Source: Nancy & Lauren Salzman cooperating – Clare Bronfman, flustered, frustrated that money can’t buy her way out of prison

A source close to Clare Bronfman told Frank Report that Nancy and Lauren Salzman are cooperating with prosecutors, telling them everything and anything they know about Keith Alan Raniere – the man they worked for, followed, had intimate relations with, and worshiped.

They are hoping to achieve “substantial cooperation” with the government, which will aide in their reduced sentencing.

This is a far cry from the Lauren Salzman who once said she would sacrifice a whole city to save the life of one Vanguard – and sacrificed nearly 20 years of her life waiting for him to impregnate her with the avatar baby he promised.

And Nancy, who had a giant picture of Vanguard as her computer screensaver, and who once said that Raniere’s Rational Inquiry was the greatest discovery since mankind invented writing.

The Bronfman-source confirmed that mother and daughter not only are working to save themselves prison time by pleading guilty but now seem [or pretend] to have been the light – they are finally awakened: Keith Raniere is a fraud. Yes, they know it now – or so they say. He is and always was a very bad man.

The Salzmans are also offering to provide evidence against Clare Bronfman, Kathy Russell, and Allison Mack.

They are turning state’s evidence and Clare knows it.  So does Raniere. The lawyers all know it. Allison’s lawyers know it.  It is unclear, however, if Kathy Russell is aware of it.

Clare, too, seems to have awakened to a degree.

The source added, “Clare is not funding Raniere’s defense anymore,” – inside or secretly outside of the trust fund.  Clare is in “save herself” mode.

She is no longer enamored of the Vanguard.  She wants but one thing: Save herself. Vanguard got her into this and she wants to get out herself.

Clare recently “fired” lead lawyer Susan Necheles and her team and hired Mark Geragos. The old team knew they were fired but were left in the dark about the transition.

Geragos brought in Michael Avenatti, initially, as Clare told the court, to handle a “civil lawsuit in the Western District of New York.”   That civil suit is against me. What role Geragos had in mind with Avenatti in my lawsuit is hard to know since he got in trouble before he could take action and was subsequently fired by Clare.

[I suspect they may have planned to use Avenatti to possibly try to shut down the Frank Report. I am deeply disappointed that I never got to go toe-to-toe with Avenatti. It would have been wonderful publicity for Frank Report. But, alas, he got himself arrested and I never had the chance to take him on on the national stage.]

From what I gather, Clare fired Necheles because she told Clare that the best plea deal she could get from EDNY included prison time.  With all her money, Clare must have felt it outrageous that this pissant lawyer [who she could buy and sell] would tell her  – Clare Bronfman – that she would have to do prison time like she was a common criminal.

Clare honestly thought she could muscle and bully and buy a deal from the Feds – without prison.

This foolish thinking is what led to Avenatti’s and Geragos’ clumsy attempt at trying to make a deal for Clare.  The two lawyers went to Deputy US Attorney Mark Lesko to try to cut a Third Party Cooperation Agreement to buy down prison time  – or at least get severance from the Raniere trial.

They were likely offering to trade evidence and possibly witness[es] to crimes allegedly committed by Nike officials in return for going easy on Clare. How much Clare was going to pay Avenatti and Geragos for this trade-off – if they pulled it off – is anybody’s guess (Hint: Avenatti was arrested for trying to extort $25 million from Nike for the same information – and Geragos was named as a co-conspirator in that case).

We can be reasonably certain that it was evidence against Nike that was offered since Judge Garaufis instructed Lesko to share a letter Lesko had sent to the judge, under seal, about the meeting with Geragos and Avenatti with the Southern District of NY – which is handling the Nike extortion case.

The Third Party Cooperation Agreement blew up in Clare’s face

On March 19, the same day Geragos and Avenatti went to see Lesko, Clare and Geragos were in court on a Curcio hearing.

It was reported that Clare glared at Moira Penza – so much so that Geragos had to tell her to “chill out.”

Penza’s boss – Lesko – had just met with Clare attorneys – the two biggest, toughest, badass attorneys in America. They told him a thing or two. They were going to make a deal. They were going to take care of Clare.

Confident she had the upper hand, Clare would stare down Penza.  Clare was the money queen. Penza was nothing. What does Penza make a year – a lousy $150,000? Why Clare could buy and sell her a thousand times over. So she stared her down.

Then it all blew up the following week. On Tuesday, March 26th [KAR-ma Day for ex-Nxians], Avenatti was arrested. Geragos was identified as co-conspirator #1 and an indictment might be forthcoming for Geragos. it made national news.

Privately, Avenatti was fired from Clare’s criminal cases [and my civil case].

Clare went from having the two most badass lawyers in America to one embattled lawyer who may be indicted this week.

On Wednesday, when Clare went to court for a hastily called Curcio hearing, she was no longer tough girl. She was not trying to stare down anyone.

When asked by Judge Garaufis if Avenatti was one of her lawyers  – a fact not publicly known at the time -and a question he already knew the answer to -Clare did not know how to answer – so she fainted.

The poor little rich girl is going to prison. Her money won’t be able to buy her out. So she fainted or faked a faint.

Nancy always takes care of #1

How much evidence Nancy and Lauren can provide to the DOJ concerning Keith and Clare is hard to say. How much the DOJ needs from them is also uncertain. They had a pretty strong case before Nancy and Lauren stepped up to save themselves.

I do think it’s curious that Nancy – who got her daughter into Nxivm – was first to make a plea deal and made a better deal than Lauren.

First come, first served. Nancy took good care of herself, ahead of her daughter.

It is ironic, one of the driving forces for Nxivm – the Prefect herself – will wind up with the least prison time – yet she orchestrated so much of the criminal enterprise.

In those early days – when Clare was just a young ninny, it was Nancy, as much as Keith, that sucked her into Nxivm and kept her there to be bled dry.

Nancy will get less time than her daughter, less than Clare, maybe even less than Kathy Russell. Yet Nancy was the guilty one behind all of them losing their lives to Nxivm.

One of the guiltiest and dirtiest will get the least prison sentence.

And the people she brought in – will pay a heavier penalty than her.

EDNY smart to drop charges of child porn & sexual exploitation of a minor  – here’s why:

While the EDNY dropped child porn and sexual exploitation charges against Raniere, they have only been dropped from the standpoint of these being separate charges.

All of the child porn and sexual exploitation evidence is still part of the RICO case and are predicate acts.  They’ve been dropped as stand-alone charges only.

In other words, the EDNY jury will see the child porn images and hear testimony from witnesses about Raniere’s child sex offenses – the same evidence – as if they did not drop the charges. The evidence will be presented as part of the racketeering and racketeering conspiracy charges. These charges carry maximum terms of 20-years.

The EDNY lost nothing by dropping these charges as stand-alone charges and gained plenty – if the goal is to put Raniere away for a long, long time.

The EDNY is still going to present evidence and Raniere’s co-defendants are all going to have to face the underage sex evidence – as part of the overall conspiracy – which was, in part, to facilitate Raniere’s sexual appetites including his lust for underage girls.

The beauty of this is that the Northern District can separately try Raniere for the child porn and sexual exploitation of a minor as stand-alone crimes – without double jeopardy.

In essence, the DOJ gets two bites at the same apple. Two trials – with the same evidence.

If Raniere should get off on some or all of racketeering charges, the NDNY  – using evidence provided by the EDNY – can try him on child porn and exploitation – which comes with heavy prison time.

If Raniere is convicted at his first trial- and gets say 25 years, then the NDNY can try him next. And if he’s convicted at a second trial, he may get another 25 years.  In one respect, this may be considered the insurance policy that Raniere gets life in prison.

Judges in NDNY are aware of Raniere and Bronfman

If the Nxivm case heads to the Northern District, the fact that Nxivm once probed the finances of federal judges there may loom large at trial.

Keith Raniere ordered the spying. Clare and Sara Bronfman paid for it.  They were defrauded – after spending $1 million to secretly spy on federal judges and other enemies.

Clare and sister Sara hired Canaprobe, a Canadian private detective agency, to spy on enemies, in particular to get offshore bank records. Canaprobe subcontracted the investigative work to two “investigators” who provided reports that turned out to be bogus.

Clare did not know it at the time and paid $1 million to get dirt on judges and other enemies. The laugh was on her when she found out investigators just made stuff up about the judges. [The Canaprobe investigators evidently made this a pattern and went to US federal prison for their defrauding other clients.]

2015 09 21 Legal papers_ NXIVM officials probed finances of 6 federal judges, Senator Schumer, others – Times Union

Whether this will impact a judge’s impartiality, as he or she presides over a trial where the defendants, Raniere and Bronfman, had previously devised a plot to spy on them but were too stupid to hire an honest investigator, is an interesting thing to ponder.

Of course, any judge publicly identified as having been spied on may have to recuse himself.

Viva Executive Success!

Frank Parlato