In the post, Bangkok: Suttons Deserve Money, Mack Deserves Perdition, and Raniere Deserves to Win Appeal Based on ‘Ineffective Assistance of Counsel’, Bangkok touches on a number of points, some good, some bad, but mostly ugly.
Before I offer my comments to his various points, I want to say that there are some who think Bangkok is Dennis Burke, the former US Attorney for Arizona, who resigned in the midst of the Fast and Furious scandal.
The people making this accusation have provided no evidence to date that Bangkok is Burke. However, to date, Bangkok has not denied it either. I have also been asked which one of the two pictured individuals is Bangkok on his profile picture? [see below].
Bangkok and my comments are below our respective pictures.
Bangkok
Keith’s attorney was EXTREMELY ‘ineffective’ for failing to call Lauren back to the witness stand the next day.
Frank
I have little doubt that Keith Raniere’s attorneys will raise this issue on appeal, along with the judge halting Lauren Salzman’s cross-examination when she cried.
Bangkok
You had no problem letting Toni Natalie (a known liar) ask the judge for a ton of money, without raising so much as a fucken PEEP.
Frank
Toni Natalie, a pioneer among Raniere fighters, asked for $175,000 in victim restitution. She documented about $70,000 and the government is recommending she get $48,000 from the restitution fund.
It is up to the judge to decide how much anyone gets. The prosecution can only recommend amounts they think are fair, legal or appropriate.
Bangkok
Barb Bouchey asked for TONS of money even though she spent years assisting Keith…
My main point is that you, Frank, have no problem with Irish Barb Bouchey asking the court for millions, even though she assisted Keith to do harm for many years.
Frank
Bouchey claimed in her victim impact statement filed with the court that she lost more than $14 million because of Raniere’s victimization of her. She documented some $4.7 million for the prosecution in losses. The government is recommending she get $350,000, less than 10 percent of her documented losses.
Bangkok
If Barb Bouchey had followed IRS regulations (as his investment agent), she would have disclosed to the IRS that Keith had ownership of certain money/accounts/assets under her control.
The $1.5 million dollar ‘loan’ was a bogus loss. It was a ‘gift’ she gave to Keith —- because she LOVED him and worshipped him. He did not steal it from her. She gave it to her Vanguard.
Frank
Smart Boy That: Keith Raniere.
Once he and Bouchey were lovers, then they became estranged.
When Bouchey asked Raniere for the return of $1.5 million she says she lent him, which he lost in the commodities market, Raniere chose to show her the errors of her ways, using his students, Clare and Sara Bronfman’s money to help explain it to her via a series of lawsuits.
He was unable to prevail in court. But through discovery and depositions, Raniere was able to get many personal and scandalous details of his life for the first time onto the public record, which were the fodder for many sensational stories in the Albany Times Union, the NY Post, Vanity Fair and elsewhere – stories such as that he had a harem, and that he had lost more than $65 million of Bronfman money in the commodities market.
Bangkok
You’re an asshole, Frank. You’re guided by ‘bias’ and ‘friendship’ with these ex-NXIVM players. The Sutton family actually LOST REAL MONEY equal to that amount [$2.8 million] —– while the other alleged victims spent years helping Keith to perpetrate NXIVM misdeeds. You’re not being objective, Frank.
Frank
The government recommended 100 percent of the wealthy Sutton family’s claim for $2.8 million, allocating about half of the restitution money to a family estimated to be worth about $100 million and who agreed to drop their civil suit with NXIVM prior to Raniere’s arrest.
Both Natalie and Bouchey had a role in the battle with Raniere. Both were his lovers for a time – Natalie in the mid- to late 1990s and Bouchey in the early to mid 2000s. Both wound up getting indicted through his efforts – though not convicted.
Raniere wound up getting indicted at least partly through their efforts and was convicted. He sued both women. He did not win his cases but he cost them a significant amount of money and a lot of time and aggravation.
It would have been wiser for Raniere to have let these women alone. The fight dirtied him up a great deal and set the stage for the 2017 take down.
Bangkok
You now view Allison Mack as a victim —– even though she’s never repudiated Keith even one time. You’ve never read her courtroom statement. It did NOT repudiate Keith. It used the word ‘misguided’ once and that was it. It didn’t even say that Keith was misguided, it said that SHE was misguided in following his teachings, without ever saying that his teachings were bad or repudiating them.
Yet, you’ve LIED to your readers by saying that Allison REPUDIATED Keith, LOL.
Frank
As for Allison Mack, her allocution at her plea hearing was at times a little vague. But it wasn’t quite as weak as Bangkok suggests. I will republish the parts of it that refer to Raniere. To read it in its entirety click here.
Allison Mack on Keith Raniere
Allison Mack started her allocution by crying which interrupted the proceedings briefly, and elicited the judge’s concern. But she composed herself, began her allocution, and said, among other things:
As Your Honor is aware, I dedicated years of my life to an organization in which I and others truly believed, NXIVM. In the course of my time with NXIVM…. I became close with Keith Raniere….
I believed that Keith Raniere’s intentions were to help people, and that my adherence to his system of beliefs would help empower others and help them. I was wrong.
And I now realize that I and others engaged in criminal conduct. My misguided beliefs and dedication of what I believed were the principles underlying NXIVM, Keith Raniere’s teachings, resulted in my agreeing to support the criminal enterprise that is alleged in the indictment.
The goal of the enterprise that I joined was to further and promote the objectives of Keith Raniere… and participated in some of the criminal objectives of the enterprise, and I conspired and agreed with others to commit certain racketeering in furtherance of this enterprise….
I was a member of secret society founded by, developed by, and ultimately led by Raniere. At Raniere’s direction, I and other women sought to recruit other women to join DOS…..
I knowingly and intentionally took and withheld property … referred to as collateral, which … DOS members would not want revealed because it would be personally damaging or ruinous…. [and] instill[ed] in them a fear that if the property was not delivered, we would expose collateral previously given to the organization, which could have been embarrassing and personally damaging to themselves or others, if released…
I knowingly and intentionally obtained the labor and services… being part of a scheme,… designed to make them believe that if they did not perform the requested acts … [there would be] the specter of the release of their collateral….
I concealed Keith Raniere’s role as the head of DOS and characterized DOS as a women’s only organization, knowing that Keith Raniere was the head of the organization…. having reviewed the charges against Keith Raniere in the most recent indictment and having many months to reflect on my own actions and motivations of others, I have come to the conclusion that I must take full responsibility for my conduct…..
I am very sorry for the victims of this case. I am also very sorry for the harm that I caused to my family. They are good people who I have hurt through my misguided adherence to Keith Raniere’s teachings….
[…] I encourage anyone who is interested in really understanding the issue of Allison Mack’s attitude toward Keith Raniere to read the full text of her allocution, because its tone and meaning are very different from the excerpts posted by Frank in his story, Did Allison Mack Repudiate Raniere? […]
“I’d rather be exhausted from facing adversity than exhausted from living a lie.” ~ Nicki Clyne
But what if you’re exhausted by the former BECAUSE you’re exhausted by the latter?
Your master has been living a lie for decades, Nicki. He was never an ethical guru. That was just more of his BS as another MLM scheme.
You’re right, Nicki. You don’t need to be deprogrammed. Like your former career where you used to lie for a living, you’re just another self-centered cult actor who helped destroy the lives of others living a lie in reality.
Agree, anonymous 1:07 a.m.
I loath those “deep thought” tweets and Insta. It doesn’t even make sense.
What about just getting a good night’s sleep?
Or being exhausted from a hard day’s honest work? Or playing with your kids?
Or doing what you love?
Or I would rather be exhausted from living my best life?
Hiking the APT?
Life doesn’t boil down to 2 simplified bad choices.
What about be invigorated from facing adversity?
And I think you nailed it on why she is “exhausted” with no family working as a barista.
Try say….having a really high-powered job as a single mom with cancer and then maybe you will know exhausted, Nicki.
Or try getting your daughter out of a sex slave cult.
That would be exhausting.
RE: “Through it all, I believed that Keith Raniere’s intentions were to help people, and that my adherence to his system of beliefs would help empower others and help them.”
That cannot be truthful at all, that she was deceived by Keith’s intentions, because her knowledge of what Raniere and herself were doing proves that she was aware of what was going on and that she was involved in it herself. Allison Mack is a liar.
Anonymous, you forgot the proverbial “Mic Drop!” at the end. Well said.
That is debatable…She could, like the other women, agree with some things, because she believed in the goodness of KAR and his highest intentions, despite being aware of some negative things done by her and the other women. Look what is seen in the messages from Camila and Keith in which she agrees to get slaves for him, and that happens at a time when she would be legally responsible if she was accused. I even remember that Heidi mentioned as her sister Gina also recruited her friends to spend time with Keith.
Interestingly, Bouchey and Natalie, who both made a choice to trespass on to NXIVM’S servers using someone else’s username and password, got caught and had criminal charges and civil charges brought against them are now being rewarded for their behavior.
Natalie hid Raniere’s patent under her name and later tried to sell it back to him for a million while he was suing Microsoft & AT&T believing Clare Bronfman would pay her the MONEY, but instead got sued by Raniere, is now somehow a victim 🙄🤔😓.
Bouchey really only got sued once by NXIVM & the Bronfmans, it just got moved from one court to another by Bouchey’s actions. Her other so-called law suits were depositions in our lawsuits or she was a witness. She didn’t get sued 14 times as she claims.
Bernie Madoff is Dead
Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff dies in prison at 82
https://apnews.com/article/bernie-madoff-dead-9d9bd8065708384e0bf0c840bd1ae711
To Frank & Pious Bangkok,
I am awestruck by Bangkok’s lucidity and stellar points in this question and answer column.
Frank, I’m glad you decided to publish this piece. Many of the questions you answered were on my mind.
***
Pious Bangkok, I am earnestly impressed with you. You must have swallowed a bucket of smart pills.
You fanboy.
Who Does Niceguy love more?
1. Pious Babcock
2. Michelle Salzman
3. Ronnie’s girl from Ghana
4. Whatever his pseudonym of the hour happens to be
5. His fleshlight
Number 2
NutJob,
Before I answer— I need to know if the Fleshlight™️ is dishwasher safe.
Of course not. The high heat can degrade the silicone.
Mr. NutJob is correct. LOL
https://metro.co.uk/2019/06/01/mans-horrifying-masturbating-incident-will-remind-clean-fleshlight-9771271/
“Through it all, I believed that Keith Raniere’s intentions were to help people, and that my adherence to his system of beliefs would help empower others and help them.”
That’s not a repudiation. Aristotle’s Sausage
Bingo!
You and Bangkok hit the nail on the head.
You want to see what a real repudiation of Raniere looks like?
Here is the way I would repudiate Raniere and NXIVM:
“Keith Raniere is a gangster posing as a scholar and philosopher.
Keith Raniere gathered around himself like-minded people who lusted for money and power.
His teachings were ripped off from Scientology by his henchwoman, Nasty Nancy Salzman.
The Bronfman sisters used their great wealth, which should be a blessing, to persecute anyone who opposed Raniere and NXIVM.
Raniere and NXIVM have no redeeming social value.
NXIVM is a ship of fools piloted by a scoundrel and crewed by criminals.”
Shadow State
Now, that is a real repudiation…
Who did Allison Mack regard as the bad people in NXIVM?
She names no one.
Sarah Edmondson, whom Mack unfriended?
Sarah’s husband?
Mark Vicente?
Mark’s wife, Bonnie?
If Allison Mack repudiated NXIVM, why was she behaving like a recruiter in her Gender Studies classes at UC Berkeley and Long Beach Community College?
https://frankreport.com/2020/10/04/allison-mack-quits-gender-sex-and-power-class-at-uc-berkeley-amid-protest-of-students-unhappy-with-sex-slaver-as-classmate/
Mack should get no sympathy. Just the fact that she took this class until they forced her out shows her frame of mind and eradicates any supposed repudation she might have portrayed for the judge.
It wouldn’t make sense to me that Bangcock is Dennis Burke because I don’t see Dennis Burke being in love with Lauren Salzman, she’s too young.
I could see Dennis with Nancy maybe, that’d make more sense. But we already established Nancy is in love with Frank. Frank, if you and Nancy do get married someday, and Bangcock gets his wish and marries Lauren, you will Bangcock’s father-in-law, and then be able to confirm Bangcock’s true identity. How do you feel about spending Christmas with Bangcock?
Frank wants to find out Babcock’s identity. Frank likes breakfast. I predict wedding bells.
Something that just occurred to me now: Her plea deal/cooperation agreement is not public, just like Lauren’s. (Correct me if I’m wrong about that). Maybe it names others besides Keith who are being investigated. Considering that this was before Keith’s trial, she may have been told by either the prosecution or her lawyers, not to go into detail about Keith or anyone else in her allocution. Just a guess, but maybe no one wanted her to start bashing Keith to the judge. Heck, it might have even given Keith more ammo for his appeal.
Plea deals like this are rarely made public.
K.R. Claviger,
If Ghislaine Maxwell gets her due process and then commits suicide— do you solemnly swear not to cry-foul, and thereby encourage Shadowstate’s fervent conspiracy obsession?
***
Special link below for my friend Shadow:
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/be1543f6f855ec451035ee1cbfa7c720739a04b6/0_0_3200_1920/master/3200.png?width=1300&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=44ee66894b6087ebc0bf7dc50560acfe
For Shadowstate:
https://www.addictioncenter.com/drugs/conspiracy-theory-addiction/
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/23/conspiracy-theories-internet-survivors-truth
I think Ghislaine will likely die in prison — just like Keith. Things are not looking good for sex traffickers these days.
Klaviger-
So, do you believe she should be released into the prison’s general population as she wishes or be allowed bail?
***
Considering how things went for Epstein I am of the feeling she is safest where she is.
My understanding is that Ghislaine has been held in a cell all by herself — and that her cell is located in a unit that has no other inmates — which means that, in effect, she has been in “solitary confinement” for almost a year now. She’s also located in the dreaded East Tower at MDC — which had been mostly shut down because of the HVAC and electrical problems there.
With her current living conditions now clarified a bit, let me turn to your question: should she be put in general population?
I would not recommend that. But — and this is a Kardashian-size big but — that is not the only alternative. There are several mini-units at MDC that house small groups of inmates who would not do well in general population. Keith Raniere was assigned to such a mini-unit after his short stints in general population did not work out so well for him.
Recent studies have documented that long stints of solitary confinement can do long-term and/or permanent mental damage to prisoners. According to the United Nations treatise on this topic, prolonged solitary confinement — greater than 15 days — is cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment, and harmful to an individual’s health.
The administration at MDC could easily find a small unit and place Ghislaine in it. But since she’s really not their problem — she’s going to be tried in the SDSY — I’m sure they’re just being extra cautious.
Claviger,
—that is not the only alternative. There are several mini-units at MDC that house small groups of inmates who would not do well in general population. Keith Raniere was assigned to such a mini-unit after his short stints in general population did not work out so well for him.
I agree with you….That is not a fact I was aware of.
***
I just want her to make it to trial.
The superseding indictment just drawn at Maxwell is what her mule team of attorneys has to contend with right now. They need a helluva a lot stronger detergent than Borax to get her out of jail ever again, dead or alive. She has earned every punitive inconvenience, that predatory, ice-veined, entitled sea hag. Of course, this is merely a colorful opinion and nobody asked, but oh well.
What a fucking buffo toad, trying to lecture and to correct an American judge as if the judge were a hat clerk or a nightclub’s coat-check girl. Maxwell is a supercilious ASSHOLE, from what appears to be glaringly goddamned obvious, like some kind of a heartless, possibly soulless viper.
Where mah barf bag? Kindly go suck a mango.
The fourteen year old girl who has finally spoken is not the only one who coped with Maxwell’s evil face-to-face and va-jay-jay to va-jay-jay foulness. The showroom is packed with Maxwell’s evidentiary misdeeds, called crimes.
Sympathy for the devil
not happening here
not much at all
Feel sorry for Maxwell as you might pity a cobra that you just found coiled up in one of your shoes. Say “swaha!” just before performing a swift act of decapitation. What the hell. It’s either the cobra, or it could be you next. Glands rife with venom, aimed at both the defenseless AND at the pretentiously “irreproachable” ones alike. The Maxwell bait and shooting trap.
She referred to underage targets as “nubiles.” Can you dig it? What a sophisticated bulldawg, this Ghislaine. Her drool still stinks though. No wonder this bitch is in the pound.
The trial will get delayed for Maxwell since she was swamped recently with a huge onslaught of “new to her” discovery pages, alongside her fresh spate of indictments. The paperwork just filed against her by the prosecution surpasses one million pages. Chew that.
Maxwell and Maxwell’s pr teams can all bitch and moan and try to do the hula.
They look like gerbils jumping through hoops. They can go fuck amongst themselves, too horrifying for anybody else to ever consider worthwhile as mating material. Half of their divorces end in death, so what the hell else is new?
Wexner? And wifey. Bronfman(s)? Obama and its mate? How ’bout Hill & Billary or the Biden Collection? Kameltoe, anyone? Don’t forget MIT and all that jazz.
Screw the self-help before the self-help screws you? You want a church in bed with you? Go right ahead. I was leaving anyhow. No game, no blame and thanks, bye.
Is it just me, or does Dennis Burke look like Karen Unterreiner as a man?
It’s the Anglo Norman look.
Anglo/Norman = pale skin and ugly
It might’ve been just you, but now it’s too late for that anymore. So I thank you for the VISION. How enlightening. This will take awhile to fully absorb these depths.
Oh-oh. Oh God! Not another satori.
I encourage anyone who is interested in really understanding the issue of Mack’s attitude toward Raniere to read the full text of her allocution, because its tone and meaning are very different from the excerpts posted above. It is far more equivocal. It is far gentler on herself and Nxivm. For example:
“As Your Honor is aware, I dedicated years of my life to an organization in which I and others truly believed, NXIVM. In the course of my time with NXIVM, I became close with many individuals, many of whom are wonderful people, and some of whom I now realize are not.
But relevant here, I became close with Keith Raniere. I joined NXIVM first to find purpose. I was lost and I wanted to find a place, a community in which I would feel comfortable. Over time, I truly believed that I had found a group of individuals who believed, as I did, and who were interested in trying to become better people and in doing so make those around them better. And when I came to that realization, misguided though it was, my purpose shifted from trying to help myself to helping other people. Through it all, I believed that Keith Raniere’s intentions were to help people, and that my adherence to his system of beliefs would help empower others and help them.”
So many of the people were wonderful individuals and SOME, she later realized, were not. Notice that she doesn’t specify Raniere is one of the “non-wonderful” people. Notice that she doesn’t say anything harsher about these abusers and racketeers than they were “not wonderful”.
This isn’t the tone of sincere repudiation.
Not only the tone but the precise wording of Mack’s allocution is all about making excuses for herself. She was “misled”. It took her years to understand that there was something fishy going on with Nxivm. The organization did so much good. Most of the people were wonderful.
Remember that this essay in excuses and subtlety was spoken before the lurid facts of Nxivm, DOS, and Raniere were exposed in court. (But she knew about them certainly). The blackmail, the branding (that took place in Mack’s own living room). The naked pictures (“you have a pretty c*nt”, quoth Mack). Before the recording was played of Raniere and Mack planning the branding ceremony (held down like a sacrifice). Before it was revealed that she was grooming young women for Raniere’s sexual pleasure and sending him the naked pictures she took of them under threat of blackmail.
Now that we know all this go back and re-read the part in Mack’s allocution where she states:
“Through it all, I believed that Keith Raniere’s intentions were to help people, and that my adherence to his system of beliefs would help empower others and help them.”
That’s not a repudiation.
I agree it’s light on calling out Keith as a monster, but it’s pretty clear that he is one of the non wonderful people. She will have a second chance to condemn him more directly at sentencing
Remember that this essay in excuses and subtlety was spoken before the lurid facts of Nxivm, DOS, and Raniere were exposed in court. (But she knew about them certainly). The blackmail, the branding (that took place in Mack’s own living room). The naked pictures (“you have a pretty c*nt”, quoth Mack). Before the recording was played of Raniere and Mack planning the branding ceremony (held down like a sacrifice). Before it was revealed that she was grooming young women for Raniere’s sexual pleasure and sending him the naked pictures she took of them under threat of blackmail.
Now that we know all this, go back and re-read the part in Mack’s allocution where she states:
“Through it all, I believed that Keith Raniere’s intentions were to help people, and that my adherence to his system of beliefs would help empower others and help them.”
Seriously, Frank, how can you not see the logic here?
I hope she spits venom at Keith when her sentencing comes around
I flunked my first ever Logic modules because I got very interested in a non-Aristotelean logician named Meinong.
So I effectively failed due to my misguided adherence to Meinong’s teachings.
I still think there is something in Meinong’s Object Theory. I just couldn’t explain it well enough to mount an attack on Aristotle’s 3 laws of thought. Now after many fruitful but failed attempts over years I realize it’s because Aristotle was closer to truth, more correct—right about the way thinking works, at least for now… My old Prof. laughs that “I’m still tilting at windmills” – and I accept he’s right about that.
Ergo—I don’t think Alison has repudiated Keith Raniere’s abysmal teachings.
Thanks for sharing, Actaeon!
Glad you are back!