India Oxenberg to Wed Chef She Met While Working at Vegan Restaurant When Still in Nxivm – the Inside Story

The man who may have had more to do with India Oxenberg quitting Nxivm than anyone else plans to marry her.

The former NXIVM slave of Allison Mack has announced she is engaged to her New York chef boyfriend, Patrick D’Ignazio.

India, 28, announced the news in an Instagram post on October 18.

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D’Ignazio works as a chef at the Double Zero pizza restaurant in New York City. It is not clear if a wedding date has been set.

Image result for patrick d'ignazio

India is the daughter of actress Catherine Oxenberg.

A highly fictionalized Lifetime movie recently aired which served to remind millions of viewers that India was in a sex cult – a slave of Allison Mack’s – and a fool for its leader, Keith Alan Raniere. It depicted Catherine Oxenberg single-handedly taking down Nxivm – as if no one else did anything but her.

Catherine Oxenberg.  She evidently lost creative control to her own life – and let morons run amok – telling a deceptive story – that brought further chagrin and calumny on India – but made Catherine look very good.

Of course, Catherine did have a large role in taking down the Nxivm cult – but she did not – as the movie misrepresents – do it alone.

Still, Catherine has been honest in the other mediums where she did maintain control over her story.

Image result for lifetime movies nxivm
Catherine Oxenberg with Gretchen Carlson

Her book, “Captive: A Mother’s Crusade to Save Her Daughter from a Terrifying Cult”, is filled with praise for others who helped her rescue her daughter (There is a new paperback edition of the book which includes a new chapter that includes an update on various events). When Catherine appeared on a Lifetime documentary with Gretchen Carlson, she was honest and forthright, not hogging all praise for herself – or making everyone who helped her rescue her daughter look bad or stupid – like the Lifetime movie did.

Image result for lifetime movies nxivm
This hideous photo was used to advertise the Lifetime movie about Catherine and her daughter, India. It shows dozens of creepy women with their hands out – at the branding table – a nice image for India to live down.

In defense of the Lifetime movie, it is patently unfair to expect that the writers should write above their maturity level, which is that of a 14 years old –  about one year more mature than their audience.

But, the happy fact is, movie or no movie – India is out of Nxivm, out of DOS, and is planning to wed – and – it is a fact that her mother had a lot to do with her leaving.

But not everything to do with it.

I suspect India was persuaded to leave the cult because of several factors:

  1. Her mother’s media efforts to get her out.
  2. The efforts of her grandmother, Princess Elizabeth, to keep the family relationship intact so that India would have some non-cult relations. India was not talking to her mother through much of the time Catherine was publicizing India’s cult involvement.
  3. The cult imploding after Catherine gave Frank Report the DOS branding story.
  4. Raniere’s and Mack’s arrest.
  5. Finding a boyfriend – Patrick – whose character inclined him to persuade India to veer away from being in a sex cult – if she wanted to be his girlfriend.
  6. Contact with people other than NXIVM members.
  7. The chance at being indicted and hauled off to prison herself for people like Raniere and Mack – who did not really care about her.

India [r] was there – and it must have been an eye-opener – when Allison [l] was arrested in her Brooklyn apartment on April 20th – at about 6 am – and handcuffed and led away. They weren’t sticking their tongues out then.
India could have been arrested too. Had it not been for her mother, Catherine, she might have been.

India was co-conspirator #2 in the arrest complaint for Raniere. Allison was co-conspirator #1.  India had allegedly been involved in the attempted sex trafficking of DOS slave Jaye – who was India’s slave.

The fact that Catherine made national news trying to get her daughter out of Nxivm – getting millions to sympathize with her plight – likely saved India from arrest.

Casper Van Dien – India’s stepfather and former husband of Catherine’s – [who is no fan of mine] – told me that Catherine was wrong to publicize India’s embarrassing plight – and that the publicity of India being branded and in a sex cult was actually far worse than her being branded and in a sex cult.

I don’t think Casper fully realized, at the time, that this was more than some kinky group – and his stepdaughter on a harmless lark – but a dangerous and illegal operation that could have led India to the same fate as Allison – prison.

India, family friend, Stanley Zareff, and Catherine Oxenberg, outside the federal courthouse during the trial of Keith Alan Raniere.

Had Catherine not told Frank Report about the branding – the reports of which literally cratered the cult – [with the help of Sarah Edmondson, Anthony Ames, Mark Vicente and Bonnie Piesse – former Nxivm members who verified to Nxians that the Frank Report stories were true] and had Catherine not agreed to be interviewed by the New York Times – whose story peaked the interest of the DOJ – EDNY –  and had Catherine not taken my comprehensive dossier on the alleged crimes of Nxivm to law enforcement – and had she not aided me in getting witnesses like Nicole and others to attorney Neil Glazer – who took them to the FBI – India might have remained with Nxivm and DOS to this day – for Nxivm might have survived.

A big part of the reason the DOJ was emboldened to go after Nxivm – backed as it was by Bronfman millions – is that they saw the public sympathy Catherine engendered. I also think the DOJ did not arrest India  – though they had named her as a criminal [CC#2] – because they realized they would have lost public support for their morally righteous prosecution.

Catherine was more sympathetic than the DOJ was righteous – and because of her, India is today a victim in the public’s eye – and not a criminal.

Image result for catherine oxenberg MEGYN KELLY good morning america
Catherine’s public appearances on Good Morning America, People Magazine, and elsewhere were very convincing.

If the DOJ had arrested India – even though she may have been guilty – they might have lost public support for what was – if you really boil it down – a pretty flimsy case of sex trafficking. [The other charges like racketeering were stronger but were developed later.]

August 10, 2019; India and Patrick D’Ignazio.

Clare Bronfman Stupid and Cheap

As mentioned above, there were factors that helped wedge India away from Nxivm.  I failed to mention one of them: Clare Bronfman’s cheapness.

Nicki Clyne and Clare Bronfman.

 

MK10ART’s painting of Keith Raniere and Allison Mack.

 

 

 

After Clare’s arrest in July 2018, Clare was forbidden to have contact with India without their attorneys present – as part of her $100 million bail package. Ironically, it was Clare’s cheapness that helped seal the deal for India’s escape.

While Clare was paying $40,000 per month for a villa for Raniere – and other DOS slaves – in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Clare gave no support money to India.

India was expected to survive and be loyal despite the fact that Nxivm was in shambles and getting money through Nxivm pursuits was almost impossible.  India’s business – Delegates – an errand service for rich Nxivm members who came to Albany to take courses – had no customers since there were no Nxivm classes anymore.

India Oxenberg Went to Work at a Vegan Restaurant

Slavemaster Nicki Cline stands outside Plant Made – waiting for slave India.

India, while working for Plant Made

India moved to Brooklyn and took a job as a manager at Plant Made in NYC – a vegan eatery.  There, she began to work at modest wages and began to see and spend time with non-cult human beings. They took her in as a friend and co-worker and, by all accounts, she was a good worker.

They helped deprogram her by virtue of their normalcy. They weren’t on readiness drills. They weren’t branded. They did not have masters or grandmasters. They could eat what they wanted. They slept as they wished.  They could even date and could marry. Some of them were married and their husbands did not keep a harem.

India also read the Frank Report as did several others who worked at Plant Made – some of whom contacted me and gave me inside reports.

During the time India was working at Plant Made and struggling to make enough money to pay her bills, Raniere and Mack and the other seven First Line slaves were in Mexico preparing for a special eight-woman blow job for Raniere.  They called it a recommitment ceremony.

The eight women planned to circle around their glorious master, the wondrous Keith Alan Raniere and plant their mouths upon his glorious and enchanting member.

Meantime, India was bereft of the daily influence of Mack and Raniere. She went to work and worked hard and, though Nicki Clyne was against her even talking to any man, India did, in fact, meet and begin to talk to a young man – Patrick.

A romance was sparked – passion grew – and despite her vow to never touch another man the rest of her life – other than her grandmaster, Keith Alan Raniere – Patrick was nearby. He was charming. He was romantic. He was courteous. He was strong. He did not seek a group blow job.

Meanwhile, Keith was 2,700 miles away, getting his member readied for what he was expecting to be a most energizing recommitment ceremony.

According to one source who knows him well, Patrick said he would never tolerate his girlfriend being in a sex cult.

India had to choose between a boyfriend and a possible husband, or waiting for Raniere to call her – and maybe one day, if she was lucky, being invited to be part of his next recommitment ceremony.

Normally, a good member of Nxivm would find the decision easy – have faith in Raniere and pucker up.

But India failed Raniere.

Her boyfriend – who may be the real unsung hero of the India/Nxivm saga – would not stand for it and she evidently wanted him more than she wanted Nxivm.

Nxivm soyboy Jim Del Negro – head of the High Council of the Society of ProtectorsI If Nxivm member, Jim Del Negro, was told his woman, Esther Carlson, was asked to join in a recommitment ceremony to properly stimulate Raniere’s flagging member, I suspect Jim would be filled with pride.

And Omar ‘Cuckie’ Boone – one of the top three leaders of Nxivm today – who is so proud Keith Raniere’s initials are on his wife’s vagina – must have been disappointed that his wife, Jimena Garza, was not invited to be part of Raniere’s group blow job.

Omar ‘Cuckie’ Boone with his wife, Jimena Garza. She is one of the leaders of DOS and has her pubic region adorned with the initials of Keith Alan Raniere. She has taken a lifetime vow of slavery to Raniere.

 

Patrick and India plan to be married.

But Patrick, maybe because he was never in Nxivm, did not want a girlfriend in a sex cult – and, while India was still fuzzy-headed and trying to make up her mind about staying with her Vanguard or leaving, Patrick prevailed.

Of course, as readers know, Raniere never got his slaves to perform their group fellatio ceremony. He was arrested before the ladies could convene and offer their winsome dedication – then Mack too and Clare Bronfman were arrested.

This made it hard for India to commune with their exalted ideas.

And so the young lady will wed one day soon, it appears.

Although I have not confirmed this with any sources, I will venture to guess that Raniere, Mack and Bronfman will not attend the wedding ceremony.

According to Page Six, India, like her mother, is planning to write a book on her experiences.

A recent shot of India [l] on the beach with a friend.

About the author

Frank Parlato

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  • So how many ex NXIVM people are there in NYC working in vegetarian restaurants?
    Double Zero is at 65 2nd Avenue, NY NY 10003 – way downtown. Bowery area, lots of
    Trump haters who do bad things to other people, sell drugs, live off the dole, etc.

  • Did Omar Boone really let his wife get branded with another dude’s initials?

    WTF!!? Why? Are they still together?

  • And for your readers and outsiders, Keith was an imperious, sex-talking little snot surrounded by certain idiot SOP guys who *saw* him lording himself, lol, in such places as the Mobile Mart around the corner from Apropos. For real. Like, who even thought he was cool? He was such a dork, tossing his hair with a select group of “men”. At the Mobile Mart!

    And then the ladies. Hoo boy. Mack, with her posse–to the Mobile Mart. Coming in after a big night of intensives at Apropos.

    India taking her run by the trailer park.

    Yeah, it didn’t take much to be “celebrities” in Halfmoon.

    Nxivm did nothing good here. No good works whatsoever. Nothing for the community. How hard would that have been, considering their great “mission”? And now the real estate as they scatter like rats.

    And haha, bye Nxivm. I do wish the Salzmans would go away, too.

  • My opinion?
    India is like the other low information/minimal education but high self-esteem types attracted to the whole Nxvm bs.

    In her case, mostly due to wealth and a combo of some woowoo/weird noblesse oblige parenting. Like Clare and some of the Mxians. Targets for the scheme, but very good ones as they had both a sense of entitlement as in, they can afford it, and also a certain lack of real life social skills.

    Oh, sure. I recall Mack calling her out on being little Principessa, which, of course, irony.

    Because every sex cult co-conspirator survivor can go running on a beach and get engaged on Instagram. Yay!

    Not Lauren. She is in Halfmoon, screwed as always. I do wonder how SOP deal with Salzmans. That has to be conflicted

    Nxivm ruined lots of other people, you know.

    But do tell us how the rich and fabulous survive.

  • As mentioned in the article keeping contact with people outside helped and always does in these cases even if it is non confrontational “nice” contact with an outsider family member who just talks about nothing cult related – the person inside then just sees normality outside which itself helps them realise what they have got into.

  • Waaaaaay too soon.

    No wonder she fell into the grips of Nxivm. Geeez…what is the damn hurry? India is the perfect example of the type of people that fall for cults. The one who cannot be confident while alone. I see bad things in her future. Very sad imo.

    • Why is it way too soon? Each couple is different. Some arranged marriages have lasted half a century while some live-in relationships have lasted mere months. There is no set time that says it’s too soon to get married.

      • On what little I do know, I feel there’s cause for concern based on her very recent brainwashing cult involvement/history. It wasn’t like she kissed the wrong toad and got a divorce, Or realized she married a real asshole, and got married on the rebound. This is waaaaay different.

        Under “normal psychological conditions”, I would agree with you.

  • Don’t know anything about this Patrick dude and don’t care to spend anytime on him, but just hope that India didn’t trade Keith and her damaged DOS leaders for something similar, given when she met this guy. If what Frank writes is true, India could have simply traded one asshole for another, if she wasn’t in a healthy state of mind when they started their relationship. Seems it would have been better for her to get free of the cult and spend some time healing. Or maybe India actually was free of the cult earlier than reported but it made for better publicity and book sales to keep that under wraps.

  • Interesting tidbit, that Nicki Clyne was opposed to India talking to any man. I would love to know more about the interaction between Nicki and India as their paths diverged. I suppose we’ll have to wait for India’s book.

  • It’s refreshing to see an update about a NXIVM member, that involves being freed from the cult.

    From what I’ve read in books by experts on such groups, and even seen in action, is that it is often such connections to the world at large that are key in people getting perspective on their involvement and ultimately falling out of the sway of the group and its leader.

    It’s also perhaps relevant that it was work in restaurant that allowed her to forge ties with people outside the group. While in Clyne’s case it’s certainly unacceptable if she’s recruiting, it’s also good for her and others to be forced to be out in the world, and it generally makes them more likely to ultimately leave.

  • In 1979 when Patty Hearst married her former bodyguard, Bernard L. Shaw, people said it wouldn’t last. Patty Hearst Shaw later said that even her own family was skeptical about the marriage. She recounted humorously that her parents gave them a vacuum cleaner as their wedding present.

    In 2013, when Mr. Shaw died, the two were still married, for more than thirty years and had become parents, even grandparents. You never know. So love and happiness sounds very, very good. Plus this couple have been dedicated to getting to know one another for quite awhile.

  • Yet, if he is a chef in NYC doesn’t that mean India is IN NYC and not with her mom in CA?
    Doesn’t that put India at risk for Nikki or some other free NXIVM acolytes to reconnect with her and convince her to rejoin the fold?
    India hasn’t been out of NXIVM long enough for her to be mentally strong to resist.
    Add to that Clare lusted after India. Spurned lovers like Clare don’t take rejection well.

  • Re India Oxenberg article:

    I enjoyed reading this recap and wrap up on the Oxenbergs. Thanks!

    Good to see Indian is going to have a normal life; and nice to know her mom is not a typical narcissistic celebrity.

  • Well Patrick is kinda cute and would look a lot better in that sexy Boudoir pose that pops up of Raniere.

  • “But Patrick, maybe because he was never in Nxivm, did not seem to want a girlfriend in a sex cult – ”
    “According to one source who knows him well, Patrick said he would never tolerate his girlfriend being in a sex cult.”

    This is a key point.
    Women who had stable relationships with loving heterosexual males were protected from the ghouls of NXIVM.
    Real men will not tolerate their girl friends being sex slaves in bisexual BDSM sex cults.

    Even with her new boyfriend Patrick and Catherine Oxenberg’s titanic efforts to save India it still required three years of effort and the arrest of both Raniere and Mack by the FBI.
    —————————————————————————————————
    “This hideous photo was used to advertise the Lifetime movie about Catherine and her daughter India. It shows dozens of creepy women with their hands out – at the branding table – a nice image for India to live down.”

    The real shame belongs to Vanguard Raniere and his stupid servile girl friend Allison Mack who built this sex slave cult and advertised it to women as “female empowerment.”

About the Author

Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist.

His work has been cited in hundreds of news outlets, like The New York Times, The Daily Mail, VICE News, CBS News, Fox News, New York Post, New York Daily News, Oxygen, Rolling Stone, People Magazine, The Sun, The Times of London, CBS Inside Edition, among many others in all five continents.

His work to expose and take down NXIVM is featured in books like “Captive” by Catherine Oxenberg, “Scarred” by Sarah Edmonson, “The Program” by Toni Natalie, and “NXIVM. La Secta Que Sedujo al Poder en México” by Juan Alberto Vasquez.

Parlato has been prominently featured on HBO’s docuseries “The Vow” and was the lead investigator and coordinating producer for Investigation Discovery’s “The Lost Women of NXIVM.” In addition, he was credited in the Starz docuseries 'Seduced' for saving 'slave' women from being branded and escaping the sex-slave cult known as DOS.

Parlato appeared on the Nancy Grace Show, Beyond the Headlines with Gretchen Carlson, Dr. Oz, American Greed, Dateline NBC, and NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, where Parlato conducted the first-ever interview with Keith Raniere after his arrest. This was ironic, as many credit Parlato as one of the primary architects of his arrest and the cratering of the cult he founded.

Parlato is a consulting producer and appears in TNT's The Heiress and the Sex Cult, which premieres on May 22, 2022.

IMDb — Frank Parlato

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Parlato,_Jr.

Contact Frank with tips or for help.
Phone / Text: (305) 783-7083
Email: frankparlato@gmail.com

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