Prosecutors Want Lauren Salzman to Do Less Time Than Allison Mack – Praise Her ‘Extraordinary’ Assistance in Prosecuting Raniere, and Ratting on Her Mother

Laruen Salzman testified that the nude group photos the first line women took were collateral

The prosecution has spoken. The US Department of Justice, as represented by the US Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York, has filed its sentencing memorandum for Lauren Salzman.

Salzman, 44, was the key cooperating witness in the trial of Keith Alan Raniere, 60, a man convicted on a spate of felonies and sentenced to a prison term of 120 years. His codefendants, Clare Webb Bronfman, 42, and Allison Mack, 38, were sentenced already to 81 months and 36 months respectively.

Salzman pleaded guilty on March 25, 2019 to racketeering conspiracy and racketeering.

When he sentences her on July 28, the prosecution wants Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis to make a downward departure for Salzman from her sentencing guidelines, which, they say, have been calculated to be at from 87 to 108 months’ imprisonment.

Here are the highlights of the prosecution’s memorandum:

Dear Judge Garaufis:

The government respectfully submits this letter…  to apprise the Court of the substantial assistance provided by the defendant Lauren Salzman and permit the Court, in its discretion, to impose a sentence below the otherwise applicable advisory [Sentencing] Guidelines range … [of]  87 to 108 months’ imprisonment.

…. Lauren Salzman provided the government with detailed information regarding the criminal activities of her co-defendant Keith Raniere and his co-conspirators, including significant information regarding DOS, the secret organization led by Raniere. She provided credible, detailed testimony at Raniere’s trial before this Court in May and June 2019.

The extent of Lauren Salzman’s cooperation and the significance of her assistance to the government were extraordinary.

I. Background and Criminal Conduct

… Lauren Salzman was a member of the racketeering enterprise led by Keith Raniere and, starting in approximately January 2017, she was a first-line DOS “master” who recruited several women into DOS as her “slaves.”

Between March 2010 and April 2012, Lauren Salzman, Raniere and others trafficked Daniela for labor and services by confining her to a room for nearly two years on the threat of being sent to Mexico and withholding her birth certificate.

At Raniere’s instruction, Lauren Salzman threatened Daniela that if Daniela left the room, she would be sent to Mexico without any identification documents. Id. Daniela was confined to the room for nearly two years, during which she went months without human contact.

Lauren Salzman reported to Raniere regarding Daniela’s “progress,” but Raniere frequently told Salzman that Daniela was “game-playing” and manipulating Salzman and needed to stay in the room longer. …  Raniere forbade Salzman from telling Daniela anything or giving her any information “about what was going on, on the outside with anybody.” …

At one point, when Daniela cut off her hair, Raniere instructed Lauren Salzman to tell Daniela that Daniela would have to stay in the room until her hair grew back, which Salzman did. …  In approximately February 2012, after considering suicide, Daniela left the room…  Daniela was then driven to Mexico at Raniere’s direction and was told that unless she completed book reports for Raniere, she would not receive her birth certificate.

In January 2017, Lauren Salzman was recruited by Raniere to be a first-line “master” in DOS. As the Court is well aware, DOS was a secret organization led by Keith Raniere and comprised of “masters” who recruited and commanded groups of “slaves.”

Lauren Salzman recruited her own “slaves” by approaching prospective recruits and falsely describing DOS as a secret women’s empowerment group or sorority while intentionally concealing Raniere’s role in the organization…

DOS First-Line Slaves

First-line DOS “masters,” including Salzman, required prospective “slaves” to provide “collateral”—including damaging confessions about themselves and loved ones (truthful or not), rights to financial assets, and sexually explicit photographs and videos—to prevent them from leaving the group or disclosing its existence to others.

DOS “masters, including Lauren Salzman, benefitted financially from recruiting and maintaining DOS “slaves.” DOS “slaves” were coerced into providing labor and services for their “masters” under the threat of the release of their collateral, including editing and transcription work, taking naked photographs, and other tasks. DOS “masters” were expected to receive approximately 40 hours of labor each week from their “slaves.”

[The] testimony of Lauren Salzman that Raniere decided that “if we each had six slaves who each had six slaves under them . . . you would have 40 hours, approximately 36, but approximately 40 hours of work per week for life from these individuals”)…

II. The Guidelines Calculation

The government respectfully submits that the Guidelines calculation set forth in the PSR, reflecting a total offense level of 29 and an advisory Guidelines range of 87 to 108 months’ imprisonment, is accurate and should be adopted by the Court…

IV. Lauren Salzman’s Cooperation with the Government

The government respectfully requests that the Court depart from the applicable Guidelines range based upon Lauren Salzman’s extraordinary assistance in the investigation and prosecution of others…

A. Assessment of the Assistance Rendered

In the course of lengthy proffer sessions beginning in March 2019, Lauren Salzman fully admitted her involvement in the crimes with which she was charged and provided detailed information about crimes committed by Raniere and other members of the racketeering enterprise.

Lauren Salzman leaves court

Lauren Salzman’s cooperation substantially contributed to the government’s successful prosecution of Raniere. By virtue of her close, decades-long relationship with Raniere, Lauren Salzman was privy to a significant amount of information regarding Raniere’s role in directing criminal activity within the enterprise, even where Raniere had taken great pains to conceal his role.

Keith Raniere gives a kiss to Lauren Salzman.

Lauren Salzman provided detailed testimony at Raniere’s trial concerning, among other things:

  1. Raniere’s leadership of the racketeering enterprise
  2. Raniere’s orders to confine Daniela to a room, without human contact, for nearly two years
  3. Raniere’s role as the “Grandmaster” in DOS
  4. Raniere’s direction that several DOS “slaves” be assigned to have sex with him
  5. Efforts by Raniere and Clare Bronfman to discredit DOS victims and lie about Raniere’s involvement in DOS
  6. Statements regarding Raniere’s efforts to secure a “virgin successor” as a replacement for Camila.

Lauren Salzman also provided the government with information about additional criminal activity, as well as efforts by Raniere and others, including other first-line DOS “masters,” to obstruct the government’s investigation.

Lauren Salzman’s credible and corroborated trial testimony substantially assisted the government in securing Raniere’s conviction at trial, thereby achieving a measure of closure for Raniere’s victims.

B. Completeness and Reliability of the Information

Lauren Salzman provided full, complete and reliable information during her numerous meetings with the government. Lauren Salzman fully admitted her own role within the criminal enterprise and her participation in criminal activity, including some criminal activity as to which the government was previously unaware.

C. Nature and Extent of Lauren Salzman’s Cooperation

As set forth above, Lauren Salzman provided extraordinary assistance to the government’s investigation and prosecution of this case. She met with the government on dozens of occasions, both in proffers and in preparation for trial testimony, and answered all the government’s questions, including questions about crimes she committed, as well as criminal activity engaged in by her close friends and family members, including her mother.

 

Nancy and Lauren Salzman. Lauren even ratted on her own mother, and possibly rightly so…

And not only was Lauren Salzman’s cooperation critically important in securing Raniere’s conviction, it is highly likely that the fact of her public guilty plea was a factor in other defendants’ decisions to plead guilty. Lauren Salzman could have given racketeering proof at a trial against any of her co-defendants who pleaded guilty after she did, including Allison Mack, Clare Bronfman and Kathy Russell.

D. Timeliness of the Defendant’s Assistance

Lauren Salzman began cooperating with the government in March 2019, two months prior to the commencement of trial in this case.

V. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, the government respectfully submits this motion to request that the Court, in its discretion, impose a sentence below the applicable Sentencing Guidelines range.

Respectfully submitted,
JACQUELYN M. KASULIS
Acting United States Attorney
By: /s/
Tanya Hajjar
Assistant U.S. Attorney

About the author

Frank Parlato

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  • Lauren helped to lock a woman up for two years. she should be at least 2 years in prison. Lauren was extremely cruel. She needs to do her time

    • I was just thinking the same thing! 2 years for that and at least a year for the other messed up sh*t she did. The rest would be time off for her cooperation.

  • your link – sentencing memorandum for Lauren Salzman take you to a picture. Is it possible to fix that?

  • With Lauren Salzman, there’s only one thing that comes to mind: me, me, me, and always me. It was always about herself and how she could please and serve Raniere, but especially herself. Me, me, me …

    • You sound like Keith. “Give me everything and be in pain, so you can be happy… Be selfish by denying yourself of all you want. Have a ME, ME. ME attitude by giving yourself nothing.”

      Solid post, if you’re joking.

  • Re Lauren Salzman:

    Two things:

    1. Lauren Salzman will definitely receive a lighter sentence. My guess is she will do a year and a half year with good behavior.

    2. Previously, KR Claviger reported Nancy Salzman hopped on the plea-bus first.
    Did Claviger screw this up while impersonating his hero Michael Avenatti?

    Yes or no did Nancy Salzman jump on the plea bus first?!?!?!?

    ***
    Special Announcement:

    I will be publishing a special piece on Lauren Salzman and Bangkok, entitled…

    “The Last Temptation of Bangkok”

    The piece will be published on the eve of Lauren’s sentence. Unfortunately, Bangkok will not be reading because he is on vacation. Yes — I know, you, the reader could give a rat’s ass. Just know this — you have less of a life than I do. Because you are reading what I wrote on a Saturday evening. 😉

  • The prosecution certainly seems sympathetic to her. It will be interesting to see what sentence Judge Garaufis hands her.

    If it’s more than what he handed Mack, there’s something seriously amiss.

    • If Lauren Salzman gets a higher sentence than Allison Mack, it has nothing to do with the weighting of the crimes, but with Judge Garaufis himself. Garaufis seems pretty impervious to public opinion. Why shouldn’t he be as opinionated in judging the remaining cases as he was in the case of Allison Mack or Clare Bronfman.

  • Only the DOJ would praise a woman for informing on her own mother. Like Nazis teaching children to inform on them it is desirable conduct.

    • You must be a deadender.

      I guess that’s why you gals don’t inform on Raniere. You’ve been dumbed down to believe that he’s the smartest and most ethical man in the world when he’s just another conman who talks “nice”.

      Moral standards aren’t encapsulated in a single human being. That would make them a god.

      If your mother does wrong, then she should be held accountable, just like any other individual, including yourself. And if you believe in Karma, the Abrahamic religions, or any other religion that has a monotheistic eschatology of redemption and retribution, you implicitly — if not explicitly — already believe this to be the case.

    • Nazis? No, it was the Khmer Rouge in Cambodja who was “famous” for children ratting on parents. Some communist states encouraged that also. But in this context, I find it an over-the-top comparison. And, in case you forgot, who was the first to take a plea deal? Exactly: momma Nancy…….

  • When I watched The Vow, I realized for the first time how short Lauren actually is. She’s tiny. I always thought she was like 5’8 or so. Who knew ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    • And yet it was tiny, little, skinny, half-starved, Lauren who stood up to the scary men with the big guns. In Mexico.

      While the cowardly and impotent vanguard cowered in a closet.

      Quite the opposite scenario of the male and female paradigm that Keith indoctrinated his followers to believe.

      It also proves that Keith never really read Kipling. Or he would know, ” the female of the species is more deadly than the male”.

      Or maybe Keith was such a total lizard brain he DID understand that and it was why he was so threatened and afraid of women. And their strength.

      He also hid from Daniela in a bathroom if I recall her testimony correctly.

      • He always had something of the night about him—no?
        Didn’t he hide for most of the day only to emerge at nightfall for a dip in the primordial soup of his jacuzzi and a round of vampiric volleyball?

  • Re Lauren Salzman:

    The Guidelines Calculation
    The government respectfully submits that the Guidelines calculation set forth
    in the PSR, reflecting a total offense level of 29 and an advisory Guidelines range of 87 to
    108 months’ imprisonment, is accurate and should be adopted by the Court.

  • Lauren cooperated with the prosecutors for two months prior to Raniere’s trial and admitted whatever was required of her satisfactorily. Plus she added more to the prosecution’s arsenal. She was also on the witness stand for a long time, and some of that was grueling for her, albeit at moments it seemed eerily tragi-comic. Her reality was straight out of the Twilight Zone. Cosmically batshit. And don’t forget, it was Classic. Like an Edsel or a Ford Pinto.

    Of course Lauren is going to go to prison. There will certainly be a lot of consideration given about shortening her sentence down from its guideline range, hopefully by Judge Garaufis, too.

    6.75 years to 9 years is an awfully long time for a forty-four-year-old person, and particularly in Lauren Salzman’s unfortunate circumstances. That poor hairless cat and stuff of that nature cannot be any fun, no matter how you cut it. Whoops. We do not cut cats. Not even Raniere did that, although he might’ve given a few cats cancer, along with several women.

    Wait and see what has been happening. Maybe Lauren too, has sought therapy. Perhaps she has left the clutches of her mother and Raniere.

    But who knows? Does anyone know what Lauren Salzman thinks now? She was born to a Mommie Dearest.

    Who knows whose butt is with whose, after all? That was irresistible. Happy late Bastille Day, everybody. The party isn’t over. Jamais.

    The trouble is, Nancy Salzman could have always been her daughter Lauren’s “counselor,” and maybe that’s still Lauren’s only therapist. Gyad. Cooped up with the big chicken, her mommie clucking at her.

    At least please don’t send this pair to the same pen. Give Lauren a break, for crying out loud.

    Remember the 2 of them getting photobombed together at a Starfuckers Coffee house, where the pimpmama, Nancy the-tata-grabber Salzman, first sneered into a bottle and then broke it somehow? Are the two still superglued to one another? That would be nasty and sweaty and chilly. That could and would stink.

    It’s rather probable that Lauren Salzman’s cooperation precluded the need for prosecutors to use Allison Mack’s testimony. Lauren seems to have been organized, and anal retentively so, like a good old secretary and groupleader sort of a character, lost in space and broken into shreds of what might have been a woman.

    She’s a case worth some kind of mercy, with all remarks about her schnozzola aside. This has nuttin’ to do with her nose. Why beat around those haggard bushes?

    But we can try that tactic. Perhaps it’s comic relief. The cankles did not work out as sufficiently condemnatory, in the case of Allison Mack, though. She only got about 14 months for each one of her unballetic ankles, plus no more monitor, once she gets into the can. Hallelujah?

    • Bad breath is unforgivable. All those starving Nxivm women did not just have regular halitosis.

      They had, “hunger breath”.

      It’s a real thing and it smells awful. Makes your skin crawl. If you don’t eat regularly, saliva decreases and your mouth becomes a bacteria festival.

      • True story, are you sure it was hunger breath? Perhaps it was just good old sneaky breathing, redolent of a hidden stash of Cheetos and lukewarm Pabst Blue Ribbon.

        Vows unkempt. Snickers and what is that frightenly grotesque packaged stuff called?

        Beef jerky? Beef jerkoff breath?

        Apologies. Tepid ones.

        • Shivani,”-

          Pabst Blue Ribbon has made a comeback!

          If I remember correctly, you live in Massachusetts…So…

          …On the Cape at the Mattapoisett inn. Try the PBR breakfast!

          One Pabst beer, two eggs, three sausages, fried potatoes, and a pancake.

          • No true Massachusetts native drinks one beer with breakfast (Two is the minimum – and three is recommended). And why would anyone drink Pabst when Sam Adams is available?

    • Snorlax-

      Last Friday night, was that her breath you were smelling or something else farther South?

About the Author

Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist.

His work has been cited in hundreds of news outlets, like The New York Times, The Daily Mail, VICE News, CBS News, Fox News, New York Post, New York Daily News, Oxygen, Rolling Stone, People Magazine, The Sun, The Times of London, CBS Inside Edition, among many others in all five continents.

His work to expose and take down NXIVM is featured in books like “Captive” by Catherine Oxenberg, “Scarred” by Sarah Edmonson, “The Program” by Toni Natalie, and “NXIVM. La Secta Que Sedujo al Poder en México” by Juan Alberto Vasquez.

Parlato has been prominently featured on HBO’s docuseries “The Vow” and was the lead investigator and coordinating producer for Investigation Discovery’s “The Lost Women of NXIVM.” Parlato was also credited in the Starz docuseries "Seduced" for saving 'slave' women from being branded and escaping the sex-slave cult known as DOS.

Additionally, Parlato’s coverage of the group OneTaste, starting in 2018, helped spark an FBI investigation, which led to indictments of two of its leaders in 2023.

Parlato appeared on the Nancy Grace Show, Beyond the Headlines with Gretchen Carlson, Dr. Oz, American Greed, Dateline NBC, and NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, where Parlato conducted the first-ever interview with Keith Raniere after his arrest. This was ironic, as many credit Parlato as one of the primary architects of his arrest and the cratering of the cult he founded.

Parlato is a consulting producer and appears in TNT's The Heiress and the Sex Cult, which premiered on May 22, 2022. Most recently, he consulted and appeared on Tubi's "Branded and Brainwashed: Inside NXIVM," which aired January, 2023.

IMDb — Frank Parlato

Contact Frank with tips or for help.
Phone / Text: (305) 783-7083
Email: frankparlato@gmail.com

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