Katie, Ashton, Mirit, Lex, Abeer, Robyn, Aziza, you were all so patient and kind as I descended into one-minded obsession.

  Thank you to Janos, Carmen, Samuel, Lisa, and Davis for hosting me on my reporting trips in New York and Mexico. Because of you I had somewhere to watch the Raptors win the NBA championship and celebrate Our Lady of Guadalupe.

  I’m alive and able to write earnest thank-yous in the back of a book because of a man who spends an admirable amount of time offline: Will Brown. You loved and supported me through the late nights, the sudden twists, the endless months of quarantine. With you I’ve always felt ready to face the end of the world. Love you!

  NOTES

  PROLOGUE: “THE MOST ETHICAL MAN”

  slept only one or two hours: Irene Gardiner Keeney, “Troy Man Has a Lot on His Mind: IQ Test Proves What Many Suspected, He’s One in 10 Million,” Albany Times Union, July 1988.

  $10,000-a-week vacation rental: Bail filings, USA v. Raniere et al, March 2018.

  Raniere was napping: Lauren Salzman testimony, USA v. Raniere et al, May 21, 2019.

  infinity pool: Interview with Chacala neighbors, December 2019.

  wearing masks: Lauren Salzman testimony, USA v. Raniere et al, May 21, 2019.

  accused in The New York Times: Barry Meier, “Inside the Secretive Group Where Women Are Branded,” The New York Times, October 17, 2017.

  feds had left business cards: Lauren Salzman testimony, USA v. Raniere et al, May 21, 2019.

  disposable phones: Ibid.

  might have included group sex: Ibid.

  taking the red pill: Interview with Maja Miljkovic, July 2018.

  dramatic scene unfolding: NXIVM Founder Keith Raniere Arrested on Sex Trafficking Charges, ABC News video, April 2018.

  indicted for racketeering: Criminal complaint, USA v. Raniere et al, July 2018.

  sexually explicit pictures: Superseding indictment, USA v. Raniere et al, March 2019.

  CHAPTER 1: SECRET SISTERHOOD

  one of the most successful satellite offices: NXIVM newsletter, April 2014.

  wizard-like appearance: Maja Miljkovic interview, July 2018.

  “master over the slave women”: Latin scholars have called this translation misconceived pseudo-Latin. See Matthew Sullivan, “A Public Service Announcement About Sex Cults and Bad Latin,” Oldenhammer in Toronto blog, May 10, 2018.

  elite talent agency: Nicole testimony, USA v. Raniere et al, June 7, 2019.

  lifers were mostly white: Sarah Edmondson interview, December 2019.

  It was like a bad horror movie: First appeared in “Why I Joined a Secret Society That Branded Me,” Sarah Edmondson as told to Sarah Berman, Vice, November 2, 2017.

  summer camp for adults: Interview with former NXIVM student, February 2019.

  heart rates are likely to match: Richard Bandler and John Grinder, Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D., Vol. I (Soquel, CA: Meta Publications, 1975), 11.

  “finding the ruin”: Lawrence Wright, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), 4.

  preposterously proportioned home: Vanessa Grigoriadis, “Inside NXIVM, the ‘Sex Cult’ That Preached Empowerment,” The New York Times Magazine, May 30, 2018.

  CHAPTER 2: ONE IN TEN MILLION

  1988 article in the Times Union: Irene Gardiner Keeney, “Troy Man Has a Lot on His Mind,” Albany Times Union, 1988.

  stacked with brainteasers: Scot Morris, “World’s Most Difficult IQ Test,” Omni magazine, April 1985, 128–132.

  IQ cutoff for Mensa: Ibid.

  multiple kinds of intelligence: Marie Winn, “New Views of Human Intelligence,” The New York Times, April 29, 1990.

  Racists and eugenicists are obsessed: Adam Shapiro, “The Dangerous Resurgence in Race Science,” American Scientist, January 2020.

  The Guinness Book of Records: The Guiness Book of Records 1989 edition, Guinness World Records Limited, 16.

  retired the “highest IQ” contest: Sam Knight, “Is a High IQ a Burden As Much As a Blessing?” Financial Times, April 2009.

  solutions were leaked: Darryl Miyaguchi, “Explanations,” Uncommonly Difficult IQ Tests website.

  shameful secret: Incident was first recounted to Bowen Xiao in The Epoch Times, May 28, 2018.

  Raniere read the Isaac Asimov novel: Keith Raniere affidavit, NXIVM v. Ross et al, August 29, 2003, 7.

  ready for a lifetime together: Barbara Bouchey, quoted in “Sex, Money and Nazis,” Uncover: Escaping NXIVM, podcast, CBC, 2018.

  CHAPTER 3: MOTHERSHIP, NEW YORK

  both were allegedly molested: Interview with Heidi Hutchinson, February 2019. Gina’s classmate did not respond to fact-finding requests.

  encourage enlightenment simply by his presence: Karen Shafer and Gulshan Khakee, “Baba Muktananda: Meditation Revolution Continues Ten Years After His Passing,” Hinduism Today, October 1992.

  well-meaning therapists using trance states: Susan A. Clancy, Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), 54–57.

  found a programming job: Raniere deposition, NXIVM v. Ross et al, March 2009.

  dubbed “the mothership”: Interview with Sarah Edmondson, April 2018; Uncover: Escaping NXIVM, podcast, CBC.

  the Flintlock house: Daniela testimony, USA v. Raniere et al, May 23, 2019.

  met on a chairlift: Sarah Edmondson, Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult That Bound My Life (San Francisco: Chronicle Prism, 2019), 22.

  “defuser of bombs”: Daniela testimony, USA v. Raniere et al, May 2019.

  Ghislaine Maxwell: Maxwell was charged with enticing and transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity on July 2, 2020. She has not faced trial as of this writing.

  actuary certification: Interviews with Heidi Hutchinson and Susan Dones; Nancy Salzman deposition, NXIVM v. Ross et al, June 9, 2009, 176.

  make a lot of money: “Epiphany,” Uncover: Escaping NXIVM, podcast, CBC, May 2018.

  studied the sales techniques of Amway: Interview with Sarah Edmondson, as told by the late Barbara Jeske, March 2020.

  Matol International: Raniere deposition, NXIVM v. Ross et al, March 12, 2009, 231.

  Pre-Paid Legal: Ibid, 230.

  other multi-level marketing companies were unethical: Ibid.

  “new concept in marketing”: Raniere affidavit, NXIVM v. Ross et al, August 2003, 10.

  new company called Consumers’ Buyline: Ibid.

  “I had a small child”: Toni Natalie interview with Vice News documentary producer Kathleen Caulderwood, quoted with permission, November 2017.

  As she confessed in 2006: Chet Hardin, “Stress in the Family,” Metroland, August 2006.

  made $10,000 in their first few months: Interview with Toni Natalie, May 2020. First appeared in The Program: Inside the Mind of Keith Raniere and the Rise and Fall of NXIVM, Toni Natalie with Chet Hardin (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2019), 17.

  made to feel like family: Ibid.

  playing arcade games: James Odato and Jennifer Gish,
“Secrets of NXIVM,” Albany Times Union, February 2012.

  having sex in the Consumers’ Buyline warehouse: Ibid.

  CHAPTER 4: “MONEY SPILLING INTO YOUR WALLET”

  look up his IQ record at the library: Interview with Toni Natalie, May 2020. had grown an average of 40 percent: Raniere affidavit, NXIVM v. Ross et al, August 2003, 10.

  “quite the creature”: Keith Raniere address to followers, 2014.

  he had a “type”: Interview with Sarah Edmondson, October 2017.

  $39 annual fee: Rhodes v. Consumers’ Buyline, August 21, 1992.

  long list of products and services: Virginia v. Consumers’ Buyline, May 11, 1993.

  1-800 number: Toni Natalie interview, May 2020.

  a promotional video: Compilation video “NXIVM: Multi-Level Marketing,” Albany Times Union YouTube channel, April 2019.

  tell NXIVM recruiters the same thing: Sarah Edmondson interview, March 2020.

  “one-time effort”: “How to Raise Your Standard of Living Without Getting a Raise,” Consumers’ Buyline brochure. Exhibit in Rhodes v. Consumers’ Buyline, August 1992.

  “spilling into your wallet”: Ibid.

  rallied around wins and growth: Toni Natalie interview, May 2020. pitching in with advertising: Ibid.

  “her entire flock followed”: Toni Natalie, The Program: Inside the Mind of Keith Raniere and the Rise and Fall of NXIVM (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2019), 53.

  Arkansas was one of the first: Attorney General complaint, Arkansas v. Consumers’ Buyline, 1992.

  sold $1 billion in products: Raniere affidavit, NXIVM v. Ross et al, August 2003.

  nearly 300,000 members: Ibid.

  signed settlements: Final judgment and order, Arkansas v. Consumers’ Buyline, November 3, 1992.

  lawsuits in twenty-three states: David Orenstein, “Consumers Buyline of Clifton Park Was Forced to Close After 25 Separate Investigations,” Albany Times Union, August 24, 1997. (Note: The “25” in headline includes investigations by two federal agencies.)