Clare Bronfman pleaded guilty to two felonies: conspiracy to conceal and harbor an alien for financial gain [Sylvie] – and fraudulent use of identification [Pam Cafrtiz’s credit card].
Since Clare is coming up for sentencing at the end of this month, let’s examine her crimes. When she took her plea deal, the prosecution estimated that her sentence should be in the 21-27 month range. The plea deal went so far as to permit her to appeal the judge’s sentence if it surpassed 27 months.
Imagine her surprise when the judge mentioned last December that he was considering an upward departure in his sentencing.
In this post, we will examine her fraudulent use of identification.
It concerned her role in the use of the late Pam Cafrtiz’s credit card, an American Express card. It was Keith Alan Raniere and his girlfriend Mariana Fernandez who got the benefit, not Clare.
It is a federal crime to use a deceased person’s credit card.
It is important to note that Clare has a net worth, she reports, of $200 million. She certainly did not need to use, scheme or conspire to use Cafritz’s credit card for the few hundred thousand dollars spent.
Further, while there are suspicious activities related to Cafrtiz’s death [she may have been slowly poisoned], it seems clear that her last will and testament provided for Raniere to receive her entire estate, which was estimated to be $8 million.
While Raniere and Mariana were using Cafrtiz’s credit card to charge various things and her bank account to pay for it, this is essentially a victimless crime since Raniere was to inherit all of Pam’s money anyway and it appears that Raniere did not stiff American Express. Through Clare’s efforts, all the charges on Pam’s credit card were reportedly paid out of Pam’s bank account.
The only potential victim is the taxpayers since Clare admitted that Raniere [she did not mention him by name] might have not paid for things in his own name to avoid paying income taxes.
The crime itself hinges on a technicality: The law is explicit. This is identity theft. Pam died in November 2016.
There are a lot of questions I have about her death and, frankly, Raniere may have had a hand in her death. But neither he nor Clare have been charged with anything related to the cause of her death. Mariana – who is equally guilty of identity theft since she used the card the most – was never charged at all.
Here is how the prosecution described Clare’s crime:
Prosecution’s View of Clare’s Crime
Between approximately November 2016 and March 2018, Raniere and Bronfman conspired to commit identity theft in connection with Raniere’s continued use of a credit card account number and bank account number belonging to Pamela Cafritz, knowing Cafritz was deceased.
This scheme was part of a long-standing practice of deliberately keeping money and assets out of Raniere’s name. Bronfman facilitated the scheme by arranging for regular payment of Pamela Cafritz’s credit card after she died on November 7, 2016.
Among the items on Pamela Cafritz’s credit card were charges to Prosvent LLC, Amazon Marketplace, Restoration Hardware, a pet shop, Domino’s Pizza, a sock store in Brooklyn, Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Direct, Netflix, and various baby companies.
In total, approximately $135,000 was charged to Pamela Cafritz’s credit card from November 7, 2016, the date of her death, to February 8, 2018.
In addition, disbursements were made from Pamela Cafritz’s Key Bank account after she died.
Approximately $320,305 in checks and $736,856 total disbursements were drawn from Cafritz’s account, which included payments to [Kathy] Russell. [Editor’s note: Kathy Russell was the Nxivm bookkeeper and was also charged and convicted of immigration fraud.]
Clare Describes Her Crime
When she pleaded guilty, Clare was required to tell the judge that she was, in fact, guilty. In her allocution before Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis she said, concerning this crime:
“I was wrong to facilitate the use of someone’s credit card who had passed away. Between approximately November 2016 and March 2018, I knowingly facilitated the use by another person of a deceased person’s credit card, and the use of that person’s bank account to pay the bills for the credit card which were more than a thousand dollars.
“My office and I handled the logistics of payment of the credit card bill from the bank account, and the person using the credit card did not intend to pay taxes on the income received in the form of payment for goods purchased on the credit card. I meant no harm in either case, however, that does not justify my actions nor their affects [sic], and for this I am truly sorry.”
[Editor’s note: Clare did not name the person using the credit card who did not intend to pay taxes. She never uttered his name in her allocution. He is Keith Alan Raniere, her Vanguard.]
Clare Bronfman’s lawyer, Ronald Sullivan, Jr.
Clare’s Lawyer Explains
Clare’s lawyer, Ronald Sullivan wrote in Clare’s sentencing memorandum that she meant no harm by facilitating Raniere’s use of Pam’s credit card or bank account.
Sullivan wrote:
In 2016, Jane Doe 7 (Pam Cafritz) died after a long and painful fight with cancer. In her will, she left the entirety of her estate to Keith Raniere, who was also the executor of her estate.
As Clare explained in her plea allocution, her office and bookkeeper were handling some of the finances for Pam’s estate after she passed away (as they had done for her before she passed away).
At some point during Pam’s illness, Clare’s office, which offered primarily bookkeeping services to individuals and companies, had taken over the bookkeeping for some of Pam’s accounts. This was just a bookkeeping function that Clare’s employees were performing; it did not give Clare any access or control over how the money was spent.
Pam, [Mariana Fernandez] and Keith Raniere all lived together, and Pam paid for all of the expenses for the household. Some of the bills for the household were paid automatically out of Pam’s bank account and [Mariana] had access to, and use of, Pam’s Amazon account and her credit card. Upon Pam’s death, [Mariana] and Keith continued to live together, expenses continued to be automatically paid, and [Mariana] continued to use Pam’s Amazon account as well as her credit card.
When a question arose in Clare’s office about what to do now that Pam had died, Clare asked a long-time attorney what should happen, and he advised that they should no longer use Cafritz’s signature stamp, and, instead, Raniere should sign the checks as executor of the estate. This change was implemented immediately. There was nothing hidden about what they were doing. The banker at the bank that held Pam’s accounts knew that she had died. And Keith signed the checks as suggested by the attorney as soon as the question of using Pam’s actual signature stamp was brought up, and until someone else took over as the Estate’s executor and began signing checks instead of Keith.
Since Clare knew that Keith had inherited all of Pam’s money, she did not think there was anything wrong with this arrangement at the time. However, she now recognizes that it was wrong of her to facilitate the continued use of the deceased Cafritz’s credit card to purchase items to support the lifestyle of [Mariana] and Raniere, who did not pay taxes on the spending from this credit card account of which they were the beneficiaries.
Instead, she should have worked to get the Estate accounts set up immediately. The loss amount in the plea agreement, and to which Clare stipulated, is based on the amount charged to Cafritz’s credit card between November 7, 2016 (the date of her death) and February 8, 2018, which Probation agrees was $135,000.
Although Clare technically violated 18 U.S.C. §§ 1028(a)(7), 1028(b)(1)(D) and 1028(c)(3)(A), it should be noted this is not a typical identity theft case and there was no direct loss to Cafritz or her estate, since she left the entirety of her estate to Raniere anyway.
There were also none of the emotional, financial and/or opportunity costs that typically accompany identity theft. See U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1, app. note 2 (1999) (“‘Loss’ means the value of the property taken, damaged, or destroyed.”); cf. S. REP. 105-274 (1998) (reporting that “[o]n an individual level, the ‘human’ cost of identity theft can be quite substantial. These costs include emotional costs, as well as various financial and/or opportunity costs,” and that the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act of 1998 (ITADA) therefore directed “the [Sentencing] Commission [to] consider the extent that ‘harm to reputation, inconvenience, and other difficulties resulting from the offense’” should be accounted for in sentencing).
The atypical circumstances of the identity theft crime should be considered as a mitigating factor. As the Sentencing Commission explains in its introduction to the Guidelines, it “intends the sentencing courts to treat each guideline as carving out a ‘heartland,’ a set of typical cases embodying the conduct that each guideline describes. When a court finds an atypical case, one to which a particular guideline linguistically applies but where conduct significantly differs from the norm, the court may consider whether a departure is warranted.” U.S.S.G. Ch. 1, pt. A, subpt. 4(b).
In committing [the crime]… Clare was not motivated by greed or an intent to harm. On the contrary, although she broke the law, she did so believing, at the time…. that she was helping carry out the wishes of the deceased Pam Cafritz, who had left the entirety of her estate to Keith Raniere in her will and designated him as the executor of her estate.
In short, although Clare’s actions violated the law, they were never ill-intentioned. A defendant’s motive is highly relevant at sentencing. See Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U.S. 476, 485 (1993).
Furthermore, [the crime] was [not] committed by sophisticated means nor are there any aggravating circumstances related to the offenses of conviction….. [T]he fraudulent use of identification offense did not involve ten or more victims, was not committed through mass-marketing, did not result in substantial financial hardship to one or more victims, did not involve a theft from the person of another, did not involve receiving stolen property, did not involve misrepresentations by the defendant, did not involve misappropriation of a trade secret, did not involve a violation of securities or commodities law, did not involve the conscious or reckless risk of death or serious bodily injury, and did not involve the possession of a dangerous weapon (including a firearm) in connection with the offense. See U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(2).
In short, the offense conduct was unremarkable under the law.
***
Clare also made this statement about her dear friend Pam:
Shortly [after my father died], I learned one of my closest friend’s cancer had grown to stage 4 [Pam Cafritz]. Over the next two years I did everything I could to find medicine to help her, however, the inevitable day came.
Honestly, I still have not been able to feel the pain of her death. After my father, I didn’t think I could handle it. Pam was also Keith’s life partner of 20 years, as well as his closest friend.
As our office was handling all of Pam’s personal finances, we continued to do so. I avoided dealing with the Estate or discussing it with Keith as I imagined the pain he was going through and didn’t want to interfere.
***
In the end, I agree with Ronald Sullivan: this is not much of a crime and there are no victims. That is not to say that Clare did not do many crimes for which she was not charged but I cannot agree that an individual should be punished for uncharged crimes. Her sentence should be strictly based on the crimes she pleaded guilty to.
If I were judge, based on the actual crime of having her bookkeeper pay for Pam’s credit card with Pam’s money for Raniere’s use – I would probably sentence Clare to no more than six months for this offense.
In a subsequent post, we will discuss the other crime she pleaded to – the harboring of Sylvie, an illegal alien for financial gain.
Frank Parlato 
Janine Morrison 
J.J. O'Hara 
Richard Luthmann 
Marie White 
Paul Serran
Please leave a comment: Your opinion is important to us!
Maybe Clare had other crimes to account for, but this one is hardly worth my tax money to prosecute. I can just imagine a half-dozen Feds holding meeting after meeting, trying to find all the dirt, and gleefully coming up with this truly victimless crime. Was it their crowning achievement for the year? For their career? Who got promoted, who got nice letters of recommendation? Would they have prosecuted some near-poverty woman who had spent $1,350, instead of $135,000, of money that ended up going where it was intended it to go?
Often the rich and famous avoid their crimes because they have enough money for good lawyers. But this small case seems to be the opposite – a person of modest wealth and notoriety caught the attention of a voracious government unit, and got chewed up by a juggernaut for a petty crime.
But of course there is the “Yeh, but..” aspect. Maybe she deserves some time in stir for a crime, maybe a lot of time for a lot of crimes, but not this one. Three months of house arrest at most, and bang, punishment completed if she does not commit the exact same crime again within that period.
This case is barely different from some guy selling individual cigarettes on a street corner, who ends up with ten charges each more felonious, with more prison time, than the actual crime (if it is a crime, and why should it be?) of selling his own property,
At least this perp didn’t get wrestled to the street and painfully ground into the dirt and gravel and tiny shards of broken glass by six or eight hundred pounds of men in uniform [protecting and serving who?], and suffocated to death by the gaggle of cops, none of whom cared anything for the life of the human being in their custody. That’s one advantage of being white and clean-cut – the arresting officials sometimes realize they are dealing with a human being, and act with some restraint. Sometimes.
The Pam Cafritz estate debacle has to rank as one of Raniere’s dumbest crimes.
There were so many ways to launder the money from Pam’s estate and keep it out of Keith’s name other than keeping a credit card and bank account open in Pan’s name.
They could have purchased Luxembourg bearer bonds.
“Her sentence should be strictly based on the crimes she pleaded guilty to.” WRONG. It’s called aggravating and mitigating factors, and input regarding someone’s character is part of this adjustment that is required to be considered. LOL
I agree with this article. I’m no fan of Clare’s from what I have read, but this truly is a victimless crime – more like technical errors in transferring the estate. But I think the EDNY could only do so much, since most of the heavy crimes were committed in the Northern District. NDNY would not and apparently will never act. Nor would the State of New York. It breaks my heart every time I see Rhiannon’s formal rape report (60 times when she was 12, I believe). I will never understand why nothing was done. Normally, the victim doesn’t control whether or not a rapist is prosecuted; the State does, whether the victim wants to press charges or not.
EDNY, I believe, could only charge crimes over which they had jurisdiction and ones they could prove and make stick.
Raniere tripped himself up by trying to stay off the radar and avoid taxes at all costs. I speculate that had he not run, and been in proper legal possession of Pam’s estate (as was intended), he would have made bond and been given house arrest like the others. So maybe his clever “miscalculations” resulted in a little back door justice for Rhiannon.
This identity theft charge against Clare is an example of how Keith’s followers did things to benefit him, and paid dearly for it. I am reminded of a Fitzgerald quote:
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
I realize you’re trying to humanize a sex trafficker, a rape butler of sorts. The greater the juxtaposition between their actions and the way they’re being described by others from within only lends to the ghoulishness and they become more sickening. I see former members misapply the source of the anger and disgust that’s directed at them. This adds to the campaign of deflection and lack of accountability.
Spotify podcast on Nxivm
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4eyUKvWkkYuYyE8sS6Ar4g?si=pU8TNuMaScOiEonEh_bqtw
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7kp3kq/why-so-many-celebrities-joined-nxivm-the-vow-allison-mack-keith-raniere-sex-cult?utm_content=1599858007&utm_medium=social&utm_source=VICE_facebook
Pam Cafritz. She was a Jew, correct? What was her relationship like with her father? Her family background? Having cuck fathers [or no father] and/or a slut/whore mother often leads to… a Pam Cafritz…
Cafritz’s father was a successful real estate developer in the Washington DC area.
His big charity was military veterans.
He had served in the World War 2 in Italy.
He is buried in a Christian cemetery.
William N Cafritz
BIRTH 1925
DEATH 2014 (aged 88–89)
BURIAL
Saint Gabriel Cemetery
Potomac, Montgomery County, Maryland, USA
CAFRITZ WILLIAM N. CAFRITZ William N. Cafritz died peacefully at home on August 27, 2014 from natural causes. His parents were Dr. Edward and Mildred Cafritz. He is survived by his wife, Buffy, whom he cherished, and his adopted son, Sandy Wilkes (Helen), and his daughter, Pamela Cafritz, both of whom loved their father dearly. He is also survived by his devoted brother, James Cafritz (Linda), and his three wonderful granddaughters, Elizabeth, Courtney, and Stephanie. Bill Cafritz grew up in Washington, DC where he attended Sidwell Friends School and graduated from Devitt Preparatory School where he was a gifted student and athlete. His college days were interrupted when he was drafted into the Army. As a member of the 88th Infantry Division in Italy, he was wounded in combat as his unit fought to take Monterumici. He was awarded a Purple Heart and, after convalescing, was preparing to redeploy when the war ended. After his discharge, he attended The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania and, soon thereafter, began a long and distinguished career as a real estate developer and investor; a career that continued until the time of his death. His projects included single family communities, garden apartments, retail centers and industrial parks. These projects were often pioneering and were frequently recognized with industry awards for their excellence and quality. His active and fulfilling life also included exemplary service to the Washington community as president of The Washington Performing Arts Society, a director of Kennedy Center Productions, Inc. and chairman of the Dacor-Bacon House building committee. He was a founding trustee of Washington Real Estate Investment Trust, a member of the executive committee of the District of Columbia Building Industry Association and vice president of the Suburban Maryland Builders Association. Always a stellar athlete with a special fondness for sailing and tennis, it was later in life that he discovered a new passion. He became a painter and sculptor. He enthusiastically took classes at The Corcoran School of Art and was awarded a much-coveted prize for one of his sculptures. Cast in a bronze edition of three, his final sculpture captured his granddaughters sitting together happily in the company of their grandfather. With all of his accomplishments and the deep satisfaction that came from a life well-lived, it was his relationship with his wife, soul mate and companion, Buffy, that brought him his greatest joy and happiness. Theirs was a love for the ages and her endless devotion, care and encouragement during his long journey with Parkinson’s Disease was nothing short of remarkable. He will always be remembered by his family and friends as a man of unmatched kindness, impeccable integrity, indomitable spirit and zest for life. Funeral and interment services are private. The family suggests that donations in his honor might be made to Caring for Military Families, 600 New Hampshire Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20037 or The William Cafritz Sculpture Fund at The National Gallery of Art, 6th and Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20565.
I think Raniere learned with her how to get the kids of rich people to follow him. He got better over the years recruiting Emiliano Salinas, Laura Junco, Clare Bear etc., etc. Usually, the kids of highly successful and rich people are losers and have a ton of issues. Keith played into that well. Glad he is stopped. It is dangerous to have access to a lot of money
While Clare Bronfman most certainly committed a crime against Pam Cafritz’s estate, let us not forget that Pam Cafritz was herself a pimp and around 1990 Cafritz groomed a 12-year-old girl for sex with Raniere.
NXIVM is a Merry Go Round of crime and depravity.