Mexican Standoff – NXIVM Style

Before the case of the U.S. v. Raniere Et Al goes to trial, there are still several issues that will ultimately need to be resolved by U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis.

One of those issues concerns whether the communications between NXIVM Corporation and two attorneys in Mexico – Ricardo M. Olmedo Gaxiola (Senor Olmedo) and Diego Ruiz Durán (Senor Ruiz) – and are entitled to attorney/client privilege.

Even though NXIVM Corporation is not currently a named defendant in the case, two of the defendants – Keith Raniere and Clare Bronfman – are attempting to assert attorney/client privilege on behalf of the company with respect to certain communications with Senor Olmedo and Senor Ruiz.

Interestingly enough, Nancy Salzman, the putative President of – and, at least on paper, the owner of – NXIVM Corporation has not attempted to assert any such privilege.

Raniere and Bronfman are apparently quite concerned about an email string which shows that on September 13, 2017, Raniere sent Bronfman the following email with the subject line labeled “What are your thoughts?”:

Ms. [Jane Doe 9],
I am the chief attorney of a criminal investigation in Mexico of more than 20 individuals tied together in a cooperative destructive network. These individuals, including yourself, have been acting against individuals who participate in the NXIVM corporation community.

You are currently connected to the criminal investigations involving fraud, coercion, extortion, harassment, stalking, theft of trade secrets (which includes use of trade secrets compromised of, amongst other things, client lists), criminal conspiracy, computer crimes and corporate espionage.

I strongly suggest that you cease and desist, undo, reverse, cancel, and retract, participation in all past, present, and future, conversations, conference calls, meetings, news media, social media, blogs, or websites, relating to this subject matter until the criminal matters are resolved. You should do everything in your power to affect this.

Your best course of action to minimize your exposure, in addition to the above, is to repair all damages to parties you have acted against, reconciling with them, and fully cooperating with the criminal investigations. In this regard, I can help you for I represent some of your victims and have access to others.

I know that people in the media (and also bloggers and the like) can be coercive, abusive in their power, and force unwitting, uninformed, participants to complicate situations and potentially even waive rights. You still have the ability to pull away from all participation with these people. Please contact me as soon as possible.

Less than 30 minutes after receiving Raniere’s email, Bronfman forwarded it to what the prosecution describes as “ a co-conspirator in Mexico”.

And – surprise, surprise – the very next day, Jane Doe 9 received an email from Senor Olmedo with the subject line “CAUSA PENAL EN MEXICO” – and the exact word-for-word text (including the misspellings and other grammatical mistakes) of the email that Raniere had sent to Bronfman.

*****

Raniere and Bronfman are also concerned about another email string that began when Raniere sent the following email to Bronfman on September 18, 2017 with the subject line labeled “Draft”:

Ms. [Jane Doe 9],

You are the only person receiving this letter. This overture is against my better judgement as I feel there is little probability of success yet more expense, but I am writing you on my clients’ behalf. If you do not respond affirmatively to this letter by 1:00pm September 19th I will need to proceed as previously required. I will then not contact you informally again.

My clients want to give you this opportunity to cooperate and minimize the impact on your life. The criminal investigations will increase in number, and thoroughness, and will not stop until justice is served. This will not go away.

The group with which you are involved contains individuals who have already served prison time, others who are currently indicted, and some that face extradition proceedings. The others are under investigation for quite serious crimes. The form of justice to which they subscribe is trial and conviction by media, personal opinion, and abuse of power. They appear to have no issue with committing a crime when it suites them. They use the actions of others to justify this. Whether the person they target is right or wrong, this method of persecution is very wrongful. You must separate from them completely to mitigate the effects on yourself.

Please divest yourself from this wrongfulness and this group. Please write to me affirmatively by the above deadline indicating you will cooperate fully. I can also help you with any criminal investigations within the United States.
Sincerely,

And – surprise, surprise, again – the very same day, Jane Doe 9 received an email from Senor Olmedo that was almost exactly the same as Raniere’s email to Bronfman.

Less than a month later, several other Jane Does started receiving similar communications from Senor Ruiz.

Jane Doe 8, for example, received an email from Senor Ruiz on October 11, 2017 that stated he was taking “…the liberty to writing to you to let you know that the State’s Attorney’s Office in Mexico, has issued some directives against you and other individuals.”

Senor Durán enclosed a letter in Spanish and a document containing an English translation directing Jane Doe 8 to “…[s]top, abstain and refrain from incurring in any type of intimidation, acts of nuisance or disturbances against CC, legal representative of Nxivm Mexico, and/or any person with any sort of relation to the Company referred herein.”

*****

In the most recent filings by the attorneys representing Raniere, Bronfman and NXIVM Corporation, they have made several new assertions with respect to this issue:
(1) That Senor Olmedo was retained by NXIVM Corporation;
(2) That Senor Durán was retained by NXIVM Mexico;
(3) That NXIVM Corporation owned 99% of NXIVM Mexico; and
(4) That NXIVM Mexico is going to retain Michael J. Sullivan, the same attorney who is currently representing NXIVM Corporation.

*****

So, what the hell is going on here?

Clearly, Raniere and Bronfman want to prohibit the prosecution from using email strings that document the fact they were behind the attempt to intimidate all the Jane Doe witnesses. That makes sense…

But why is NXIVM Corporation suddenly – and for the first time – asserting that it owned 99% of NXIVM Mexico?

That is entirely contradictory to the claims that were previously asserted by Emiliano Salinas and Alex Betancourt that they owned the Mexican operation – and that it was merely a licensee of the courses created by Raniere and had no direct connection with him.

And is it just the above-cited email strings that Raniere and Bronfman are worried about – or are there more communications with Senor Olmedo and Senor Ruiz that they’re trying to bury?

Is there any significance to the fact that the letter that was attached to Senor Ruiz’s emails referred to NXIVN Mexico rather than NXIVM Mexico? Was that just a typo – or is there, in fact, a separate entity with that name?

Frequent readers of Frank Report will recall that Raniere set up corporations with the name “NXIVM Corporation” – or some close variation of that name – in several states as well as in Puerto Rico.

One thing is for sure: Raniere and Bronfman are very worried about what may happen if the communications with Senor Olmedo and Senor Ruiz can be used as evidence by the prosecution.

Is that what’s holding up the issuance of the next superseding indictment?

Stay tuned, folks – and buy more popcorn.

It’s going to be a while before this little mini-drama is over…

K.R. Claviger