Court hearing yesterday – with ‘library floors’ worth of discovery, Vanguard’s strategy and Prefect’s defection

This marks an end of an era. Prefect is leaving Vanguard.

But first, a little more on the court hearing yesterday.

In a recent court filing, lawyers for criminal defendant Keith Alan Raniere accused the Office of the US Attorney for the Eastern District of NY of not releasing discovery materials to the defense in an accurate, proper, honest and timely fashion.

Yesterday in court, Raniere’s lead defense attorney, Marc Agnifilo, further accused prosecutors of hoarding evidence in an attempt to delay the trial.

He asked Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis to keep the scheduled January 7th start date for the trial.

“The crystal ball has been stolen from my desk,” said Judge Garaufis – indicating much could happen that could prevent the trial from commencing on its presently scheduled starting date.

The lead prosecutor for the case, Assistant US Attorney Moira Penza, said the government has not been improperly withholding discovery materials from the defense. She blamed the sheer volume of material in part for the delay.

Penza said the total amount of information gathered on NXIVM is equal to 12 floors of printed materials from the Library of Congress.

Agnifilo said prosecutors gathered the equivalent to “144  library floors” of data from searches to the defendants’ homes and NXIVM buildings, the majority of which are videotapes.

“They videotape everything,” he said of NXIVM. “If Keith was speaking, they’d videotape it. I’m guessing that the 144 library floors isn’t all email. It’s videotapes. We don’t need to go through 144 library floors.”

Downplaying the value of documentary evidence – emails, texts, videotapes etc. – much of which will likely show that Raniere was running DOS and micromanaging the sex trafficking and other alleged crimes – behind the scenes – Agnifilo told the judge the case is not as much about discovery, as it is about “witnesses.”

He argued the government’s seizure of [damning to Raniere] discovery materials is “going to be irrelevant.”

From this statement, we can deduce the line of Raniere’s defense: Get a group of NXIVM/DOS women to testify that Keith knew nothing about DOS – and blame it on Allison. Also have them testify that Keith was not part of DOS and that the branding and sex were all consensual.

The hope is there will be enough NXIVM witnesses who hold together by the time of trial to offset the frightened and brutalized Jane Doe witnesses for the prosecution –  and the damning texts, emails, and videos  [including some cringe-inducing collateral] – that will be presented to the jury.

Penza claimed that part of the reason there’s been a delay in providing discovery materials is because Nancy Salzman – who is now believed to be ready to flip on Raniere – is claiming the government may have interfered with her attorney-client privilege.

The government, Penza said, will have to carefully review seized documents to ensure they are not breaching her attorney-client privilege before releasing discovery materials to other defendants.

This becomes especially important now that Salzman may have turned on Vanguard.

The goal is to release all discovery materials by December, Penza said.

If the trial were to actually start on January 7th, a December release of discovery materials might be unfair to the defense since it would give them little time to review, research and prepare their defense. However, the trial is highly unlikely to occur in January.

Penza said that it is “highly likely” the government will add additional charges to onje or more of tghe current defendants and, as for potential additional defendants, she said,  “Whether or not additional individuals will be charged is part of an ongoing investigation”.

Utilizing Raniere’s teachings that when a woman says ‘no’ she means “maybe”, and when she says, “maybe”, she means “yes”, I think it’s safe to assume that Moira is saying (a) the current defendants – especially Clare and Keith – will get hit with additional charges; and (b) there will be more people indicted.

If there are new charges – called a superseding indictment – this will reset the Speedy Trial Act provision – and the January trial date will be pushed back at least months.

To settle the current discovery disputes, Judge Garaufis ordered defense attorneys and prosecutors to meet with a magistrate judge, who will mediate ongoing disputes regarding discovery production between parties.

Presently, Mack and Raniere face 15 years to life for allegedly sex trafficking female slaves. Bronfman faces three years.

Raniere remains in custody with no bail. Mack is living with her parents in California under house arrest and wears an ankle monitor. She is permitted to leave home for school, work, and church.

Legatus is also under house arrest at her luxury apartment in Manhattan.  The two Salzmans are not under home arrest.

Russell can come and go as she pleases during the daytime but has to be home each night by 8:00 PM.

All the defendants have been ordered to have no contact with NXIVM members outside the presence of counsel with the exception of family members.

Although I don’t have my crystal ball handy, if Salzman flips on Raniere, it seems to me to portend more flipping.

Last year [July 2017], I detailed how Nancy Salzman, finding out about the branding – possibly from Frank Report – and learning her own daughter, Lauren, was branded with the mark of the beast Keith Raniere, for the first time ever reported – she was overheard to openly argue with Keith.  In the past, she was as docile as a fawning lamb, doing whatever her Vanguard commanded.

At Vanguard Week 2017, she told friends she had breast cancer but would use NXIVM tech to heal it.

In October 2017, the New York Times came out with its blockbuster story revealing what Frank Report readers had known for months – that Raniere had developed a blackmail and branding scheme for women slaves called DOS.

The Department of Justice began investigating and, by March, Keith ‘Vanguard’ Raniere was arrested.

In April, Allison ‘Pimp’ Mack was arrested.

In late July, NXIVM leaders, Clare ‘Legatus’ Bronfman, Nancy ‘Prefect’ Salzman and Lauren ‘I Want My Avatar Baby’ Salzman, plus low-level bookkeeper, Kathy “Fall Gal” Russell, were arrested.

Nancy Salzman told the court she is facing a life-threatening illness. Evidently, she is not exclusively using NXIVM tech to heal herself . She was absent in court yesterday because, the court was told, she is recovering from surgery.

As further evidence that the Vanguard and the Prefect have split – in court yesterday, her attorney, Robert Soloway, sat apart from the rest of the defense team and defendants – at the back of the defense table – as if he were a pariah among them.

Whether Nancy’s daughter, Lauren, also plans to flip is unclear. While she and her attorney sat with the rest, Lauren, though sitting directly across the table from her Vanguard, refused to even look at the ghastly pig Keith during the hearing.

Garaufis ordered the parties to return to court on October 4th.

Frank Parlato