Danielle Roberts D.O. is in the fight of her life. She is a physician and, based on a complaint filed by Sarah Edmondson, the New York State Office of Professional Medical Conduct [OPMC] initiated an investigation and then a series of hearings before the State Board for Professional Medical Conduct to determine if Dr. Danielle Roberts’ medical license should be revoked or not.
Dr. Danielle Roberts, age 39, is charged with medical misconduct for her role in branding women in the DOS sorority. Her defense is that the branding, which does not require a medical license, is not part of the practice of medicine and is, therefore, not subject to medical misconduct charges.
Frank Report will have more on the subject of her hearings, but, in the meantime, Dr. Roberts continues to defend DOS and her participation in it. She is one of the eight founding members of The Dossier Project,, a website designed to promote the positive values of the now-defunct sorority.
The DOS women blame Frank Report and this writer and Edmondson for destroying DOS.
A ruling on Dr. Danielle Roberts’ medical license is expected in the next few months. However, whichever side wins, an appeal is expected, so it may be some time, perhaps not until the end of the year, before the results of the State Board’s final decision to revoke or not revoke her license will be known. They might also suspend her license for a period of time, or merely admonish, or warn, or take no action at all.
Dr. Roberts appeared on Dateline NBC last month to defend her position and some 12 million people watched it. Here is an excerpt.
Meantime, as she awaits the results of her hearing, Dr. Roberts has nothing but praise for the good she got out of DOS.
Regardless of what one may think of Dr. Roberts’ views, there is one thing that is fairly certain, she is in top physical shape for a woman who is almost 40. She practices yoga, dance, aerobics, and other exercise disciplines.
Here are videos of Danielle doing gymnastics in front of the Metropolitan Detention Center last summer.
Here are photos of Danielle doing yoga postures in the winter:
Finally, there are some readers who are upset that Frank Report is publishing the views of Raniere’s supporters. They say it is unfair because the victims cannot give their side. Here is a sample comment:
“I think Frank shouldn’t publish their [Raniere supporters’] words. It’s not fair to the victims who can’t speak. They are still silenced, while Frank is hosting their abusers every week.”
My response is that the victims are certainly not silenced. They testified at trial. They made docuseries. They wrote books and did podcasts. They spoke at Raniere’s sentencing hearing. They give interviews to the media and appeared on every major news outlet. Nobody is stopping a single victim from speaking out on any and every media platform in the world — and to sympathetic ears almost everywhere.
To listen to the other side, even if we disagree, is not abusing victims. It may, in fact, be a learning experience. Maybe it will complete the picture and maybe there is more to the story; maybe it is more nuanced than we think. And maybe the people on both sides have something to offer to each other if we are willing to listen a little.
I find it remarkable that the very same people who were staunch followers of Raniere just a short time ago, who fought for him and against me and others who opposed Raniere for years, are now so intolerant of the people who espoused the same views they once did – before they had their awakening.
Let us give Danielle Roberts an opportunity to speak. If she is so wrong, it should be easy enough to spot and perhaps after we listen we may be able to show her the error of her ways — to deprogram her so to speak. And if she is not all wrong, perhaps we can agree with her where she is right and gently nudge her where we think she is wrong.
And, if perchance, we were wrong about something, even something minor, perhaps we can re-evaluate our own thinking.
For my part, I cannot support the views and schemes of Keith Raniere. I think he is misleading his remaining followers just as he did his former followers. But I think that most of his former followers and most of his present followers are essentially good people, [as I judge good] and that the difference between the former and the latter is that they have not realized who Keith Raniere is yet.
That said, I am willing to listen to any argument that can show me that Raniere is misunderstood, that he really meant to help people and just miscalculated stupendously. That he had good intentions and a cold, cruel and ugly world attacked him because he was different. I do not see it. But his followers do. And so they are reluctant to abandon him. I think they will one day.
Now let us hear from Dr. Roberts on DOS.
By Dr. Danielle Roberts
Looking back at my experience of DOS there were many benefits I experienced and that still positively impact my life today. However, there are two notable and life-changing gifts I received specifically;
1. I had no idea my body could reach (and run so well) at a lower weight. I always wanted to be more elegant in appearance, lighter and more efficient. However, I had fears around deeply experiencing my physical weakness and vulnerability that prevented me from reaching those goals.
DOS helped give me the structure, support, belief and permission to find out what it took for me to do this. There are still times I struggle to not use food to cover up my emotional or physical vulnerabilities but I am much better at being able to sit with these feels, and the truth of how vulnerable it truly is to be human.
This not only has transformed what is possible with my body, but has allowed for more real, raw, unfiltered humanity in my relationships and experience of life. It has made me more empathetic and compassionate towards others and more relentless in my pursuit to stand for human rights and those who have been wronged.
2. It helped me get in touch with my fears and get honest with who I really am. I had struggled most of my life, unconsciously, to allow myself to honestly feel my fears and insecurities. I was very strong, capable, accomplished and attractive and could cover up most of my vulnerability with these things. However, I couldn’t allow myself to honestly see my weaknesses, failures or shortcomings.
I struggled to take in and utilize constructive feedback, as I felt it an affront to my personhood and it often devastated me.
Without outside feedback I was run by my blind spots and limited from growing into the highest version of myself. DOS helped me feel secure enough to get past my veneer of pride and pretending, and learn to love myself despite my failures, the way the women around me did.
They saw my shortcomings, pointed them out, and continued to love and support me so that I can grow. I am continuing to learn how to do that for myself now on a daily basis, and I am much better for it. I see others who can’t take in feedback about their shortcomings, they protect themselves or block information… they can stay stuck in the same place for a lifetime.
I am so grateful that will not be my life and that I will be able to ever evolve and grow as an effect of this.
Thank you, DOS, and all of the deeply committed women I have been privileged to meet on this journey.
[…] continues to speak out in support of the now-defunct DOS organization of which she was a member. A recent article on The Frank Report shared the osteopath’s thoughts on the benefits she gained from her experience in DOS — a group […]
[…] continues to speak out in support of the now-defunct DOS organization of which she was a member. A recent article on The Frank Report shared the osteopath’s thoughts on the benefits she gained from her experience in DOS — a group […]
If any of the current DOS supporters has addressed the lie about the brand, Raniere’s behavior toward the Fernandez sisters, Raniere’s underage sex needs, the treatment of the older “harem” members, and the bizarre lies of Vanguard and Prefect, I have not heard about it.
As usual, they remain adamant and curiously selfish about their particular needs and desires.
It would be enlightening to have them address those issues.
Nancy is very angry
I used to do backward walkovers as a teenager in gym classes but could never manage those backflips. However, people do that stuff without joining cults. No one is stopping these people from founding a new group with similar rules as long as it obeys the law.
On the tattoo issue, some of the women branded did not know how it was going to be, how long it would last to brand (30 mins I think), that it was KR/AM initials and, therefore, no matter how many consent forms they signed they did not give valid consent. Also, certainly here in the UK, you simply cannot consent to some supposedly consented to pain – e.g., in BDSM practices our case, says it depends how hard and extreme it is. A particular U.S. state may have different laws on that – I don’t know. So, it was very unwise of her at the least to have done this to the women.
To any sane individual, the Dateline interview didn’t do anything to help her case.
It didn’t even sound like rationalizations, just excuses.
I hope the medical board protects everyone from her.
I think these women are still under Keith’s control. They see his initials every morning on their bodies, and never seem to want to talk about it.
Then, again, maybe they’re all just hoping to get book deals and ride the fame.
I have read a lot of the purported defenses for NXIVM, have watched many of the documentaries, and watched the conversations with Raniere posted on YouTube. There is a tremendous amount of talk by Raniere and his supporters about making the world a better place and human rights but other than take classes, what did Raniere or Bronfman ever actually do to make the world a better place?
Did they volunteer at soup kitchens or support organizations in the Albany area? Did they collect food for the homeless, visit seniors in nursing homes, or tutor underprivileged kids? If being in DOS made Dr. Roberts more compassionate, did she donate her medical services to those in need?
As far as I can see, all they did was spend tens of thousands of dollars on classes and speak of changing the world. Rather than give Raniere millions to lose in the commodities markets or fund vexatious litigation, why didn’t Clare and Sarah use that money to feed the hungry or educate the underprivileged?
Maybe I missed this but if people who support Raniere claim they made the world a better place, I’d love to see actual concrete examples and not this word salad that comes out of everyone’s mouth.
Why? Because Raniere taught that such people — e.g., the poor, underprivileged, homeless, etc. — were parasitic, and his followers bought that bullshit hook, line and sinker. He taught and convinced them that the most ethical people in the world should collect as much money as they could (and in saying that, the implication was the most ethical people in the world were those who followed him), and then the world would magically change for the better. Of course, this was all nonsense because the “mission” was also bullshit.
You’ve come a long way, baby!
Snorlax-
You’ve definitely come along way, baby!
“ It has made me more empathetic and compassionate towards others and more relentless in my pursuit to stand for human rights “
I read Sarah Edmondson’s book where she describes her experience of being branded. The above quote is obscene. Women were systematically lied to and compelled into being torture-branded. Edmondson had been told that the mark would be the size of a dime. At no time was she told it would be a man’s initials branded onto her nether regions.
It is obscene for this woman to talk of her “empathy” and “compassion” or of “human rights”. What she learned from Raniere was the exact opposite. She was happily performing torture branding on women who had been compelled to submit through blackmail and systematic deception.
The room where this obscene act was being performed (Allison Mack’s living room) was filled with the stench of burning human flesh, in Edmondson’s description. Where is the empathy, where is the compassion in that?
This obscenity of female submission and agony (“like a sacrifice”, in Raniere’s infamous words) was video recorded for Raniere’s delectation. Without the women’s knowledge or consent.
Edmondson submitted reluctantly to the procedure because it had been made abundantly clear to her that her future with the company was at stake (she ran the Vancouver branch). How is that consistent with “human rights”?
This woman is depraved.
This woman has an MD. And so must be intimately familiar with the concept and legal stricture of informed consent. She wielded a surgical instrument to permanently disfigure multiple women’s bodies, under compulsion and without their informed consent. In a highly sexualized context whose nature was, again, concealed from them. It was a medical procedure performed using a medical instrument by a doctor of medicine – which means it clearly falls under the authority of a medical review board. The conclusion is inescapable: she MUST have her license revoked.
She should also be arrested and tried for assault, and be sued for malpractice.
Hear, hear, Aristotle’s Sausage. Entirely agree. Robert’s claims and antics are among the most depraved, obscene and I’ll add lunatic acts imaginable. Apart from her devastating branding performances.
Burning question, and pardon me if you’ve covered this previously, was Dr. Roberts ever branded herself and, if so, by whom?
Also, did she put up collateral, know it was Keith’s monogram being carved on her puss at the time, have any anesthesia, have to be held down stark naked and made to beg to be “honored” with the brand?
Nigh time for the good Doc to get a taste of her own medicine if not!
Dr. Roberts was branded.
Thanks, Frank. Who did Dr. Robert’s branding, again?
Personally, I think it’s great that Frank posts the views of the few remaining Raniere loyalists. It gives us a view and maybe a little understanding of his iron-clad hold on these people and shows us how much they are still under his spell. A part of me feels bad for them as they continue to waste their, time, money and life on this Machiavellian puppet master. Then again, when they start victim shaming and blaming, my blood boils and I want to throw them in a pit of alligators
Here is where I think I’m going to anger some people that post here. I’m not sure her license should be revoked for two reasons;
1) Branding is not against the law any more than tattooing is; and
2) This would destroy her life.
Yes, what she did in those ceremonies was reprehensible and deserves some form of punishment. This could include the suspension of her license for a period of time. Perhaps until she meets some specific requirements that the medical board sets out for her
There has been so much destruction of lives already. I’m not talking about “he who shall not be named” or his inner circle, but of people that were simply a periphery part of the group. The name of Keith Raniere is so incredibly toxic that anyone that says it is immediately questioned and branded an abuser.
On the flip side of that, if she continues to defend this walking pile of crap and continues to show no comprehension of the part she played in the traumatizing of members of DOS, then she is lost. But if she can snap out of it long enough for her to realize her part in the abuse, she may yet be salvaged.
It is truly up to the medical board to judge
So says the queen.
True!
So DOS was really a supercharged weight-watchers group with naught but physical transformation to a state of ‘lightness and elegance’ as a desired goal.
All that criminality just so the ladies could have humanity ‘raw and unfiltered’ like apple cider vinegar or kombucha, like cheese in France, or olive oil in Italy – Gotcha.
Btw, Danielle, there are easier ways to overcome fear and insecurity than entering into a covert ‘vow’ whereby you brand your naked and confused sister-ladies over their fallopian tubes with a cauterizing pen. You should have taken up bungee-jumping or battle re-enactment.
Better still, offer your valuable skill to the homeless – a couple of hours pro-bono a week would have had/could have you feeling like a genuinely decent person because you would actually be doing something decent. Uncanny, how easy it is to pursue and serve ‘Human rights’ – right where we stand! You’re amazingly fit and gymnastic – could you stretch to rolling up your sleeves and mucking in at a shelter?
Or is that sort of thing too common, obscure, and un-enlightened for you?
I don’t see the connection between not eating and being a bad-ass woman. Danielle also does not explain. For instance, she says in the first point: “It [starving herself] has made me more empathetic and compassionate towards others and more relentless in my pursuit to stand for human rights and those who have been wronged.”
How exactly did starving yourself help you to stand up for human rights violations???
With this type of narrative, you can justify anything. You could also say, for example: “Being raped” has made me more empathetic and compassionate towards others and more relentless in my pursuit to stand for human rights and those who have been wronged.”
I would love for her to provide detail connecting the points.
Personally, I think a doctor should have a more serious stance. Especially if they are being threatened to lose their license. Why is she sharing half-naked pictures of herself flexing? How does that help her case? If anything, I see this as an unbalanced woman. Not a serious professional. How many doctors do you know that appear in their underwear on social media flexing? Fauchi would not do that.
1) Lose weight
2) Know yourself better
So basically the headlines of check-out line self-help magazines. Those are a LOT cheaper than NXIVM courses and don’t require getting the initials of an odoriferous, hairy midget slowly seared into your crotch.
Frank,
Why do you continue to refer to Danielle Roberts as a medical doctor in light of the fact she is not a graduate of a medical school? Why do you do this? Being a naturopath, a chiropractor, a Chinese medicine practitioner, an osteopath, etc. DOES NOT make one a medical doctor. I refuse to accept you don’t understand these distinctions. Your attention to detail is really exceptional, yet on this count…
I am somewhat disappointed by your position on this.
Did I call her a medical doctor [MD] I do not think I did. She is however a physician and licensed to do all sorts of things – including prescribe drugs and treat patients like a medical doctor.
Best letter from this camp yet! None of the same stuff we are so used to hearing from this group.
I especially liked how she credited some of the positivity she experienced to the support and care from the women in her circle. Everyone in the world needs friends. People to love and care for us, warts and all. We all need community.
Obviously, I’m looking in from the outside but to me? Her letter seems personal and authentic. Like an actual human is speaking some of their truth.
Have to admit I’m curious how going on a super low cal diet made her a more compassionate person, though. I don’t know Danielle or her relationship to food but these seem like possible reasons to me: she learned how it felt to be starving and felt more compassion for starving people in the world, she felt more compassion for the morbidly obese for whom these types of diets are usually only medically prescribed, she felt more compassion for all types of dieters that don’t diet for the health and deep connection with their body but do it instead for the wrong reasons?
She talked a lot about vulnerability but she also talked a lot about her past. I saw her on Dateline and frankly? She looked scared. I’d be scared, too. To go on camera if my face was all over the news for all the wrong reasons.
Obviously, this is an incredible test of vulnerability for Danielle but it’s happening to everyone, all of us, every single moment right now, too! Because whether you want to avoid it or not? Being vulnerable is basically the number one thing about being alive. You could die at any second.
Anyway, it’s really up to her to decide if she wants to hang her hat on this DOS and its leadership. I learned the other day that article 4 of the UN Charter of Human Rights says this:
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms
I think DOS is just another of this guy’s sick jokes. It makes a mockery of really terrible things.
“she credited some of the positivity she experienced to the support and care from the women in her circle.”
I’m sure women would bond with each other when sitting in a circle, naked and spread-eagled for the camera.
That’s how I feel whenever my buddies and I do it.
Ahhh, LaLaLad, you made me laugh out loud! I didn’t realize more people were doing this? 😉
I asked Suneel once in this forum about getting one of these pictures from him. Haven’t heard anything back on that. It’s funny that he’s such a champion of the practices but doesn’t seem to want to participate?
Danielle never provided the connection and depth you provide in explaining how the diet helped her have empathy. You are way more compassionate and have way more depth than her.
Thanks, Mexican Lady!
I suspect Danielle would highly benefit from seeing a psychologist. Most people would.
If I give Raneire credit for anything, it’s that he has excellent taste in women. Sadly he breaks them mentally, but before that happened, A+ taste.
KAR only liked women with square, mannish jaws. I have a psychological theory about his preference, but I’ll keep it to myself.
To each each their own, but not my cup of tea.
Now, look at the way Roberts answers about her (nonexistent) Hippocratic Oath. Okay. Seen enough yet? A lot of us have.
First, Roberts is an osteopath. Tell it like it is. Had the Dateline interviewer done her backup research work, she would know that, quite exceptionally and blatantly, osteopaths are not using, or required to make, or to take the Hippocratic Oath.
What their “oath” is, is a revisal (and a vague one) of the traditional oath of the practice of medicine. Anyone can look this information up independently. See who wrote that Osteopathic Oath. See when and see where. And yes, that is what osteopaths call “their” oath, the Osteopathic Oath. Hopefully, this isn’t a goddamn square dance or some fool doing gymnastics in front of a prison in Brooklyn. Wake the bejeebers up, Baitline.
The whole DOS schemata laid out by Roberts is sure as hell ALL ABOUT HER. Maybe she should go sit her ass on top of Orlando Bloom. He has servants with flyswatters.
Shivani,
I was trying to make the same point about Roberts not being a medical doctor but it did not make it through…
Osteopathy is “alternative medicine”, which is to say it’s not real medicine. If it were real, evidence-based medicine grounded in actual science it wouldn’t be “alternative”.
From an article in Forbes, a brief history of osteopathic “medicine”:
“Invented by Andrew Still in 1874, who made this and many other claims, none of them supported by science. For example, he claimed in his autobiography that he could
‘shake a child and stop scarlet fever, croup, diphtheria, and cure whooping cough in three days by a wring of its neck.’
Today, that particular treatment would likely get you arrested for child abuse.”
Osteopathy claims that disease is caused by misalignment of bones and muscles and is cured by a kind of laying on of hands, revival tent style. (“Os” is “bone” in Latin, hence the name). It’s founded on pure quackery.
With those fantastic gymnastic skills, if Danielle Roberts loses her medical license, she can always join the circus.
Good one!
Is Dr. Torture doing one of those Nxivm snow standing punishments in that photo?
There are easier, more fun and healthier ways to lose weight. And they do not require super up close vagina photos sent to an old pervert.
But DOS should set up a weight loss clinic if this was all it was really about. Like Jenny Craig but with blackmail, burning flesh, readiness drills, false accusations against the men in your life, and group blow jobs.
I can hear the commercials now…
“Lose 10 pounds or we release your masturbation tape.”
Or
“You’ll take off the weight. We’ll frame your Dad for child molestation if you don’t”.
Daniela Roberts guaranteed, by going on Night Line, that her Medical License will be revoked. The medical board will now have a large amount of pressure to revoke her license.
It was incredibly shortsighted and foolish to appear on Night Line — Nothing like shooting yourself in the foot — Her appearance did nothing to help out Vanguard and only served to embarrass her mother.
Daniela-
I apologize for objectifying you — but you had a smoking body and an ass that is the envy of all women. You didn’t need to lose weight whatsoever!
You are body-shaming yourself and all other women by what you’re saying. You’re definitely no feminist.
On a positive note, you could probably make a boat-load of money selling an exercise video teaching people how to have an ass like yours.