Klaviger: Questions remain on Bouchey’s role in the Raniere commodities scandal

[The opinions of K.R. Claviger are his own and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the publisher.]

By K.R. Claviger

Because of the length of the original post, A Few Facts About The Commodities Trades – And The L.A. Precision Development Project – And Raniere Owes Tens Of Millions Of Dollars In Unpaid Taxes, I left out several tidbits about Keith Raniere’s commodities trades that may be of interest to readers of the Frank Report.

These include the following:

• According to her testimony in the lawsuit regarding the Precision Development Project, Barbara Bouchey started seeing Nancy Salzman for counseling in 1988-1989, more than 10 years before she was introduced to Keith Raniere. At that same time, Bouchey also took over responsibility for managing Salzman’s IRA account (I wonder how many financial planners also see one of their clients for psychotherapeutic services?).

• Bouchey joined Executive Success Programs (ESP) – and took her first training course on March 27, 2000. Less than six months later, she was madly in love with Raniere – and turning over control of her life savings to him.

• Bouchey claims that her sexual relationship with Raniere began in May 2000. She also claims that she “officially broke up with him” in May 2008.

• It appears that Keith started trading on behalf of Barbara Bouchey sometime in September 2000. This apparently was in a trading account that was in Barbara’s name – which means that Barbara would have ended up with the capital losses that resulted from the trades that were done in that account.

• It has been rumored for years that even before he convinced Bouchey to let him do commodities trades on her behalf, Raniere had done the same with Pam Cafritz. If, however, that actually happened, it appears that he used someone other than Yuri Plyam to conduct those trades.

• In addition to the money that she herself lost, Bouchey convinced several other people to get involved with Raniere’s commodities trading. These included her cousin, Chrissy Carey ($700,000), Noelle Nielsen ($200,000), and Michael Sutton ($1,400,000). Supposedly, Chrisey Carey was paid back her $700,000, though the source of the funds for that repayment is not known. There is no information as to whether Noelle Nielsen ever got paid back her $200,000.

• Bouchey’s apparent motivation for getting others involved in Raniere’s commodities trading was to generate profits that would allow her to recoup some/all of the money that she herself had lost. Not exactly the soundest of investment strategies to recommend to others – especially for a Certified Financial Planner.

• Bouchey had apparently promised Sutton that she would personally reimburse him for the $1.4 million that he had “loaned” to Raniere (Sutton reportedly lost another $3-$4 million by setting up his own commodities trading account – and mimicking Raniere’s trades). That’s why she listed Sutton as a creditor in her bankruptcy filing in 2010.

• Bouchey originally claimed that she lost $600,000 in conjunction with Raniere’s commodities trades on her behalf. She later claimed that her total losses were $1.7 million.

K.R. Claviger