Whenever people talk about Keith Alan Raniere not surviving a 20 or 30 year prison sentence, I always think of the longevity of some of his family on his father’s side. Raniere will be 60 on August 26, 2020. He is awaiting sentencing at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center..
His father, James, for instance, is over 90 and is alive and well and living in New York City. It is reported by a very reliable source that James has not visited or seen his son since he was arrested in 2018.
James’ mother, Keith’s grandmother, Marion Raniere, lived to be over 104 years old. In fact, the photo below shows Marion at her 104th birthday party at Saints Joachim and Anne Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Coney Island where she was a resident prior to her passing away a few years ago.
Her 104th birthday was on Jan 20, 2015 which means she was born in 1911. She was married to Rocco Raniere, who we will have a lot more to say about shortly, including his alleged role in the Mafia.
Keith often acted like a Mafiosi when he ran Nxivm.
Marion was a Catholic and seems to have been fairly active in the church, at least during her later years.
According to BrooklynPaper.com [Jan. 23, 2015]
Three cheers to Marion Raniere, who turned 104 years young on Jan. 20. Our pal Marion, a resident at Saint Joachim and Anne Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, partied down with son James Raniere with music, prayer, and friends, and enjoyed a very delicious cake.
Marion has lived at the center for the past seven months and enjoys participating in all the social events, including table-top bowling, where she knocks ’em all down. She also sings with residents during musical programs.
Along with all her accomplishments, Marion also enjoys sharing memories of her life with fellow residents, staff and visitors, and shows off her acute memory during trivia contests and word games, but her favorite pastime of all is visiting with her family.
Standing O wishes Marion cent’anni (100 years more)!
***
Her birthday party was several years before her grandson, Keith, became infamous for branding women and was subsequently arrested.
I do not know exactly when Marion died, but it was apparently several years ago – which means she did not live to see the worldwide notoriety her grandson achieved.
Marion was also honored at a NY Rangers [NHL] game as being the teams’ oldest fan in 2011, just after turning 100.
Marion [nee Ranieri] married Rocco Raniere in 1931. Interestingly, Rocco and Marion were cousins. And they were both named Ranieri and came from Sicily.
Rocco changed his name to Raniere and his wife/cousin took her husband’s name. They had two sons and no daughters. In addition to their son, James, they had another son, Ralph.
Rocco died in the 1980s.
DId Keith’s grandparents being cousins in any way affect his peculiar and bizarre mental and physical condition? He was, after all, kind of a freak of nature.
He was the only child of James Raniere.
We will have more to report on Rocco and how he went to prison and who attended his funeral when he passed away. In short, we will explore his Mafia connections.
As for Keith, his grandparents seemed to have doted on the little rascal, possibly spoiling him, calling him the genius of the family, even before he took his bogus IQ test in 1989. He was raised with the idea that he was a very special child of extraordinary intelligence.
When Keith grew up and became a cult leader, he did not seem to spend much time with his grandmother. He did not attend her 104th birthday party evidently, and as far as is known, he barely communicated with any of his family after he reached Vanguard status in 1998.
During the pre-Vanguard days, when Keith was operating his pyramid scheme called Consumers’ Buyline, he worked with his father and it appears it ended when he fought with his father – over money.
At one time, his father sued Keith for cheating him out of money, something that one would expect from Keith.
James Raniere also had a colorful history and we shall delve into that more in a subsequent post.
The last time James was seen around Nxivm members was at Pam Cafritz’s memorial which occurred, as I recall, in early 2017, in Albany, several months after Pam’s passing away and about six months before I broke the branding and blackmail story about Raniere and DOS that led to his arrest and conviction.
James knew Pam and several of the old-time Raniere harem/inner circle members – and some of them knew Rocco and Marion. May they rest in peace.
Frank Parlato 
Janine Morrison 
J.J. O'Hara 
Richard Luthmann 
Marie White 
Paul Serran
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Grandma goes to baseball games……
Sounded like a normal family until you mentioned the the part about marrying and banging the cousin. Now they sound like there a family from West Virginia.
Raniere is Italian…… I figured anyone that screwy would be French or Eastern European.
You are all invited to celebrate V Week in 2064!
Mediocre romance novelist Nora Roberts was born to parents who are second cousins. 🙂 Them kissin’ cousins…
https://www.joshuakennon.com/how-much-dna-do-you-share-with-your-blood-relatives/
Lol, Jen. 1st cousins are a far cry from 2nd cousins in terms of the possibility for genetic similarity and, of course, the emergence of adverse genetic traits from “in-breeding.” Seems Raniere’s psychopathy could be the result of even worse than 1st kissing cousins — he could be a rare “double” bad seed (or egg). Check the chart in the link above.
Amazing how much one picture and one headline can explain.
There is a much higher probability that Raniere got his mafia-like behavior from the time when he was in Amway versus his grandfather. LOL
The primary author of the RICO fraud laws in the 1970s was G. Robert Blakey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Robert_Blakey LOL
These laws were written primarily to go after mafia mob bosses, but have since been used extensively for other white collar crimes, such as NXIVM. LOL
Blakey was asked to examine how Amway operated when the company was being sued by P&G: https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk038anvqbYXKjRCL0ZGTGhUMo_TiLg%3A1593876922252&ei=uqEAX-3_Dt-pytMP-ZWwyA8&q=blakey+amway&oq=blakey+amway&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzIFCCEQoAEyBQghEKABMgUIIRCgATIFCCEQoAE6BAgAEEc6BAgjECc6BQgAEJECOgQIABBDOgUIABCxAzoFCAAQgwE6BwgAEIMBEEM6BwgAELEDEEM6AggAOgQIABAKOgIIJjoGCAAQFhAeUIMXWNIrYO8uaABwA3gAgAGvAYgBgguSAQQxLjExmAEAoAEBqgEHZ3dzLXdpeg&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwjtxJCe9rPqAhXflHIEHfkKDPkQ4dUDCAw&uact=5 LOL
Blakey stated it is very similar to the mafia: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Amway/blakey_report.pdf QED LOL
James Raniere — Keith’s old man — was always buzzing around the young girls and loot Keith & Co. collected.
For example: Gina Melita, my sister Gina’s friend who was also molested by Keith as an adolescent, lost her virginity (to Keith) at the age of 13 in 1984 on a glamorous, rape trip to “the City” – NYC — in James’ home left alone with Keith.
Melita recounted the story of meeting James in the 2012 Albany Times Union NXIVM Expose’ but has not come forward publicly since.
Other statutory rape victims have similar untold stories about James’ complicity in his son’s nefarious activities in the ’80s and 90s. Publicly, James has said Keith was a mere drifter — a lost genius soul roaming the streets of Clifton Park, NY battling cancer those years — when, in fact, Keith & Co. were operating a National pyramid scheme — Consumers Buyline —and luring girls as young as 12 to Keith’s lair. Rhiannon also came forward in the 2012 TU series on NXIVM.
[Double. Inbred. Sicilian. Shoulda been quarantined at birth.]
Well, those of us with Sicilian blood are grieved to hear it – we were secretly hoping KAR was switched at birth, But the resemblance to James is there. He is, however, only 50% of KAR’s genetics. I rather doubt either genetics or his grandparents’ being first cousins had much to do with what Keith became. Psychopaths are inexplicably born into all kinds of families.
James later went on to marry a wealthy society woman. I’m sure he was horrified to have been named in a consent decree related to the collapse of Consumers Buyline, after which he might have understandably kept his distance from Keith and his business doings. I could be wrong, of course.
My guess is that KAR knows absolutely SQUAT about the Mafia, which was greatly diminished in New York City by the 1990s. This was thanks in part to the availability of RICO. Rudy Giuliani played a huge role in its implementation, which helped eliminate that impediment of “omerta” and allowed law enforcement to go after those who simply gave the orders and stayed at arm’s length from the actual bad acts. Interesting indeed that these very laws were employed the the feds to get KAR.
Some background, for those who might care: My parents grew up in extreme poverty in Hell’s Kitchen – hunger, walk-up cold water flats; the whole nine yards. I doubt James came from that background. In the 1940s, the choices for impoverished young Italian men were: 1) Get a trade; 2) Go into the clergy; or 3) Join the Mafia. Most chose one of the first two.
In those days, at that time, it was a harsh way to grow up, and people struggled like hell to rise above it. It was by no means all about Italians: People on my our Irish side were involved in the Westies, and my parents’ (any everyone else in the neighborhood’s) tax guy was Jimmy Coonan’s father. Most people were hard working and stayed on the right side of the law, but there is always an unfair stigma that follows them.
Since Keith Raniere likes to mention Hitler, Raniere’s familial incest is a good opportunity to mention that Hitler’s father and mother were also uncle and niece.
They could only marry because of a Papal dispensation.
Looking at the profile picture of daddy James and grandma Marion, Keith has a 50/50 chance of being bald and living a long life.
I’ve been waiting years for these intimate family stories. I hope you can get the scoop about his mother as well.
I doubt prison conditions will allow Raniere to live as long as his grandmother. LOL
However, this is a good lesson to never marry a close relative – this is very common among Muslims. LOL