Raniere Attorney Adrian, Brother of Camila and Daniela, a Victim of Raniere Entitled to $250,000 for Unpaid Work?

In a previous post, Frank Report revealed the list of 25 alleged victims of Keith Raniere that the US Department of Justice for the Eastern District of NY has recommended receive restitution and the amounts they recommended for 24 of them. A 25th name was mentioned, whose recommended compensation was not yet determined.

We are not giving the last names of alleged victims who have not publicly identified themselves.

The trial judge, Nicholas G. Garaufis, will determine who gets what.

By law, only “victims” may receive restitution under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act.

In this case, the government listed 117 individuals who requested restitution — and recommended that more than $6 million be awarded to these 25 victims. The $6 million was paid by Clare Bronfman as part of her plea deal. Only five of the 117 alleged victims testified at trial. All but three of the 25 recommended victims are female.

The Sutton family, which is represented by Joseph Sutton, will get the most if the government’s recommendations are accepted by the judge. Per the government’s recommendation, Sutton will receive about half of the victim’s fund, to reimburse his late father’s estate for legal bills expended in civil litigation with NXIVM.

The next six victims are females. Then comes Adrian, the brother of Camila and Daniela. Camila is the then-15-year-old girl Raniere allegedly had sex with and Daniela was the woman who remained confined in a room for almost two years.

A third sister, Mariana gave birth to Raniere’s son, Kemar, who is now 3-years-old. Adrian is an uncle to Raniere’s son.

The government has recommended that Adrian receive $253,204.61.

His victimization claims are for work he said he did for NXIVM for which he was not paid. He puts his 16,000 plus hours at wages at anywhere between $17 to almost $40 per hour, which Raniere’s attorneys argue is pretty high for a teenage boy.

Raniere’s lawyers also claim that Adrian is not a victim. He never testified at trial.

According to Adrian’s victim statement, he “came into the ESP community when [he] was 15 years old” and at the time had yet to “experience much of the world”, let alone have much, if any work experience.

Adrian refers to Raniere as his “mentor” and “friend”.  He played volleyball with Raniere “3 times a week”, and “looked up to him as someone [he] admired”.

Adrian explains that he cleaned Raniere’s pool, shopped for groceries, and “fixed things around the house”, and did it because he “didn’t want to be out of integrity” with him.

Adrian explains how he wanted to be a filmmaker. He never went to school, but as a teenager, he lived with Mark Vicente, a NXIVM member who is a successful filmmaker.

Raniere’s lawyers, arguing against paying the lad $250,000 write, “When people do work related things, there can be various motivators, such as to gain experience during an internship or apprenticeship, or to get paid. [Adrian] adds a new category, to not be ‘out of integrity’ with Raniere…

“He references how he was working on his ‘growth’, and how he was staying out of trouble, and that allowed him to be ‘accepted.’ There is nothing showing … that [Adrian] completed all this work out of his own need to be ‘accepted’, or that it was not part of his professional part and that an apprenticeship would allow him to be more employable in the future.”

So what work did Adrian do to claim that Raniere owed him a quarter of a million dollars in unpaid wages?

Though he did not testify at trial, his victim declaration and the Government’s victim recommendation list establish that:

$253,204.61 is the government recommended amount.

$485,488.29 is what Adrian requested.

$346,329.61 is the amount he lists on a worksheet [see below] that shows he worked more than 16,000 hours for which he was not paid and thinks he should have been paid. It averages more than $20 per hour.

His worksheet lists, for instance, that in 2008 he was uncompensated for the following:

• Filming Simply Human: 5 hours a week for 52 weeks;
• Filming Meetings and Forums: 4 hours a week for 52 weeks;
• Filming voice coaching: 5 days a week for 3 weeks;
• Filming Acapella Innovations: 12 hours a day for 10 days;
• Editing footage of Acapella innovations: 12 hours a day for 10 days.

According to Raniere’s attorneys, “These five line items for 2008 raise a few questions. If the first and second items are for 52 weeks, which is every week of the year, then how can it be established that there was no double billing with the other three entries for the year 2008.”

For “Editing Acapella Innovations”, 2008, he set his wages at $30.05 an hour, totaling $10,818.

Adrian was around 17 at the time.

“At that young age, one usually does not have enough work experience to get $30.05 hourly range that the government submits he should get for his 2008 editing.,” Raniere’s attorneys contend.

His entries for “filming V week” for the years 2009-2015, required him to be on call “24/7 for 11 days”, [264 hours for each year] and his claim is for over $6,000 each year at wages of more than $20 per hour, paid round the clock.

Raniere’s attorneys argue that The Fair Labor Standards Act does not compensate people for having to be on call 24 hours a day for seven days a week.  Rather, one is compensated for the actual time they perform work.

In 2011, there is a $28,524 entry for “Logging footage for Clare’s server” at $24 per hour. In 2006, there is an entry for $22,953.84 entry for “Stable work for Clare’s Horses”, and a similar entry in 2007 for another $24,067.68.

Raniere’s attorneys argue that “None of these line items have any connection to the offenses in this case, and the offenses regarding Raniere.”

His attorneys also continued to dissect the claims:

“In the years 2009 and 2010, there are also entries that [Adrian] worked on ‘Filming Meetings and Forums’ every week of those years. There is no indication what hours during a week that he worked a particular project, so if he was working a project every week of the entire year, then there is the possibility of double billing for the years 2008-2010.

The lawyers also raise some thorny questions about how Adrian was paid, when he was paid, which is not a good optic for the defendants awaiting sentencing.

[Raniere’s Presentencing report] “indicates that ‘[Clare] Bronfman, Nancy Salzman, and [Kathy] Russell created false Sagitta LLC invoices and paystubs for Adrian and arranged for Adrian to be compensated through Sagitta LLC for work that he actually performed for Moving Pixels, Inc.”.

Adrian himself suggests that there were some peculiar methods of payment to him. He explained in his statement that “Clare and Nancy made it so that if I earned any money doing work it would be sent to my father’s company and then his company would pay me.”

Raniere’s attorneys argue that “Inconsistencies such as this call into question as to whether [Adrian] was promised money for these assignments, or he did them each for an alternative motivation,”

Such as the non-monetary benefits:

“[Adrian] highlights that at this young age he was working on his ‘growth’, and ‘staying out of trouble’….”, Raniere’s attorneys write. “He was ‘accepted’ into a community, where he then lived with Mark Vicente, who he described as ‘a successful filmmaker’…. [Adrian], himself wanted to be a filmmaker, and there is no indication if Mark Vicente had [Adrian] complete any of filming or editing tasks, or if [Adrian] did them to get experience or get a better job with Mark Vicente.”

Raniere’s attorneys also argue that the hourly wages for Adrian are “grossly inflated because he was not a candidate with a college education, and work experience, and certainly was not qualified to be paid the hourly wage in overwhelming majority of these entries” and that “the calculations in Adrian’s worksheet do not comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act and are unduly speculative. See 29 U.S.C. 201; 18 U.S.C. § 1593(b)(3);

Overall, there is over $100,000.00 in dispute over these entries.

The attorneys are demanding a hearing before Judge Garaufis to determine the proper amount or type of restitution, something which is to be resolved by the court.

In Adrian’s victim statement at the sentencing of Keith Raniere, which took place on October 27, 2020, he said in part, “From the beginning, Keith was sold to me as a teacher, a leader and basically was perceived as a flawless man by his community.  I looked to him as a mentor, someone who could help me achieve my goals…

“I was so young. If I had any doubts, questions or hesitations, he had a group of enablers, his inner circle, who helped him blur the lines between the truth and lies. The lies allowed him to portray this fake persona, one that pretended to be a genius, a scientist, a humanitarian that cared deeply about people. He lived in that blur.

“I supported him loyally, dedicated my life to his vision, defended his character. I worked countless hours filming him so that the world could see how good of a person he was. He seemed to be so misunderstood by the media and his perceived enemies.

“I saw him as a friend. With the help of his never-ending and highly expensive trainings, he knew everything about me. He knew my fears. He knew my mistakes. He knew my desire to be a businessman. He knew my family is everything to me.  He knew I trusted him.  But most importantly, he knew how naïve I was.

“He used my truth against me in a way that I can only describe as cruel and just plain messed up. He played me for 16 years.  The whole time, abusing my sisters and other community members right under my nose… Keith Raniere has negatively impacted my life in so many ways…  He destroyed my family… I’ve gone into debt taking his intensives; a lot of my work was either underpaid or never paid.”

Below is the work Adrian has claimed he was not compensated for:

¹ All hourly wages based on mean wages for comparable occupations as reflected in Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment Statistics tables for each corresponding year. All tables can be found at https://www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm

² Hourly wages for Filming work based on BLS 27-4031 Camera Operator. ³ Hourly wages for Editing work based on BLS 27-4032 Film/Video Editor. ⁴ Hourly wages for logging footage work based on BLS 25-4011, Archivists

⁵ Hourly wages for T-shirt printing work based on BLS 27-1024 Graphic Designer.

Exchanges

Total for all work:                                          16,083 hours                                                                          $365,488.29

⁶ Hourly wages for Horse/Stable work based on BLS 45-2093, Farmworkers, Farm, Ranch, and Aquacultural Animals.

Frank Parlato