UPDATE
Judge Garaufis has denied Allison Mack’s motion for a 30-day continuance for the trial that is currently slated to start on April 29th.
No reason was given for the denial.
And the pressure mounts…
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Allison Mack wants to get a seat on the Plea Deal Bus…
In their latest filing in the case, Mack’s attorneys, William F. McGovern and Sean S. Buckley, have asked the court to postpone the start of the trial from April 29th to May 29th.
The reason they cite for the request is that “Ms. Mack actively is engaged in negotiations with the government regarding a potential pretrial resolution of her case, and the additional time will allow the parties to conclude those negotiations without prejudicing their ability to prepare for trial”.
Mack’s attorneys noted that the request was made “with the consent of the government” – which drew an immediate response from Marc Agnifilo, the lead attorney for Keith Raniere.
In a one-paragraph letter, Agnifilo writes:
Dear Judge Garaufis:
Knowing that Your Honor has 500 jurors coming in for jury selection on April 8, 2019 and April 9, 2019, the government remarkably consents to a 30-day adjournment of the trial to conduct plea negotiations. (Dkt. 481.) As Your Honor reconfirmed as recently as 30 minutes ago, this trial is going forward with jury selection on April 8, 2019. We thank the Court for setting the firm trial date that has existed for months now, and we look forward to abiding by the Court’s trial date.
Sincerely,
Marc A. Agnifilo
Teny R. Geragos
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The latest filing on behalf of Mack confirms that she is seeking to avoid going to trial on charges that, in the worst case, could see her ending up in prison for the rest of her life.
Two of her co-defendants – Nancy Salzman and Lauren Salzman – have already pleaded guilty in the case.
Nancy pleaded to one count of Racketeering Conspiracy – and Lauren pleaded guilty to one count of Racketeering and one count of Racketeering Conspiracy.
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Given how plea deals usually work in cases involving multiple defendants, it is expected that Mack will have to plead to at least two counts in order to avoid going to trial.
Per the second superseding indictment, Mack is facing the following charges:
• Count One: Racketeering Conspiracy
• Count Two: Racketeering
(a) Racketeering Act Ten: State Law Extortion
(b) Racketeering Act Twelve: Sex Trafficking Of Jane Doe 5 and Forced Labor Of Jane Doe 5
• Count Six: Forced Labor Conspiracy
• Count Seven: Wire Fraud
• Count Eight: Sex Trafficking Conspiracy
• Count Nine: Sex Trafficking Regarding Jane Doe 5
• Count Ten: Attempted Sex Trafficking Regarding Jane Doe 8
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Lawyers familiar with the case have opined that Mack may have to plead to at least one sex-related charge in order to get any sort of plea deal.
If that’s the case, then it’s quite possible that Mack could end up being a registered sex offender for the rest of her life.
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THIS IS A DEVELOPING STORY – AND UPDATES WILL BE MADE AS MORE INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE.
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FIRST UPDATE
Mack was the first of the defendants in the case who was supposedly considering a plea deal. But that occurred very early in the case – and was viewed by many as a ploy to ensure that she was allowed to remain out on bond as she awaited trial.
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As noted in an earlier post, Clare Bronfman has also been working on a plea deal.
But hers apparently involved a lame-brained attempt on the part of her lead attorney, Mark Geragos – and her “consultant”, Michael Avenatti – to trade off information that Avenatti had about alleged illegal activities on the part of the Nike company to get a sweetheart deal for Clare.
Whether the prosecution will engage in any further negotiations with Clare is uncertain.
But, unless she gets her skinny ass in gear, she will likely be getting a worse deal than Allison gets.
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Thus far, it appears that Keith Raniere and Kathy Russell are the only two defendants that are not actively involved in plea deal negotiations.
Unfortunately for Kathy, it’s beginning to look like she’s going to end playing the part of Gilligan while Raniere plays the part of The Skipper in this version of Gilligan’s Island.
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Frank Parlato 
Janine Morrison 
J.J. O'Hara 
Richard Luthmann 
Marie White 
Paul Serran
Please leave a comment: Your opinion is important to us!
Allison should have taken a plea deal when they first offered.
I can’t see her taking a plea deal because then she would have to admit guilt and she thinks that nothing she did is wrong.
She either wants the more serious charges thrown out and/or a very light prison sentence.
April 29 is the Day to pay the piper. Opening arguments set to start.
Do we have a name for that day?
D-day? VJJ-day (Victory for the Vajayjay day)?
Thoughts?
No, we don’t need a name for every day of the process.
So Clare was/is attempting to make an end run around the justice system by bargaining with information on another crime.
Interesting how the idle rich think and think their lives are worth more than ours.
I wonder…..Nancy, Lauren, Alluson, you thought Clare and Sara were your true friends.
Where is Sara now, hmmm? And Clare? She is wanting to leave you swinging in the wind.
Allison, poor urchin that she is, will more than likely, when she is paroled, spend her life as a registered sex offendor.
They labeled themselves feminists, bad ass bitches. Yet, and yet, Keith used all of them, bent all of them.
Perhaps we should bring back stoning, allowing any, and all, women to stone Keith in the public square, for all to see as a warning to others.
And, yes, I will cast the first stone.
Why does she want to delay the trial?
Does she really need 30 days to fugure out if she wants to take a plea deal or not?
Apparently Mack waited far too long and now she’s going to be 3rd on the plea bus, perhaps even 4th or 5th. The deals are going to be getting worse for her. At some point, the deals offered may be so bad that she prefers to have a chance at trial and maintain the ability to appeal, something those who do a plea deal can’t do, unless there is an extreme situation that presents itself, such as the government making up evidence. It’s commonly called a rock and a hard place.
It would be great if KAR were the only one left to stand trial, with scads of former co-Defendants testifying against him. If Allison were at his trial, she might be a distraction – an attractive one at that – from the monster who orchestrated ALL of this.
Allison Mack will have a difficult time in prison.
Prisons are not designed to cater to the whims of inmate
No, they should ALL face trial. They are a cult of perpetrators and should all be punished for what ever they have been involved with. All ISIS terrorists should be killed, not just the founder.
Mack isn’t that good looking, especially if she wears something that shows her cankles. Her entire body is out of proportion, something the show directors can minimize and won’t be used in court.
Oh, and over at Tony Ortega’s Underground Bunker – where they seem to rely on reporting by Village Diane – there’s a new piece:
Allison Mack wanted 30-day delay for plea; Keith Raniere opposed and judge denied,
“The judge rejected Mack’s request.”
It was hardly a few minutes ago that someone was opining that Mack was unlikely to make a plea deal at this point, which shows how wrong assumptions can be. I wouldn’t count Russell out, either – she may well come back from spending time with family in Georgia, just the sort of thing that tends to remind people where their real allegiances lie and bite the bullet.
Still, my guess for Bronfman is that she has been trying to find a way to cut a Jussie Smollett type deal for herself, under the implicit threat that otherwise she will expend so much on lawyers and lawyering that even the feds will be hard pressed to gain a conviction or make it stick on appeal; and if not, she will indeed wage a no-expense-spared, no-holds-barred legal fight, probably including mob-style jury tampering attempts.
I expect that Raniere will prefer to go to trial rather than admit guilt, which will allow him to go down as a martyr to his ideas and retain a few diehard followers who believe in his innocence – we can probably already see here, some of the people who would become his version of Manson girls – and putting himself in what seems to be an accustomed role as the covert victim.
But I remember reading something that made it sound like Bronfman had actually secured a Third Party Cooperation Agreement. Are we so certain, the Geragos’ and Avenatti’s effort failed?
Anon: You’re right. I felt certain Allison would never take a deal and would insist on standing trial with KAR. So much for assumptions.
To be fair, I thought for a while a case could have been made either way. It seemed like she might have been like Susan “Sexy Sadie” Atkins or Lynnette “Squeaky” Fromme were to Charles Manson, the diehard loyalist. But being back home living with family for a year, is also the sort of thing that breaks connections with a group, its indoctrination and warped worldview.
And it still could be that prosecutors are unwilling to knock off enough charges and jail time (or at least sentencing recommendations) to make a deal that Mack can face accepting at this point, so she may be unable to bring herself to do the smart thing, and instead will go to trial. I don’t see why her lawyers would have needed 30 days for more negotiations over a relatively small number of charges, so my guess is that it was more about giving her time to try to come to terms with accepting the best deal to be made, probably including the bitter pill of ending up a registered sex offender. Somewhat sadly, she’s spent the last 17 years playing the 17 year old girl next door, on TV and in real life, and is now faced with being behind bars until she looks more like one of Vanguard’s older cast-offs, coming out virtually unrecognizable and unemployable.
Allison Mack can not admit that she is a Racketeer and pimp.
Like all Narcissists Allison is perfect and has no flaws.
You are the ones with flaws.
She is SUPERIOR and you are inferior.
Narcissistic personality disorder
Expect special favors and unquestioning compliance with their expectations
Take advantage of others to get what they want
Behave in an arrogant or haughty manner, coming across as conceited, boastful and pretentious
Become impatient or angry when they don’t receive special treatment
Insist on having the best of everything — for instance, the best car or office
Have an exaggerated sense of self-importance
Experience major problems dealing with stress and adapting to change
Expect to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it
Exaggerate achievements and talents
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20366662
Mack is obviously entertaining the idea of a plea deal. With two already flipped, it getting extremely risky not to flip. Her codefendants who plead can’t claim the 5th, and if they don’t tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, the judge will nail them with a longer sentence than they otherwise would have received.
Scott, you’re assuming that Mack is thinking the way you or I would.
I have made the point that Mack has Narcissistic Personality Disorder and operates somewhat differently from you and I.
How else would one explain Mack branding women and thinking it’s no big deal?
Moreover Any guilty plea by Mack to a sex related charge makes her a sex offender for life.
You don’t think like me, either. You’re so wrapped up in everything Mack that you’re almost as nutty as a former NXIVM member. Two other fruitcakes have already made plea deals, and both of them were around Raniere longer than Mack. The mountains of evidence that she now knows the Feds have, the separation from Raniere for a year and seeing how pathetic he looks, waiting for the Feds to make a mistake and they haven’t, not being offered a very good deal because she’s at least 3rd in line, getting lots of lawyer advice from outside the NXIVM fishbowl, etc., all mean Mack should be seeing some reality. The sex offender for life is a blip on the radar compared to everything else she’s facing. In fact, the sex offender for life charge should bring her out of her stupor if nothing else does.
I think you are probably right about her being in denial – and I’d that she’s having trouble signing off on a plea deal, because it is a stretch for her to agree to even what her attorneys think is reasonable admission of guilt, and acceptance of consequences. Because she was one of the more culpable defendants, involved in some of the most reprehensible things, I think the prosecution was probably never willing to cut her a sweetheart deal, and preferred to “roll up” some of the others first.
She certainly displays elements of narcissism. On that account, and others, I suspect she is more like Raniere than is immediately obvious. Both also probably came from abusive environments that left them with warped boundaries, and stuck in late adolescent sexuality.
I’d thought that this might go down more like the trial of Manson, whose inner circle of followers had a lot of similar dynamics to Raniere’s – including the use of techniques taken from Scientology. Manson choose to ignore good advice and instead testified, essentially taking the role of the martyr, and I think we may well see something similar in this case; also, Susan “Sexy Sadie” Atkins decided to abrogate a plea agreement, and instead face death, by lying on the stand to protect him, a reminder that we may yet see some strange and surprising developments. Also as in Manson’s case, I think we can already see signs that Raniere will have a gallery of diehard female followers, at least as long as he maintains his innocence, which is another reason for him to fight on. One major difference, is that Raniere taught extreme self-interest, though he also twisted things around in such a way that others served his own interest; but as I think we’re starting to see, any of his followers who actually end up faced with their own interests on the line, and the time and distance to re-consider things, will decided to look out for themselves.
These women aren’t like the tough-as-nails Manson followers, they are rich, pampered b!tches.
What irony.
Clare Bronfman has spent millions and millions of her own money for attorneys to represent her buddies only to have those same attorneys bury her underneath the prison.
Wow.
Edgar Bronfman , Sr. Is surely spinning in his grave.
It’s standard practice to plead innocent and see what the government has for evidence and hope they make an error. Then, when it doesn’t look good, the defendants start flipping like flapjacks. It also maximizes the food the lawyers can feed their kids.
What the heck,
Mack has had almost a year to consider a plea deal. Had she made it right away, she had fewer charges against her. What an airhead.
The Judge won’t start a trial that will fall into the summer months. He has already stated that.
The good news with a delay into the fall.
*Raniere has to spend more time at the MDC.
*It takes away Raniere attorneys’ excuse to move the child porn to the NDNY.
Thanks Krclaviger for taking time out of your day to report the latest NXIVM trial news.
Have a great weekend!
I think this crazy. she had all that time to a plea deal. don’t feel sorry for Her at all. for the fours years she lived near me I saw too much. her house was like a hotel. every time – three was cars parked back here with young girls all the hours of the night.