Raniere’s Lawyers to Judge: Poor Keith Lost His Closest Life Partners in His Harem Over a Short Period

Lawyers for Keith Alan Raniere have submitted to Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis an 86-page sentencing memorandum on behalf of their client. TIn it, they seek to persuade the judge to sentence Raniere to 15 years, the minimum required by federal law for Raniere’s conviction on sex trafficking charges.

This is the fourth in our series based on the filing:

Raniere Attorneys Memo to Judge Seeks 15 Years in Prison Instead of Life: Raniere ‘Maintains His Innocence; Stands by ESP, NXIVM and DOS’ 

Raniere’s Childhood as Told By His Lawyers — It’s So Sad It Will Make You Cry 

Consumers’ Buyline – A Revisionist View by Raniere’s Attorneys – ‘Keith Was a Victim’ of Walmart

My comments are in [brackets and bold].

Raniere’s Personal Life

By Marc Agnifilo and Paul DerOhannesian II

Raniere has never been married. Instead, throughout his adult life, he has maintained several long-term intimate relationships with different women.  [He’s had lots of short term relationships with women and some underage girls.]

As the evidence reflects, in regard to several of these women, Raniere has made a lifetime commitment, meaning that for the entirety of his life, he is committed to being with this person. Some of these intimate relationships involve a sexual connection between Raniere and the woman, and some do not.

As Lauren Salzman explained, she and Raniere had a lifetime relationship, but at some point, the sexual component of that lifetime relationship stopped or, as she described it, was put on hold.

But the commitment continued, even as she testified against him at the trial.

Some of these intimate, sexual relationships involve consensual encounters with more than one woman at a time, and some do not…

Some of the relationships that start off sexual change to intimate, but non-sexual relationships, while others remain sexual in nature throughout. A few of the women Raniere has been with were interested in pursuing types of sexual practices or roleplaying involving bondage, discipline, dominance and submission (“BDSM”), but most were not…

As the trial testimony showed, each woman starting an intimate relationship with Raniere was fully aware that he had multiple intimate partners, and that he always did and presumably always would. Yet, despite knowing this, each woman commencing such a relationship did so knowingly, voluntarily and eagerly…

Since 1977, Raniere has been in a relationship with Karen Unterreiner, a woman whom Raniere met in college. This relationship, from Raniere’s perspective, continues to the present, though Raniere’s incarceration has made this difficult.

[Karen told me that she no longer feels she is in a relationship with Raniere. As my film The Lost Women of Nxivm showed, Karen seems to have been poisoned while living with Keith.]

From 1990 through 2014, Raniere was in a relationship with Barbara Jeske, who passed away from brain cancer.

[Keith had a “last will and testament party” just before she died ensuring Barbara signed over everything she owned to him. Barbara’s death requires more investigation to determine if Keith had been poisoning her.]

From about 1990 until 2014, Raniere was in a relationship with Kristin Keeffe. On October 5, 2006, Ms. Keefe gave birth to their son.

In 2014, Ms. Keefe and their son left the community. Following their departure of Ms. Keefe and their son, Raniere spent a great deal of time, energy and money searching for them. At one point, he found them living in Florida, [I put her up in my home in the Keys] and for a while, paid their rent so that they could live in a decent home befitting a mother and son.

[I do not know anything about him paying any rent.  He certainly did not pay any rent for her when Keeffe was in hiding and terrified for her life when she was in Florida.  It is also fair to state that Raniere tried to scare Keeffe when she was in Florida and may have attempted to murder her. More on that in a later post. What is not in dispute is that he lied to the community about his son with Keeffe, telling his followers that his own son was an orphan.]

From 1990 through about 2000, Raniere was in a relationship with Toni Natalie. Natalie has made outlandish claims against Raniere including in a book she has recently written entitled “The Program: Inside the Mind of Keith Raniere and the Rise and Fall of NXIVM.” Mr. Raniere hopes she has profited from their life together.

[Raniere did a lot to ruin Natalie’s life, hounding her for years, trying to get her, and finally succeeding at getting her indicted. He offered me money if I could get her indicted when I worked at Nxivm. I chose not to pursue his claims. Now the randy rascal wishes her financial success?  While I do not agree with everything Toni has said or done, there is no question she is, by and large, a victim of Raniere’s and that she had a role in taking him down. Perhaps her most significant contribution was that in the very early days, as he chased her and tried to destroy her, she openly spoke to the media, and was one of the first voices to expose Raniere’s monstrous side.]

From 1990 through the time of her death in 2016 from cancer, Raniere was in a relationship with Pam Cafritz.

Several witnesses testified that Raniere’s relationship with Pam Cafritz was perhaps the most significant of his life.

[Ranier’s lawyers fail to mention that Pam was in a threesome relationship with Keith and Marianna Fernandez. Pam, like the others who lived with Raniere, developed cancer. When she died or was near death, she was mysteriously removed from the hospital and brought home and placed in a bathtub filled with ice. Raniere said he planned to put her in a cryogenic tomb. He kept her death hidden from the Nxivm community for several weeks. She left her entire estate to him – some $8 million. She may have been poisoned over the long term.]

As the evidence made clear, over a period of only a few years, Raniere lost the companionship of several of his closest lifetime partners: Ms. Keefe, [who also had cancer] who left [actually fled] with their son in 2014; Barbara Jeske who died of cancer in the same year; and Pam who was diagnosed with cancer in 2014 and passed away two years later.

Just as he lost his mother at a young age after a long difficult illness, Raniere experienced the same thing later in life as one by one, his closest female companions left him in different ways, several after painful, protracted illnesses.

[I am sure the judge was crying when he read this sad tale of poor Keith who lost all the important women in his life. Sad as this was, Raniere still had a harem including Allison Mack, Nicki Clyne, Lauren Salzman, Monica Duran, Daniela Padilla, Camila Fernandez, Loreta Garza, Dawn Morrison, Ivy Nevares, Clare Bronfman, Marianna Fernandez, Kathy Russell, Nancy Salzman, and others.]

Frank Parlato