Frank Report Exceeded Expectations – Where to From Here?

I remember the early days of Frank Report – when Frank was first trying to expose some of the things that were going on within the NXIVM/ESP criminal enterprise.

I’m sure that many of the initial readers – even those that were members of NXIVM/ESP – had trouble believing some of what Frank was writing about.

None of those revelations surprised me because I already knew about most, if not all, of them.

But I worried whether other people would think Frank was making things up.

His very first story about NXIVM/ESP contained numerous revelations about some of the illegal activities that were going on inside the cult [Suggestion: Go back and read that first story to see just how much Frank was willing to put himself on the line in his effort to take them down).

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Hacking Into Other People’s Email Accounts and Bank Accounts?

I knew they had already done this to Rick Ross and to me.

And there was no reason to think they hadn’t done it to others.

But would people really believe Frank’s allegation that Raniere had put together a team whose primary task was to hack into the email accounts and personal records of people that he regarded as his “enemies”?

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Bribing Politicians and Government Officials?

While I had no irrefutable proof,  I “knew” that NXIVM/ESP had probably bribed or compromised several politicians and governmental officials.

Keith had once asked me to talk to a federal judge who was presiding over one of the NXIVM/ESP cases to see if he might be willing to rule in favor of NXIVM/ESP.  When I told Keith I wouldn’t do that, he said he was just testing me. But I never believed that to be the case.

And I knew from what Nancy Salzman had told me that NXIVM/ESP had already compromised the former head of the New York State Senate, Joe Bruno, with the Explorations of Meaning (EMs) that Nancy Salzman performed on him – and the nude massages he was getting from various members of Raniere’s harem. At the time, Bruno was one of the most influential people in New York State.

I had also made reports to just about every federal and state agency that could undertake an investigation into the cult’s various illegal activities – and turned over tons of evidence to each of them. And not one of them ever did a thing to put an end to the NXIVM/ESP criminal enterprise.

But would Frank Report readers really believe what Frank was exposing in terms of the cult’s bribing and compromising of politicians and government officials?

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Bringing Illegal Aliens Into the U.S.?

Shortly after I started working for NXIVM/ESP, I was tasked to find attorneys who could protect various members of the cult who were here illegally.

One of those members was Loreta Garza – who would eventually advance to become the head of a looney-tunes child experiment called Rainbow Cultural Gardens.

When Keith asked Loretta how she was doing the first time I met her, she answered by apologizing that she was “having trouble losing the last five pounds” – which, given how thin she was, struck me as weird. It was several years later before I found out from a Frank Report story about Raniere’s various diet regimens for the women in his “inner circle”.

Every time I was asked to help out someone who had “immigration problems”, I referred them to a highly-regarded Albany law firm that did things by the book. When that didn’t produce the results that Raniere wanted, he found other, less scrupulous lawyers to work on those cases.

As much as I knew about all this, I still worried that Frank’s revelations about all the cult members who were in the U.S. illegally might sound made up. Especially when he started to provide details about fake marriages – and phony IDs.

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Massive Tax Evasion?

No surprise there…I had listened to Kathy Russell “explain” how NXIVM was legally avoiding paying any taxes per an “accounting system” that Keith had developed (When I told her that this “system” was totally illegal, she looked at me like my forehead was suddenly sprouting horns).

I also knew, via Kathy, that with the exception of Nancy Salzman, almost everyone who was working for NXIVM/ESP had failed to report any of the income and/or benefits they received from the cult. Even those who had annual earnings of more than $100,000.

With the exception of Nancy, NXIVM/ESP didn’t issue W-2 statements or 1099 forms to any of its staff.

And Raniere routinely preached that there was no ethical basis for the U.S. taxation system.

But would Frank Report readers believe that this stuff had been going on for more than a decade without anyone getting investigated or prosecuted?

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The Bronfman Sisters’ Duplicity and Stupidity.

I knew that the Bronfman sisters were very rich –  and that they had bailed out Raniere from his disastrous foray into the world of options trading.

I also knew they were paying for all of NXIVM/ESP’s legal bills – including for filings they had no chance in hell of winning (Raniere once blew approximately $500,000 on appealing the denial of a Temporary Restraining Order all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court).

But I worried whether readers of Frank Report would believe the extent of the Bronfman sisters’ duplicity and stupidity.

Things like their willingness to believe Keith’s claim that it was their father, Edgar Bronfman, Sr., who had personally intervened to cause all of his commodities losses. Nobody’s that dumb, right?

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NXIVM Had Already Begun to Flex Its Power

By the time that Frank launched the Frank Report, NXIVM/ESP had already caused major problems for several people.

People like Rick Ross – a cult deprogrammer who ended up in a civil lawsuit that went on for 14 years.

People like Barbra Bouchey – a well-renowned investment adviser who had been driven into bankruptcy by their numerous lawsuits against her.

And people like me, a once-successful business owner who had lost everything trying to defend himself against bullshit criminal charges and numerous civil lawsuits that had been orchestrated by Raniere.

But would readers of Frank Report believe this sort of stuff had really happened?

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The Evolution of Frank Report

Since its inception,  Frank Report has evolved into “the source” when it comes to anything concerning NXIVM/ESP or its founders, Keith Raniere and Nancy Salzman.

Over the course of the past 4½ years, Frank Report has become the “go to” source for anything that has to do with NXIVM/ESP.

It is Frank Report that took these bastards down.

Yeah, I know that many others were involved in that takedown.

People like Catherine Oxenberg.

People like Sarah Edmondson.

People like Mark Vicente.

People like Sylvie, Dani, Nicole, and all the others who testified against Raniere during his trial.

Lots of people.

Some that most people will never know about.

But were it not for Frank’s willingness to keep exposing various aspects of the NXIVM/ESP criminal enterprise, Catherine Oxenberg may never have told him about the DOS brandings.

And if Frank hadn’t published all those stories about the DOS brandings, I doubt very much that The New York Times would have ever published its front-page story that included a picture of Sarah Edmondson’s KAR “brand”.

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What’s  Next?

Much as I admire Frank Parlato – and what he’s done in terms of taking down NXIVM/ESP and Raniere – I do question what the future holds for Frank Report.

In another few months, Keith Raniere, Clare Bronfman, Allison Mack, Nancy Salzman, Lauren Salzman, and Kathy Russell will all have been sentenced. Which means that we won’t be hearing very much about them until they get out of prison or they die.

In another 12-18 months, we will likely have developed both treatments and a vaccine for COVID-19. Which means that it won’t be the lead story in every newscast and newspaper every day of the week.

So, what sorts of stories will Frank Report be publishing?

I don’t think that’s a question Frank can answer by himself.

Instead, it’s a question that the readers of Frank Report need to answer.

What do YOU want to hear about?

What do YOU want to discuss?

J.J. O'Hara