Lauren Salzman Has Bad Reaction to Keith’s Plan for Group Blow Job

This is the next in our series on Nxivm leader Lauren Salzman.  We are studying the 20-year veteran of Nxivm, one of the top five leaders of the group.  Our studies primarily concern her testimony in the trial of Keith Alan Raniere in which she was a witness for the prosecution.

We are evaluating how much she appears to be a victim versus how much a perpetrator.

It was her goal at the trial to come off as much as a victim as possible.

In this post, we learn about the planning that took place by Keith, Daniela Padilla and Nicki Clyne to get Lauren enrolled into the idea of giving Keith a group blow job, which was called euphemistically a “recommitment ceremony.”

AUSA Tanya Hajjar in examining Lauren.

Q   How many times, Ms. Salzman, did you visit the defendant in Mexico around this time? [Dec  2017 – March 2018]

A   I think five total, four after the original trip on New Year’s.

Q   And you testified the defendant did not return to the United States during this period of time?

A   Correct.

Q  At some point were you invited to a recommitment ceremony?

A   I was, yes.

Q   Can you explain that to the jury, please?

A   Keith said that he wanted us to make some time, the first line DOS masters, not all of us, some of us, but to come and visit him alone without anybody else who had accompanied us on the other trips like Clare [Bronfman], for example, or my mom [Nancy Salzman] or some of the SOP guys or Marianna [Fernandez] and so Daniella Padilla started calling me and asking me about what the dates were of when this was going to be and communicating that he [Keith] was disturbed that we weren’t making it sooner, prioritizing it.

Q   You said some of the first line DOS masters?

A   Correct.

Q   Which ones?

A   Me, Allison [Mack], Nicki [Clyne], Loreta [Garza] Daniella [Padilla].

Q   Where were the others?

A   I don’t know where Camila [Fernandez] was, she went back to Mexico and I didn’t see her again, I don’t know exactly where she was. Monica [Duran] I think was in Tampico with her family caring for her mother and Rosa Laura [Junco] was in Albany.

Q   Did you want to participate — did you want to recommit to DOS at this time?

A   No, I didn’t want to start with DOS again. Honestly, I was relieved when we stopped doing it, when we stopped taking the naked pictures and at some point, he said “I don’t know why you guys stopped that, you should be doing it,” and Nicki and I had discussions about it like this is crazy, we don’t want to be doing it and especially right now, everything is going public, we had reason to believe that there were going to be indictments or there was investigation into what was going on and we were incredibly concerned about it. He kept reassuring us there’s nothing to be concerned about, this is going to go our way. It started sounding crazier and crazier that anything was going to go our way in this situation and I didn’t want to and I didn’t feel that that was really an option to not go forward.

Q  You said you received a call from Daniella Padilla?

A   I received a few calls from Daniella Padilla initially for scheduling but then I was teaching an intensive in Mexico City and I received a call from Daniella and she said in that call basically that the reason that she was calling was because she wanted to talk about the recommitment ceremony and that she wanted to make sure that any reactions that anybody was going to have, any upset was handled now before we got there and then she communicated — so, that was why she was calling, so that I could get upset now and not be upset later but that basically she thought that it would be really nice for us to do something special for Keith during the recommitment ceremony and basically the concept that she laid out, and I can’t remember the words, I interpreted as group sex and I said to her — I had an extreme emotional reaction and I said absolutely — like “no, I don’t — I do not think that’s part of my vow and part of my commitment with Keith to my growth has to do with having sex with you” and she said, “oh, no, that’s not my understanding of it, my understanding is that it’s going to be us pleasuring him” and so I said, “absolutely not” and I got off the phone with her and I started texting Keith and I said, “is this what you want from me, this is what you think?” — and I specifically called it “our marriage” even though I did not — I perceived that we had an incredibly strange relationship, he kept referring to it like this is a life partnership and at one time he had said, “you’re going to be my wife,” and I specifically referred to it that way because of what that meant; “this is what you want our marriage, our relationship to be?”, and he said, “no, this is not and our marriage will remain intact.”

And then he called me and he said “Daniella is crazy, that’s why I didn’t even talk to her for ten years, I don’t know where this is coming from,” but then he said, “you know, you could — look, you could be a junior member of the sorority like Rosa Laura or you can be really committed like Daniella,” and I said, “you think Daniella is more committed … than me, you think Daniella is more committed than me,” and he said, “well, you’re more committed to me but Daniella is more committed to growth,” and I said, “Daniella is committed to getting attention from you and having sex with you,” and he said, “well, she can use that to grow”. And then he said, “look, you — you’re — you have control issues and they interfere with so many things that you do and your need to understand everything really thwarts things in a way that you can’t even understand how much that thwarts things” and then — as if my asking about why this is something I need to do for my growth is a control issue and my need to understand and that that’s thwarting and inappropriate to my growth.

And then he communicated a completely nonsensical sentence, the words of it did not make sense in a sentence and I said, “I don’t understand the words that you just used, the sentence that you said doesn’t make any sense,” and he said,” I know and I should talk to you about this all the time” — like this all the time, like basically because my control is so bad he should never buy into any of my control and not answer any of the questions that I have, you know, and so — and basically “unless like you’re going to be — you’re going to be willing to surrender to anything and everything, you’re never going to get through this issue,” and I said, “there has to be a way that I can grow that isn’t this,” [group sex] and he said, “there isn’t.”

And in my mind, I was like “you just wrote a DOS manual that said you can choose anything to grow, like the master and surrendering is just one way, like you could study baseball and make that your life work and you could still get enlightened studying baseball, so how come all of a sudden if you can get enlightened doing anything including studying baseball, I have no way of growing except surrendering to a group blow job?”, and I left very disturbed and he said when we got off the phone — he said right before I got off, he was like, “so you’re” — and then he cut himself off and he said, “never mind.” And I thought that he was going to say, “so you’re on board,” like to go forward with whatever the recommitment ceremony is for the sex recommitment ceremony but I got off the phone and I called Daniella back and I was like –

Q   Ms. Salzman, I’m just going –

-A   I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

Q   I’m going to go back and go through this a little bit. When Daniella Padilla called you initially –

-A   Yes.

Q   — you said she used the words “us pleasuring him”?

A   Correct.

Q   Is that what you understood to be the sex act you were describing –

A   Yes.

Q   — which you envisioned the recommitment ceremony to be?

A   Correct, yes, this special thing we were going to do for him in the recommitment ceremony that we needed to discuss now so I didn’t have an emotional reaction when the time came to do it.

Q   You said you texted the defendant after that?

A   Yes, I did.

Q   What phone were you using to text him?

A   I had another prepaid phone that a friend had bought me in Mexico to use to communicate with him.

Q   What phone was the defendant using, if you know?

A   I don’t know specifically what phone it was, it was another I think prepaid phone, it had a 34 country code I believe.

Q   You testified the defendant said you can be a “junior member” or you can be “really committed like Daniella,” is that Daniella Padilla?

A   Yes, correct.

Q   What did you understand that to mean?

A   I understood it to mean that Daniella was on board for anything and in this case anything sexual and that that was the marker for whether you’re really committed to growth and that if I wanted to be seen as somebody who is really committed to growth, that’s what I needed to do to prove that.

Q  What is what you needed to do to prove that?

A   Anything including group sex or anything else that was asked.

Q You said after this conversation you spoke again to Daniella Padilla?

A  Correct.

Q  What did you — what was that conversation?

A  I said to Daniella, Keith said that that was not what was asked or that he didn’t instruct that [group sex], and Daniella said, “I told you that he didn’t instruct that,” and I said, “but then every other assumption that you made in the conversation including that you had an understanding from somewhere outside yourself implied that he did,” and she said, “you’re right, I’m sorry, that’s my mistake,” and she fell on the sword basically for it, took responsibility for the whole thing.

Q  Did you believe her?

A   No, absolutely not.

Q  Did you speak to Nicki Clyne as well about the recommitment ceremony?

A   I did because I was very upset, so I left the phone call with Daniella and I called Nicki and Nicki said basically, “look, this is something you’re really upset about and obviously it’s bringing up something for you and it would be good to just focus on getting through your issues, like don’t think about what you don’t know or any imaginary things that may not happen, just focus on getting through your issues,” and I calmed down a little bit. And then she said, “maybe it’s not that you just have to do this — that this is going to be” — because I was like “this is the new thing, this is the new Vow, this is what we do.” She was like, “maybe it’s not a new thing, maybe it’s just something you have to do once, you know, and once you do it, then you may never have to do it again; you don’t know.” And I was like “I’m not going to think about it” but I went back to going, “okay, what’s the bite-size piece that I can deal with right now is just focusing on getting through my issues regardless of what happens in any other circumstance” but in my mind, I was going to the recommitment ceremony to find out the truth if this really was what it was supposed to be.

Q   Did Nicki Clyne frame the fact that you didn’t want to participate in this sex act as something — as an issue you had?

A   Yes, clearly an issue that I had because I was having such an emotional reaction to it.

Q   So, what did you decide to do after this conversation with Nicki Clyne?

A  I decided to believe Keith, hope that this was not what it was, and go to the recommitment ceremony.

Q   Where was it to be held?

A   It was in Chacala which is a small fishing village about an hour and a half outside of Puerto Vallarta and we stayed in a gated community there.

Q   In Mexico?

A   In Mexico, yes.

Q   Can you describe the trip; were there additional people present there besides the defendant and the first line DOS masters?

A   Initially there were, it was kind of like a — Keith had invited a number of different people to come so there were — some of our friends and their families were there but it was kind of like a work — work vacation and a lot of the focus of it was on marketing and enrollment strategies for NXIVM given that most of our company had been effectively destroyed at that point.

Q   So, what happened during the course of the trip?

A   So, a week before Easter they — everybody left, everybody who had been on the trip left except myself, Loreta, Daniella, Nicki and Allison and we stayed to — for this recommitment ceremony and we moved from the separate houses that we had all been living in into one house with Keith.

Q   Had Clare Bronfman and Marianna, among others, been some of the people who had been present previously?

A   Yes.

Q   Were they aware of what was to take place?

A  No. Clare was aware that we stayed or she was aware at least some people were staying, I don’t know if she knew exactly who, but Marianna was not aware of any of it.

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So, here we get a good look for the first time at the runup to the famous group blow job.

We see Lauren clearly understanding that what Daniella told her – her falling on her sword – that it was her mistake or her idea – was bullshit.  Keith wanted this group blow job. Nicki and Dani were totally into it – and evidently Allison and Loreta too – but Lauren says she was not.

She was having an “issue” about it. She did not want to have group sex with Dani, Allison, Nicki, Loreta, and Keith. Five women and Keith.

And Keith was at his most manipulative, saying she did not have to be one of the more committed women, that she didn’t have to be like Daniela, superbly committed to growth. And Lauren understood him and his bullshit too – equating Daniella’s commitment to growth as nothing more than her willingness to have sex with him and other women.

Lauren did a bit of manipulating too. She refers to their strange relationship as “marriage” saying, “Is this what you want our marriage to be?”

But, of course, Keith turned it right around on her – saying there was no other way to ensure her growth but to come there and trust him, which Lauren, of course, decided to do.

She went, hoping that this was not the new normal for her and for DOS – having group sex regularly – as part of the Vow.

She was relieved that the naked photos were suspended. She expected that there would be indictments too, despite Keith’s assuring her – while talking on burner phones – that everything was going to turn out fine.

It was characteristic of the fool that while the FBI was investigating the hell out of him, he was planning group blow jobs.

The plan was that Keith would get rid of Clare and his baby mama, Mariana, and the other visitors who had come there for Easter.

The holiday was over and now it was time for some new, raw sex.  And the women – Allison, Dani, Nicki, Loreta, and Lauren – all moved out of their respective rentals and into the main, luxurious, $10,000 per week villa [that Clare paid for] and that Keith had been staying in with Mariana, his eight-month-old son, Kemar, and Clare.

He moved them out. Mariana and the baby went home to Monterrey [he would not see his son or Mariana again] – and he brought in five of his sex slaves.

In our next post, we will see how that planned recommitment ceremony worked out.

Frank Parlato