C,lare Bronfman has filed an appeal of her sentence, through her attorneys, Daniel R. Koffmann, and Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr., seeking to have the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacate her sentence of 81 months, based on arguments that US District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis committed procedural errors in handing her a sentence that was triple the maximum recommended in the federal sentencing guidelines.
As part of her appeal, her attorneys wrote about her history as a child – and her time with Nxivm.
By Daniel Koffman and Ronald Sullivan
Childhood
Clare Bronfman was born in 1979 – to Georgiana Havers and Edgar Bronfman, Sr., who was the president, treasurer, and CEO of the Seagram distilled beverage company and president of the World Jewish Congress.
Her parents’ marriage was tumultuous and ultimately short-lived. When the marriage ended in 1981, Georgiana moved to England with Ms. Bronfman and Ms. Bronfman’s sister, Sara.
After a two-year hiatus, Edgar Sr. and Georgiana remarried each other, but the couple did not live together and divorced again in 1986.
At this young age, notwithstanding the material comforts that her family’s wealth provided, Ms. Bronfman had none of the emotional security and support that a family can provide.
Ms. Bronfman’s mother was rarely present in her life and instead spent a considerable portion of Ms. Bronfman’s childhood living in Kenya. Ms. Bronfman’s father remained in the United States.
She was raised instead by a “revolving door of nannies,” who were often “grossly under qualified, [sic], too young, intoxicated, or otherwise unsuited.”
The lack of stability and emotional support during her formative years left her vulnerable, and ultimately had an outsize impact on her emotional security, trust in others, and ability to form and maintain relationships.
The Sense Of Purpose And Community Ms. Bronfman Found In NXIVM’s Self-Improvement Courses
NXIVM filled a void in Ms. Bronfman’s life.
NXIVM (pronounced NEK- see-uhm) was an umbrella organization that provided a range of self-help programs, and although each program had its own specific focus and nuance, the overarching mission was to enable people to develop a set of moral principles to guide their lives. For example, the Ethicist was a program designed to “help people in essence [sic] figure out how to become ethical, moral, how to be the most ethical person they could,” and a “lot of the training was basically first trying to figure out what were your ethics and how to improve them.”
Common themes across NXIVM’s various curricula included “overcoming one’s emotionality, you know, using one’s logic, being less attached to other people or other things.”
Keith Raniere was the creator and philosophical driving force behind NXIVM’s programs. Along with codefendant Nancy Salzman, Mr. Raniere developed seminars, literature, and other educational materials designed to enable people to put his insights into practice. Over time, NXIVM opened centers across North and Central America where people could attend classes and create local NXIVM communities similar to what existed outside Albany, New York, where Mr. Raniere was based.
NXIVM’s programs attracted a number of wealthy and high-profile participants. The Dalai Lama even visited Albany to participate in a NXIVM-sponsored event. Many NXIVM participants took up part- or full-time residence outside Albany to be closer to Mr. Raniere and the heart of the NXIVM community.
Ms. Bronfman took her first NXIVM course in 2003 and quickly became devoted to the work NXIVM did. Like thousands of others who attended NXIVM courses, the executive success programs, ethical teachings, and overall design for living that NXIVM provided became an important part of her life and social development.
NXIVM helped Ms. Bronfman to discover that she was not alone in her insecurities, and she felt she could be herself in the company of NXIVM members without fear of rejection. The community and education of NXIVM helped transform a young person gripped by self-loathing and fear of the world into a woman who felt comfortable in her own skin, purposeful, and fulfilled.
A major part of Ms. Bronfman’s transformation came from her relationship with Keith Raniere. Until she met Mr. Raniere, Ms. Bronfman’s wealth and family history had filled her with shame, inadequacy, and fear, but Mr. Raniere helped her to learn about business and finance. He supported and encouraged her to grow businesses outside of NXIVM and to seek outside experts to guide her. Mr. Raniere became one of the few people Ms. Bronfman felt she could confide in, and over time, the most important person in her life.
Consistent with her dedication to NXIVM and her prodigious work ethic, Mr. Raniere and other NXIVM leaders quickly promoted her within the organization. In 2009, Ms. Bronfman was invited to join the organization’s executive board. Excited about the opportunity to contribute to something from which she believed she had received so much, Ms. Bronfman poured herself into the position. She sought to provide structure that would enable NXIVM to thrive long-term by implementing corporate policies and procedures, seeking to establish accountability and oversight, and focusing on the critical behind-the-scenes tasks necessary to making [sic] a large organization run.
DOS
DOS was something completely different.
It “had nothing to do with Nxivm.”
(From the Raniere trial Q: “Did [codefendant Allison Mack] say anything about whether this organization had anything to do with NXIVM?” A [Nicole]: “She said it did not have anything to do with NXIVM.”).)
According to the government, DOS was a group that Mr. Raniere created in order to act out his sexual fantasies, which encompassed—and were accomplished by—blackmailing women into providing him nude photographs, engaging in other demeaning tasks, and ultimately submitting to his sexual advances.
Whereas NXIVM’s programs were heavily advertised and open to the public, DOS was secret and its membership strictly limited. And whereas Clare Bronfman was closely involved in NXIVM and served in its leadership, the government concedes that she knew nothing whatsoever about DOS until the rest of the world began to learn about it in 2017.
The DOS Participants’ Efforts To Keep Their Conduct A Secret From Ms. Bronfman
Ms. Bronfman was shocked as she came to learn of the allegations against Mr. Raniere and other DOS members. She had no inkling of DOS or the alleged conduct. This was by design.
Members of DOS were required to keep the existence of the group and their participation in it a secret. (A79 (L. Salzman) (“The group was secret and we concealed that Keith was [] the founder of the group, was member of the group, and participated in any way in the group.”).)
And while some of Mr. Raniere’s closest female companions became members of DOS, he prohibited DOS members from recruiting Ms. Bronfman into the organization. As one senior DOS member testified at Mr. Raniere’s trial:
Q: “Did you have discussions about recruitment of other slaves in these meeting with the DOS first line?”
A: “Yes.”
…
Q: “Were any prospects rejected?”
A: “Some.”
Q: “Can you give us some examples?”
A: “Audrey wanted to enroll Siobhan and I discussed it with Keith, and he said he wasn’t sure that that was a good idea. Clare’s name was raised a bunch and he wanted to keep that separate.”
Q: “Clare Bronfman?” A: “Yes.”
(A85 (L. Salzman); see also SPA57–58 (B. Bouchey) (“Clare, do you realize that they lied to you? … [F]rom the day you walked through the door, Keith pitted us against you. He knowingly directed us to lie to you, conspire to conceal things. You thought you were in the inner circle. You were six layers out, because that’s what we wanted you to think.”); A275 (“Clare had absolutely no knowledge of DOS, much less any involvement.”).) The government has conceded that members of DOS did not “disclose[] their membership in DOS to [Ms. Bronfman].” (A286.)
Efforts to conceal DOS intensified after information about it began to come out, as Mr. Raniere “directed that we were not going to tell anybody about his involvement, it was going to be secret, that he didn’t know anything about it, that he wasn’t associated with it, that the brand was not his initials and he gave several options for how we could address the concerns that were being raised.” (A90 (L. Salzman).)
Mr. Raniere and other DOS leaders made numerous statements to news reporters, investigators, and members of the NXIVM community denying the allegations. (See, e.g., A95 (L. Salzman) (“I lied to everybody. I lied to the entire community about it. I lied to the media about it, I lied to everybody about it.”); A99 (L. Salzman) (describing a public address Mr. Raniere made: “He said he wasn’t affiliated with DOS, that he had very little knowledge about it”); A107 (L. Salzman) (describing written public statement from Mr. Raniere: “It contained statements that he was not affiliated with the sorority, that he had little knowledge of it and that we had done a thorough review by ex-law enforcement and forensic psychologists and others, and that they had found that the women of the sorority were thriving and doing better, that this was an overall really good thing.”).)
Editor’s Notes:
We learn a few new things here about Clare. We knew that her parents’ marriage was tumultuous and that they married and divorced twice and that Georgiana moved to England with Clare and Sara.
What is new is that Clare’s attorneys allege that Clare’s mother was not present much in her children’s lives insofar as she “spent a considerable portion of Ms. Bronfman’s childhood living in Kenya [while] Ms. Bronfman’s father remained in the United States.”
I wonder how much of the time the young Bronfman girls were without either parent or any caring relative.
Her attorneys write that Clare “was raised instead by a ‘revolving door of nannies,’ who were often ‘grossly under qualified [sic], too young, intoxicated, or otherwise unsuited.’”
This of course is a strong and new allegation: That Clare was an uncared-for youth, raised by unsuitable nannies while her mother and father were off on their own self-centered lives, with little to no regard for their children.
Is it true? Maybe it is.
As her attorneys write, “The lack of stability and emotional support during her formative years left her vulnerable, and ultimately had an outsize impact on her emotional security, trust in others, and ability to form and maintain relationships.”
Enter NXIVM, which “filled a void in Ms. Bronfman’s life” and “helped Ms. Bronfman to discover that she … could be herself in the company of NXIVM members without fear of rejection.”
NXIVM and Keith Raniere transformed Clare from a person “gripped by self-loathing and fear … into a woman who felt comfortable in her own skin, purposeful, and fulfilled.”
“Until she met Mr. Raniere, Ms. Bronfman’s wealth and family history had filled her with shame, inadequacy, and fear.”
This is interesting for her family’s history and the origins of their wealth are dubious with many allegations of crimes. Indeed the Bronfman family is an excellent example of a quote attributed to Honore de Balzac, “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.”
The Bronfman family flooded the USA with alcohol during prohibition which was probably a good thing – insofar as they, along with the Sicilian Mafia, fought the tyranny of the US government that forbid mankind of beverages that they had consumed for untold millennia.
However, the Bronfmans – especially Clare’s grandfather, Sam Bronfman – were particularly ruthless. The whisky he made was reputed to be of poor quality and his methods of his and his partners’ distribution were violent. It may not be a stretch to say that Sam Bronfman fueled the rise of the underworld in the USA and when prohibition ended and the underworld turned to drugs, Sam Bronfman, it is strongly alleged, was there to help out. In this, there are credible allegations that Sam Bronfman was really the number two man in the scheme to provide first alcohol during prohibition and later narcotics, etc. after prohibition, and that the number one players were a group of wealthy, respectable financiers from Great Britain, who were above reproach.
On another day, I will explain in more detail how Sam Bronfman rose to power, and how murder, even the threat of murdering his own brothers, was not beyond him. Clare was not altogether wrong in being ashamed of her family’s history.
Of course, Sam Bronfman sanitized his image somewhat by large, publicly-acclaimed charitable works, but he was at heart a cutthroat and murderer, who would destroy another as quick as look at him.
Getting back to the report by Clare’s attorneys, they write, “Mr. Raniere helped [Clare] to learn about business and finance. He supported and encouraged her to grow businesses outside of NXIVM and to seek outside experts to guide her.”
This is really rather laughable or pathetic depending on how you view the relationship. Raniere got her and her sister to invest and lose $65 million in commodities, gullibly believing in his ideas about business and finance. He led them to invest $26 million in real estate in Los Angeles for a project that ran amok and, but for the efforts of this writer, would have resulted in their losing most or all of it.
He had them squander perhaps as much as $50 million in lawsuits that destroyed opponents but did not increase their wealth and finance and, ultimately, led to the destruction of Nxivm, Raniere and Clare Bronfman, as their enemies turned against them and helped to expose them.
Bronfman lost more than $100 million learning from Raniere about business and finance.
It is true, of course, that “Mr. Raniere became one of the few people Ms. Bronfman felt she could confide in, and [was] the most important person in her life. ”
He took control of this gullible and perhaps vulnerable heiress.
The attorney writes “Consistent with her dedication to NXIVM and her prodigious work ethic, [Clare was] quickly promoted her within the organization.” I think this should read “consistent with her wealth…”
In 2009, Bronfman became a member of the executive board and this I am told was in consequence of Barbara Bouchey and the Nxivm-9 defection which Raniere blamed on the old executive board, and Nancy Salzman [when, in reality, it was he himself who caused the defection.]
Clare, now flush with power, perhaps allowed it to go to her head. She fairly quickly replaced Nancy Salzman as the second in command of Nxivm and had vast control of the operations. In the same year she became the most powerful member of the executive board, she also arranged for the Dalai Lama to come to Albany for a lecture.
As for DOS, Clare may not have known about it prior to June 2017, but she certainly knew about it after I broke the story on June 5, 2017.
By July, she went to Vancouver to try to get one of my primary sources for the story, Sarah Edmondson, arrested. During the summer of 2017, she worked with attorneys in Mexico to try to threaten and intimidate DOS defectors.
Finally, as for the review by ex-law enforcement and forensic psychologists and others, who purportedly “found that the women of the sorority were thriving and doing better and that this was an overall really good thing” – this is utter nonsense.
And actually largely a lie. The law enforcement people were never named, although I believe I discovered who they were and, in any event, how would law enforcement officers be qualified to judge whether women in DOS were doing better or not.
As for the “forensic psychologists”, this again is an error. As far as I know, there were no forensic psychologists. Instead, there a forensic psychiatrist and only one – he is the famous Park Dietz – who evaluated the impact of DOS on its members. However, as far as I know, he did not evaluate multiple women of DOS.
In reality, he only examined one, India Oxenberg. I was in communication with Catherine on the day she spoke with him and listened to their conversation. He told her his findings about India were inconclusive.
Even if he did finally conclude that India was doing well as a member of DOS, this is not evidence that all the women members were doing better or that DOS was an overall really good thing.
By the way, Park Dietz was also famous for testifying that the cannibal/murderer Jeffrey Dahmer was sane.
I’m happy to see that Clare has good representation. It is absolutely gross the way Judge Garaufis treated her. His irrational argument of willful blindness, based upon no evidence, reveals choices based upon deep immorality. He made himself a good example for what needs to change in our legal system so that the US is no longer the lead country in imprisoning citizens.
Did Clare pick bad counsel before? I thought Clare was a legal genius? Taught the law by Keith Raniere the world’s smartest man and child pornographer?
Are you Nxians going to ensure justice for Keith by insisting all the appeals court judges sign his brilliantly designed affidavit? By making sure they know they are being watched? That worked so well for your guys before.
Keith taught Clare about business? And finance?
That is hysterical. By wasting millions and millions on a bad development deal? And wasting millions more on rotten stock choices?
And now sucking away more of Clare’s wealth on the Nxivm legal defense fund?
What lesson did Clare learn? She let a con artist have unfettered access to her wealth and continues to do so.
Not too many people get a good life handed to them and then proceed to ruin it. Clare is a an emotional train-wreck. It was her own nutty letter to the judge that got her the maximum sentence. The judge should have made mental health testing a part of her sentence. Poor little rich woman. Behind bars even.
Here’s something about Clare’s attorney, Professor Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr.:
FTA Federation of Tax Administrators
STATE TAX HIGHLIGHTS
A summary of developments in litigation.
Published biweekly by the Federation of Tax Administrators
IRS Levy Against Law Professor Sustained
The U.S. Tax Court granted the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) summary judgment and sustained a levy action against a law professor to collect over $1.2 million in taxes based on substitutes for return the IRS prepared for him. The court found no abuse of discretion, noting the taxpayer’s failure to provide requested information and his failure to participate in the collection hearing.
The taxpayer is a clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School and the faculty director of the Harvard Trial Advocacy Workshop and the Harvard Criminal Justice Institute. He did not file a Federal income tax return for 2012 or 2013 and records show that he also did not file returns for 2005-2011. The IRS prepared substitutes for returns (SFRs) that met the requirements of section 6020(b) for tax years 2012 and 2013 and issued the taxpayer notices of deficiency for 2012 and 2013 on the basis of the SFRs. Both notices were sent by certified mail and addressed to him at 1338 Commonwealth Ave., West Newton, Massachusetts 02645 and the notice of deficiency for 2013 was returned to the IRS as undeliverable. The taxpayer did not petition the court with respect to either notice and, on September 7, 2015, and August 29, 2016, respectively, the IRS assessed the tax as determined for each year. After the taxpayer did not pay these liabilities, the IRS issued a Notice of Intent to Levy to the taxpayer at a Winthrop House address. The bulk of the assessed liability for 2013 appears to be attributable to the taxpayer’s sale that year of his former residence at the Newton address.
The taxpayer timely filed a Request for a Collection Due Process or Equivalent Hearing, listing his address as the Winthrop House address and said he could not pay the tax. The IRS sent the taxpayer a letter, addressed to his Winthrop House address, acknowledging receipt of his hearing request and advised him of the steps he would need to take to be eligible for a collection alternative, including the filing of delinquent returns for a number of years.
He did not respond to this letter and did not supply any of the requested documents. The case was assigned to a settlement officer (SO) in the IRS Appeals Office, who reviewed the file and verified that all requirements of law and administrative procedure had been satisfied. On October 11, 2017, the SO sent the taxpayer a letter mailed to his Winthrop House address scheduling a telephone CDP hearing and reminded the taxpayer that the IRS could consider a collection alternative only if he became current in his Federal tax obligations and supplied the requested financial information. Petitioner failed to call in for the scheduled hearing and provided no tax returns or financial data. On November 21, 2017, The SO sent subsequently sent the taxpayer a “last chance” letter advising that, if he provided no additional information within 14 days, she would make a determination on the basis of the administrative file. He did not respond to this letter and on February 5, 2018, the SO closed the case and issued a notice of determination sustaining the levy notice. The taxpayer filed a timely appeal, listing his address as the Winthrop House address, arguing that he had no notice of Appeals hearing or pre-hearing meetings and no notice if IRS filed tax returns or opportunity to correct.
The parties jointly moved for a continuance of trial, with the IRS taking the position that the taxpayer had not properly preserved, during the CDP hearing, the issue of his underlying tax liability for 2012 or 2013. The IRS, however, expressed hope that, if the taxpayer provided an accounting of what he believed his proper tax liabilities for those years to be, the parties might be able to resolve the case without the need for trial. The court granted a continuance and directed the taxpayer to provide to counsel for the IRS, on or before June 15, 2019, a statement showing all income he received for tax years 2012 and 2013 and the dollar amount of each deduction to which he believes he was entitled for each year. The taxpayer supplied no documents to the IRS.
The court began by reviewing the standard for summary judgment and found in this matter that the case was appropriate for summary adjudication because there were no material facts in genuine dispute. The court then turned to the taxpayer’s challenge to the underlying liability. The court noted that the taxpayer did not dispute that the notices of deficiency for 2012 and 2013, which were sent by certified mail to his Newton address, were properly mailed to his “last known address.” He contended that he did not receive either notice and the administrative record indicated that the notice for 2013 was in fact returned to the IRS as undeliverable. The court said that for purposes of ruling on the IRS’s motion, it assumed that the taxpayer did not receive either notice of deficiency and was entitled to dispute at the CDP hearing his underlying liabilities for 2012 and 2013. The court said that this right carried with it certain obligations on his part. The court noted that the taxpayer had numerous opportunities to submit evidence relevant to his underlying tax liabilities before or during the CDP hearing. The SO notified him of that hearing by letter sent to his Winthrop House address, the address he used when submitting his CDP hearing request and filing his petition with the court, and he declined to participate in that hearing or otherwise communicate with the SO. The court found that because he supplied no evidence relevant to his underlying tax liabilities despite being given multiple opportunities to do so, he did not advance a proper challenge to those liabilities at the Appeals Office and is thus precluded from advancing that challenge in the court. The court then turned to the issue of whether the SO abused her discretion in sustaining the proposed levy and considered whether she properly verified that the requirements of applicable law or administrative procedure had been met, considered any relevant issues the taxpayer raised, and considered whether any proposed collection action balanced the need for the efficient collection of taxes with the legitimate concern of the taxpayer that any collection action be no more intrusive than necessary. The court concluded that the record established that the SO properly discharged all of her responsibilities and found no abuse of discretion. Ronald Sylvester Sullivan v. Commissioner, U.S. Tax Court, No. 4619-18L; T.C. Memo. 2019-153. 11/19/19
https://taxadmin.memberclicks.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=39&layout=blog&Itemid=326
There is no proof the Bronfmans and their companies have ever done anything honest.
Clare does appear to be complicit in the “Clare as a victim” turn in her tale.
In the A Capella scandal post, I believe is where many of us read the words of Clare describing her delightful childhood. It was on the Frank Report, if my recall is correct.
Regardless. Clare is a grown woman who heartily indulged herself in a banquet of EMs and all the Nxivm tech and sashes money could buy. How could she possibly still be so stuck by an unconventional, perhaps, but very lux upbringing?
Could the Nxivm tech suck balls?
So many little girls dream of ice skating, gymnastics, horseback riding, etc. Very, very, very few little girls have the resources to make those dreams a reality.
On balance, her childhood seems just fine. A little less attention. A lot more money and freedom to pursue her passion. Lots of travel vs. unflinching stability. And so on…
Many people have survived much, much worse.
I guess now Clare Bronfman is a victim..
Clare “was raised instead by a ‘revolving door of nannies,’ who were often ‘grossly under qualified [sic], too young, intoxicated, or otherwise unsuited’” Clare thought it was such an idyllic, privileged, happy upbringing that the sisters wanted to recreate it for families less fortunate than them by opening ‘Cultural Rainbow Gardens’ with Raniere’s ‘improvements’ of course. Let’s make the revolving door of nannies multicultural, then the children can grow up even more off-centre. We want everybody to have the chance to grow up being able to babble in 5 languages and be really confused and happy, don’t we? Clare? You’re not on board this wonderful project? I recommend you book an EM session with Lauren. Get back to me and I’ll trust-test you later. Got to run. I’ve got a tutoring session with a 15-year old awaiting. Remember: You are just so special.
Anonymous at 11:09 a.m.
Fabulous point!
And I guess Keith’s children already have their defense for any future wrongdoing given the weirdness in childhood to which he subjected them.
Didn’t Clare participate in the harassment of one mother and child? Driving them into a life of fleeing and hiding?
You would think Clare would have shown them empathy if what she claims about her own childhood is accurate.
Truly, I wish Keith’s children and all Rainbow Cultural experiment children the best.
It is the parents. And Cami’s father with whom I have a complaint.
Anonymous, that really is a good point about the revolving doors of nannies at the Rainbow experiment on how to completely mess up a child.
Claviger,
What are the chances Raniere will end up in Supermax? It seems she will never break free unless he will be expedited to Supermax. Do you feel that is a fair assumption to make?
Now that he’s been assigned to USP Tucson, Keith would have to screw up very badly in order to get transferred to the Supermax prison in Colorado (e.g., get into physical altercations with guards; get caught with dangerous contraband on several occasions; etc.). So, he’ll likely be able to keep communicating with several of his former acolytes for the rest of his life.
As for Clare, it’s hard to say. For some inmates, the longer they’re incarcerated, the more likely they are to change their attitudes and views — and to disengage from their former friends. For others, it’s exactly the opposite: i.e., the longer they’re incarcerated, the more rigid they become to their original beliefs.
PS: We’re hoping to get another update on Clare sometime this month.
When will we be getting an update on how Raniere is faring in Arizona? Has anyone stolen his glasses yet? I still wonder if they did that not only to annoy him, but also to prevent him.from trying to hypnotize them with his gaze. Word about him had already traveled to the Mexican men at MDC, and I am sure he tried this and NLP on his fellow inmates.
The COVID-19 lockdown is still at least partially in effect in most federal prisons — which means that most COs are not able to freely move about when they’re on duty. That has greatly limited our ability to get an update on Keith. But rest assured, we’re working on it.
I’m laughing at the image of Raniere getting in physical altercations with prison guards!
Supermax is basically for terrorists, spies, big time dug traffickers or organized crime figures.
Raniere is basically a clown.
ADX Florence in Florence, Colorado.
is best known for housing several inmates who have been deemed either too dangerous, too high-profile or too great a national security risk for even a maximum-security prison.[17] They include several prisoners convicted of domestic and international terrorism, such Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who perpetrated the Oklahoma City Bombing; Richard Reid and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who separately attempted to detonate explosives on a commercial airplane flight; Theodore Kaczynski (“Unabomber”), who carried out a campaign of mail bombs; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.[20] Other notable inmates include Robert Hanssen, convicted of espionage for the Soviet Union and El Chapo, a Mexican drug lord convicted in 2019.
Supermax prison
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermax_prison#United_States
Supermax is a non-issue in the NXIVM case.
There are also several white-collar defendants who end up in the Supermax prison because they insist on going to trial in cases that involved political figures. For example, a guy that I will simply refer to as MRM — who was indicted on Medicaid fraud charges in Illinois, chose to go to trial, ended up testifying about payoffs to the governor, got convicted, and got a 5-year term — spent his entire 51 months at Florence. So, you don’t have to be a serial killer or terrorist to be sent there but it helps.
Klaviger-
How was/is the guy (MRM) after he came out of the hell pit?
*Please Note: I refer the the super-max as a hell pit. Calling it a prison is disingenuous at best.
He was much more docile after his time there — not quite like the Chief in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest but close to it.
He also ratted out a good friend who had employed him after he got out because he was so afraid of ever going back to prison.
K.R. Claviger-
I’d say marginally better than the ‘Chief’ is pretty bad. I guess getting tortured for 4 years will do that to a man.
I think a simple year would change anyone.
Thanks for responding!
I was thinking about Clare as I sometimes do, have you ever seen a fish out of water?
Frank-
Good read! Enjoyed your wrap-up at the end.
Thanks.
****
I’m shocked Clare has still not completely abandoned Raniere. His hold over these women is incredible considering he is a
4ft-crosseyed-square footed-fat-hairy troll who walks with an odd bounce.
Frank, have you covered this yet? Seems like the Raniere stench is still spreading in MX.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-04/mexico-ruling-party-denies-leader-was-part-of-sex-cult
Poor little rich girl.
“wealth… had filled her with shame, inadequacy, and fear” Odd, because the reverse would seem to be true. Wealth made her arrogant and powerful. She clearly believed she could get away with any enormity.
I can easily imagine these same lawyers arguing that poverty filled their client with “shame, inadequacy, and fear.”
It seems spinning bullshit is the best these legal eagles have to argue.
Their appeal will go nowhere.
My2cents makes an excellent point. If you read about how much effort was expended to bring Mark Vincente into the organization, and he was just a filmmaker, imagine the effort to bring in and keep, 2 wealthy heiresses. They would never have been shown the dirty underbelly of the organization. And enormous amounts of info would never be revealed.
I watched Sarah Bronfman’s reactions on “The Vow” while Mr. Raniere deliberately misleads the Dali Lama. She had to have had a penny drop moment, realizing that if he would mislead the Dali Lama, he would mislead anyone. JMO
Thanks, anon! But you said it even better than me. I just even can’t imagine the amount of pressure required to turn a daughter against her own father. Hugely unfortunate for her that she did it anyway.
I’m not sure I saw this thing you’re describing with the Dali Lama, but what I think I hear you saying is that she must have had some pretty huge moments of cognitive dissonance that could have been a wake-up call. I can’t help thinking turning against your own father would be a big one!
But just like you, (JMO, also) I think they probably screwed her the hardest. Not physically like the rest, but rather reserving a special kind of cruelty made just for her since her money was such a tremendous asset.
Of course, they still had to implicate her in crimes. Such being the nature of the organization.
I hope she can forgive herself someday. I think I heard her dad died without her by his side and possibly in full knowledge of what she did to him. I hope her time in jail will help her gain a more fulsome view of humanity. You know how sometimes “good” people do really bad things and sometimes “bad” people do really awesome stuff?
She still deserves to be in prison but I hope it serves her well. She was awfully young when she joined this group and probably hasn’t seen much of the real world since her childhood. I hope she can draw some good from those early experiences and find, not “most joy”, but rather a sense of peace and serenity.
I hope once she figures out how bad this all was, she will be okay.
Sorry I can’t say the same for any of those actually involved with recruiting, collateralizing, and branding of human slaves. I have zero sympathy for that kind of behavior. Turning against your father is one thing. Attempting to create an army of human slaves for yourself is a different thing altogether.
Anonymous, how did Keith mislead the Dalai Lama? I missed that in The Vow.
Please elaborate, if you don’t mind. That’s interesting.
Great freaking article! A couple of years ago I found where she wrote highly of her mum raising her in the village in Africa. If Georgina was an absentee parent and heathens raised these women, it may explain a bit why she was attracted to the hairy one. She seems very confused about what life is in general. Unfortunately, Frank, she’s still lying. I’m not sure there’s much hope for her.
Clare was depressed. Keith used his knowledge of NLP to anchor positive emotional states in Clare. She would do anything to maintain them, including suing anyone who might interfere with Keith’s empire of deceit.
The Dos-8 will also do anything to try and reconstitute these positive emotional NLP anchors and escape the emptiness of a world without “family”.
Everyone wants love and happiness. Some are willing to get medieval on anyone who threatens their imagined supply of it.
I can concur this is what was happening in the Educo cult here in UK and Ireland. NLP, NPD and cults. Thanks, Frank and Pandora’sJF, you know there are lots of accounts of Educo members also being under hypnotic influence and it has been written this would even be used to commit perjury. This is such a sad abuse of personal boundaries
I’m not sure why I feel this way but I think Clare was duped (and used) and worse.
She was even encouraged to go against her own biological father. And who is to judge whether it’s good or bad that she serves time? (Like this Vanguard is trying to do). I just hope that even though the consequences are hard that they won’t last too long, and she’ll learn a lot and find her own beautiful way out from under the thumb of this monster. Slavery and branding are never okay.
And Clare? If he didn’t try certain things on you, specifically, it still looks like he’s been screwing with you for a very long time.
“And who is to judge whether it’s good or bad that she serves time?”
Senior U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis and the federal appellate court judges.