Life in Prison: Part 2 – Identity Theft and Unlawful [and Stupid] Surveillance (Keylogging) -With Exclusive List of Those Nxivm Spied on

This is Part 2 of Life In Prison, the Government’s view of the crimes of Keith Alan Raniere with some additional comments and photos provided by this writer.

Life in Prison #1: Raniere’s Exploitation, Trafficking and Alien Smuggling of Sisters, Camilia, Daniela, and Mariana

You can read the entire government memorandum here.

Identity Theft and Unlawful Surveillance (Keylogging)

By Seth D. Dicharme,

Acting US Attorney Eastern District of New York

Tanya Hajjar
Mark J. Lesko
Karin Orenstein
Assistant United States Attorneys

Raniere and his co-conspirators engaged in unlawful surveillance and investigation of his perceived enemies. The targets of these efforts included federal judges overseeing litigation in which Nxivm was a party, high-ranking politicians, reporters who had published articles critical of Raniere or Nxivm, Nxivm’s own lawyers, legal adversaries and their families, an accountant (James Loperfido) who worked for
an attorney who had previously done work for Nxivm, and Edgar Bronfman Sr., the father of Clare Bronfman.

On multiple occasions, Bronfman approached Stephen Herbits, a colleague of her father, whom she believed to have political influence, in an attempt to persuade him to help her intimidate individuals perceived to be hostile to Nxivm or Raniere.

Between August 2005 and October 2008, Raniere directed Daniela to obtain the usernames and passwords for email accounts belonging to individuals they perceived to be Nxivm enemies, in order to gain access to those individual’s email accounts and monitor their communications.

After the publication of an October 2003 Forbes article in which Edgar Bronfman was quoted as calling Nxivm a “cult,” Raniere considered Edgar Bronfman an enemy of his and of Nxivm.

As a result, Raniere tasked Daniela with creating keylogging software in order to access and monitor Edgar Bronfman’s email account.

Bronfman installed the keylogging software on her father’s computer, and Daniela was, thereafter, able to access Edgar Bronfman’s email account.

For years, Daniela reported the results to Raniere. At Raniere’s direction, Daniela also created and installed keylogging software on the computer of James Loperfido, an accountant who had worked for Joseph O’Hara, an attorney who had previously done work for Nxivm.

Daniela, thereafter, regularly emailed the results of the keylogging software, which reflected Loperfido’s computer activity, to Raniere.

In November 2008, Raniere also enlisted Daniela to install keylogging software on Daniela’s sister Marianna’s computer after Raniere suspected Marianna of rekindling a relationship with an ex-boyfriend.

Through installation of the keylogging software, Daniela provided Raniere with her sister’s Facebook password.

On behalf of Nxivm, Bronfman hired several private firms, including Canaprobe and Interfor, in order to investigate perceived enemies of Nxivm and Raniere.

Between approximately 2007 and 2009, Canaprobe sent the results of purported “bank sweeps” for bank account and balance information belonging to Nxivm’s adversaries.

On March 27, 2018, a search warrant was executed on the residence of Nancy Salzman. Among the items recovered was a large box containing what appears to be private banking information of many individuals perceived to be Nxivm enemies, including Edgar Bronfman, Joseph O’Hara, Rick Ross, and others.

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Here is a partial list, by the way, of the enemies that Raniere spied on–

Enemies List

Salinas, Bronfman and Raniere spied on men at the local newspaper where Raniere lived: the Albany Times Union.

They spied on George Hearst, the Publisher; Rex Smith, Editor; and Jim Odato, a reporter who had written stories about Nxivm.

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Chet Hardin, a reporter for the Albany Metroland, a now-defunct weekly in the Albany area.

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And Michael Freedman, who wrote a cover story for Forbes magazine on October 13, 2003, entitled “Cult of Personality”.

Then there were politicians:

They spied on Joseph Bruno, a Republican New York State senator, who took flights on Clare and Sara’s private jet.

Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, who at the time was New York State Attorney General. He later became governor of New York but was forced to resign amid a prostitution scandal.

P. David Soares, the District Attorney in Albany County.

Charles Schumer, a U.S. senator from New York, a Democrat.

Steve Pigeon, a Democrat political consultant.

Roger Stone, a Republican political consultant.

Both Pigeon and Stone worked for NXIVM for a time as consultants. [Nxivm was spying on their own consultants.]

Federal Judges

They spied on seven federal judges who, at various times, oversaw cases involving NXIVM.

U.S. District Chief Judge Gary L Sharpe

U.S. Magistrate Randolph F. Treece

U.S. District Judge Dennis M. Cavanaugh

U.S. Senior Judge Thomas J. McAvoy

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert E. Littlefield, Jr,

U.S. Magistrate Mark Falk

Litigants

They spied on people they were suing.

Rick Ross, of the Rick Ross Institute.

Morris Sutton, a defendant in a lawsuit with Rick Ross. Raniere/Nxivm was the plaintiff.

Juval Aviv, who owned a private investigation firm called Interfor, who was hired by NXIVM for conducting investigations in relation to some of Nxivm’s enemies.

They were investigating their own investigator.

Spying on Papa

They spied on Edgar Bronfman Sr., Clare Bronfman’s father, his business and his associates.

Stephen Herbits, one of Bronfman Sr.’s closest associates.

The World Jewish Congress, which Bronfman led.

Israel Singer, who was associated with the World Jewish Congress.

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There were the litigants who were connected to the Los Angeles real estate fiasco that Keith Raniere operated:

Yuri Plyam, Natalia Plyam – and their company, Castle Trading, were involved in the California real estate project that Clare and her sister Sara funded and Raniere guided.

The paranoia even extended to critics,

They spied on Deke Sharon, famous within the a cappella community, who was critical of Raniere. Raniere staged a cappella concerts. He used Kristin Kreuk, Nicki Clyne, and Allison Mack to host the concerts. It seemed to be a thinly veiled recruitment effort to get college students into Nxivm and got a lot of criticism.

David Touretzky, a professor at Carnegie Mellon who was critical of Raniere.

Carlos Rueda a psychologist cited in newspaper articles providing unflattering opinions of NXIVM and their curriculum and teachings.

They Spied on Joe O’Hara and Frank Parlato

Bronfman, Salinas, and Raniere also spied on this writer. I worked as a consultant during 2007-08 and was fired by Nxivm when I discovered more than $90 million missing from the Bronfman sisters’ money.

They spied on another former consultant, Joseph O’Hara. Ironically, O’Hara left Nxivm when he discovered Nxivm was spying on Rick Ross illegally.

They also spied on  Raniere’s former harem members who left him and the scoundrel even spied on his own girlfriend, Mariana, fearing that she was cheating on him. He got her sister to do the hacking into Mariana’s Facebook account.

Finally, two points. Two of the biggest scoundrels of Nxivm, who funded and participating in the spying were never charged. They are Emiliano Salinas and Sara Bronfman.

Frank Parlato