Feds Need to Investigate NXIVM’s Illegal Moving of Servers in Computer Trespass Case

By Joe O’Hara

Longtime readers of Frank Report know I was indicted in Albany County in February 2015 for allegedly accessing Nxivm’s website without permission (Also indicted at the same time were Barbara Bouchey, Toni Natalie, and John Tighe).

John Tighe

Those charges were dismissed in February 2016 via an “Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal” (ACOD) agreement.

The charges against me were bogus from the outset because, according to Toni Natalie, she had been given the Username and Password by a former member of NXIVM – Mary Jane Pino – who told Toni that she and others could utilize that password to access NXIVM’s website.

Unless Toni was lying, we had permission to use the Username and Password of an authorized user. Even if Toni was lying – which is entirely possible – John and I had no intent to trespass on NXIVM’s website because we believed we had permission to go there (Barbara accessed the NXIVM website via a different set of credentials).

But a much graver crime was committed by NXIVM and its allies during the process that led to charges being filed in this case.

With new evidence emerging to prove just how many people aided and abetted this false prosecution, it’s time for federal officials to undertake a formal investigation of this matter.

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The Initial Investigation Resulted In No Charges

Here’s how this case started out:

In mid-2011, several representatives of NXIVM filed a criminal complaint with the Office of the Saratoga County District Attorney alleging that Toni, John and I accessed its website without permission (Barbara got involved in the case later on).

In April 2012, several members of NXIVM – including Keith Raniere, Nancy Salzman, Clare Bronfman, Pamela Cafritz, Ivy Nevares, Siobahn Hotaling, and Esther Chiappone – filed a similar complaint with the New York State Police (NYSP).

NYSP Senior Investigator Rodger Kirsopp was assigned as the lead investigator on the case.

For the next eight months, Kirsopp worked closely with Saratoga County Assistant District Attorney (ADA) Jesse Ashdown to put together a prosecutable case against Toni, John and me.

During the course of his investigation, Kirsopp received “evidence” of the alleged unauthorized computer accessing from Steve Ose and Ben Meyers – both of whom told him that they worked as “independent contractors” for NXIVM (I don’t know whether Kirsopp ever figured out that both Ose and Meyers were long-time members of the NXIVM cult but since he’s a Senior Investigator with the NYSP, I would hope so).

Throughout the investigation, Kirsopp had numerous meetings with – and numerous telephone calls with – three attorneys from NXIVM’s law firm, O’Connell & Aronowitz: Steve Coffey, Pam Nichols and Mike McDermott (Kirsopp’s “Incident Report” documents more than two dozen such encounters, which is an awful lot of meetings with attorneys on a case like this).

On August 29, 2012, Kirsopp met with ADA Jesse Ashdown and with the Saratoga County DA, Jim Murphy, to discuss the case. At that time, they made contact with Darren Miller, an Assistant Attorney General in the Office of the New York State Attorney General to discuss “…possible AG involvement for ease of prosecution and issuance of multiple subpoenas through one court”.

On December 13, 2012, Kirsopp was notified by ADA Ashdown that the Office of the New York State Attorney General Office had “…declined prosecution/involvement in this investigation”.

On or about that same date, the Office of the Saratoga County District also declined to prosecute the case.

Simply stated, the New York State and the Saratoga County prosecutors did not feel there was a criminal case to prosecute.  And that, boys and girls, should have been the end of the story.

Instead, it just marked the point at which a variety of law enforcement officials, private attorneys, and NXIVM members undertook a series of illegal and unethical actions in order to keep the bogus computer trespass case alive.

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Web Of Deceit

The next move was downright criminal.  They sought a more friendly prosecutor by falsely claiming that the alleged “crime” had occurred in a different location.

On January 9, 2013, Kirsopp received a call from Albany County ADA David Rossi – who told him he had been contacted by NXIVM attorney Mike McDermott about the investigation.

Rossi told Kirsopp that because of a conflict-of-interest issue, the Albany County DA’s office would not be prosecuting the case but, instead, would have a Special District Attorney appointed to pursue charges against me, Toni and John (I assume the “conflict-of-interest” had to do with the fact that the Albany County DA, P. David Soares, had previously brought bogus criminal charges against me in 2005 at the request of NXIVM).

Interestingly enough, Kirsopp’s report makes no mention of the fact that the location of the alleged computer trespass crime had suddenly shifted from Saratoga County to Albany County (For Frank Report readers from outside the Capitol District, please be advised that the two counties are separated by the Mohawk River).

So, even though the servers that hosted NXIVM’s website were ALWAYS located in Steve Ose’s house in Saratoga County – and even though Kirsopp is a Senior Investigator with the NYSP – he never once thought it was strange that the “crime scene” suddenly jumped over the Mohawk River from Saratoga County and landed in downtown Albany.

Nor did he it find it strange that the Special Prosecutor ultimately appointed to prosecute three of NXIVM’s top enemies was none other than a woman who used to work under NXIVM attorney Mike McDermott, when he was at the Albany DA’s office.

Yes, that’s right, the women appointed as the prosecutor was the NXIVM attorney’s former underling in the Office of the Albany County District Attorney.

This did not happen all at once. At first, Bruce Lennard was appointed to be the Albany County Special DA to pursue charges against me, Toni and John.

But he apparently asked too many questions and was bothered by several aspects of the case.

So exit Bruce Lennard – and enter Holly Trexler, an ambitious Albany lawyer who happened to have formerly worked under Mike McDermott when he was the Deputy Albany County DA.

Interestingly enough, Kirsopp apparently knew that Trexler was going to be Lennard’s replacement before she did. In fact, he first attempted to contact her on March 19, 2014 – almost two months before she was appointed to replace Lennard (I guess that kind of prescience is how he got to be a Senior Investigator with the NYSP).

Once her appointment was confirmed by then Albany County Court Judge Peter Lynch – who just happened to have worked as one of NXIVM’s attorneys before his ascension to the bench – Trexler moved ahead with the investigation (Just another coincidence).

Meanwhile, the O’Connell & Aronowitz law firm arranged to purchase all of my emails that were located on a server that was used by my former business (That server had been purchased by a guy in Brooklyn, NY named Jack Goldenberg).

Eventually, Kirsopp went to Brooklyn, NY to pick up the server that had already been cloned by Alex Finn, an IT consultant who worked for the O’Connell & Aronowitz law firm.

Finally, after an investigation that had gone on for almost three years, Trexler was successful in getting us all indicted on computer trespass charges in Albany County.

Because he was also facing child porn charges [based on what we now know, it’s quite possible the child porn was planted on his computer] John pleaded guilty to the bogus computer trespass charge (We’re still investigating the child porn charge – and we’ll have more on that later).

Toni, Barbara and I, however, refused to accept any of the “plea deals” that Trexler offered (Trexler made it very clear from the outset that she never wanted to take this case to trial).

Meanwhile, Kristin Keeffe provided crucial information to the defense that blew up the entire case.  It was Kristin who came forth to tell us that the servers had been moved across the river, after the fact, in order to create jurisdiction in Albany County. A source at the scene has since told Frank Report that he witnessed the servers being installed at a company located at 80 State Street in Albany after we had already been indicted – which was, of course, completely illegal and unethical.

When we raised the issue of the NXIVM servers not having been located in Albany County at the time of the alleged crime, Trexler quickly agreed to have the charges dismissed via ACOD agreements. But before that happened – and as newly discovered evidence will show – NXIVM and its attorneys arranged to have the NXIVM servers relocated to Albany County.

Yes, as unbelievable as that sounds, NXIVM and its attorneys knowingly committed a fraud upon the court by relocating the servers that hosted the NXIVM website from Saratoga County to Albany County.

There are now witnesses who will testify that Steve Ose and Ben Meyers oversaw the relocation of the servers – and how, where, and when it occurred.

Whether Trexler – who was subsequently appointed as an Albany City Court judge (another coincidence) – was involved in this duplicitous act has not yet been determined.  But her name should certainly be added to the list of people that federal investigators need to interview about this case.

And here’s a complete list of those names in alphabetical order: (I hope I didn’t leave anyone out):
– Jesse Ashdown
– Clare Bronfman
– Esther Chiappone
– Steve Coffey
– Alex Finn
– Jack Goldenberg
– Siobahn Hotaling
– Rodger Kirsopp
– Bruce Lennard
– Peter Lynch
– Mike McDermott
– Darren Miller
– Ben Meyers
– Jim Murphy
– Ivy Nevares
– Pam Nichols
– Steve Ose
– Mary Jane Pino
– Keith Raniere
– David Rossi
– Nancy Salzman
– P. David Soares

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A serious crime was committed here. And I’m not talking about a few people looking at the NXIVM website that literally thousands of people had access to – with the permission, according to Toni, of the woman whose account we utilized.

The real crime was moving NXIVM’s computer servers from one county to another – after the alleged computer trespass – in order to have jurisdiction to criminally indict people in Albany County and put them in prison.

The people who conspired to do this should be charged with racketeering. It was part of the racketeering enterprise of NXIVM and a far greater racketeering predicate act than the mere altering of a videotape in a civil lawsuit against Rick Ross.

Yet, that was a predicate act alleged and proven in the Keith Raniere trial.

A conspiracy to move the computer servers after the fact and claim they were always there in order to try to put people in prison is a great crime.  When you consider how many people were involved in this, it should be easy to prove. One of the rats will surely rat out the others.

Frank Report can provide at least two key witnesses to this crime. One witness actually saw the moving of the servers and the makeshift way they were placed in the new location in Albany [More on that later].

Hey, U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of New York, do you think you can handle this?  Or should I just reach out to Moira Kim Penza – and have her and her colleagues in the Eastern District of New York do your job again?

J.J. O'Hara