Leah Mottishaw: ‘Our Participation in the DOS Sorority Was Entirely Borne of Conscious Choices We Made as Adult Women’

Leah Mottishaw

Leah Mottishaw, 34, of Vancouver, is a self-employed consultant. Her Linked-in page describes her educational background:  “Leah’s formal training began in molecular biology and biochemistry (Bachelor of Science, Simon Fraser University) and was later focused on microbiology (Master of Science, University of British Columbia), with added hands-on experience in the biotechnology of blood stem cells (Lifebank, Corp.).”

Leah is also a founding member of the DOSsier Project, a group of eight women dedicated to preserving the ideals of DOS and defending it from criticism. Mottishaw was a member of DOS and a NXIVM proctor. At one time, she wore the Orange Sash with one Stripe.

As a consultant, she writes, “I help my clients communicate their technical, scientific or medical service to a variety of audiences. I combine my skills and experience of critical scientific thinking, communication and relationship-building to help my clients handle projects such as internal training, patent-writing, marketing copy and special-interest research.”

Before becoming a self-employed consultant, Leah worked for NXIVM-based organizations for five and half years.

Follower Shocked by Nicki CLyne-Led Dance Protest Group! - as 24 Staunch Nxivm Members Signal Support! - Frank Report
Leah Mottishaw

She was Director of Operations (Interim) and Founding Leader of One Asian Education, Inc. from Vancouver where she “planned and executed weekend seminar events, including teaching One Asian material” which was based, in part, on the teachings of Keith Raniere and NXIVM.

She describes it as “a success program customized for women of Asian heritage. Our curriculum is delivered through a series of weekend intensives as well as through an online coaching platform.”

One Asian was developed by Mottishaw, Vancouver actress Olivia Cheng, Alice Chen, a lawyer, Josette Jorge, an actress, and Raniere.  In 2014, the Vancouver Sun reported that One Asian had 55 clients, up from 20 in September 2013 when the group launched.

“The venture offers personal shopping parties, bubble tea gatherings and movie nights, in addition to its more formal weekend group discussions and a speakers series of breakfasts. The company charges fees for its events.”

A video in its coaching program is titled: ‘Stop being a workhorse and start being a show pony.’”

After One Asian failed to meet its objectives, Leah began working as a media analyst for The Knife, LLC, formerly known as the Knife of Aristotle. She worked there from  

The Knife media was Raniere’s brainchild and was funded by DOS first-line master Rosa Laura Junco, who is the daughter of one of Mexico’s leading newspaper publishers, Alejandro Junco. The Knife was not financially successful and ceased operations after the various legal difficulties DOS created for Raniere and others became all-consuming.

Rosa Laura left Clifton Park and returned to her native Mexico.

As it is written on Mottishaw’s Linked-in page, the purpose of The Knife was to “shine a light on the mechanisms of distortion used by the media, including spin, slant and invalid logic. The Knife gives you a bird’s eye view of what’s happening in the world, and a comparison of how various media sources report the facts (or don’t).”

Neither One Asian nor The Knife were financially successful.

In a recent editorial for the DOSsier Project, Leah attempts to do what she has done before with The Knife: to present a different view of a well-established, in-the-media view of DOS, the sorority that exploded in the media, beginning with the Frank Report, caused an end to NXIVM as a viable company, and curtailed the freedom of its founder, Keith Raniere, and some others of his associates.

The Tale of DOS

In children’s tales there is often an endearing simplicity to the story: a bad guy, who is purely bad, commits a transgression against a good guy, who is purely good, and eventually some karma or external authority or fairy godmother recognizes the truth, smites the bad guy and helps the good guy along to her happily-ever-after. We have heard these kinds of stories since we were young and they are strangely satisfying, despite the fact (or maybe because) they don’t track well to real-life stories.

The narrative about DOS promoted by the mainstream media and government tells a tale along the lines of an unrealistic children’s story. There are good guys and bad guys. The good guys are innocent victims who were abused. The bad guys are crafty villains that have put the good guys “under a spell” (although the narrative prefers the term “brainwashing”). But the compelling simplicity of the story becomes muddied and tangled with only the faintest examination.

For instance, in the case of DOS, the actions of the good guys and bad guys were quite literally the same. A simple internet search will pretty readily introduce you to two women linked to DOS: Allison Mack (the bad guy) and India Oxenberg (the good guy). Allison and India both participated in recruitment of women to the sorority, both acted as a “Master” to those women, both received collateral, both gave assignments, etc. But according to the media, Allison is a bad guy and India is a good guy. Here’s a sampling:

Allison Mack = bad

BAD GUY: Mack was “enmeshed in such a bizarre and sordid drama.” And “federal prosecutors described [her] in court documents as the second-in-command of a sex cult that preyed on vulnerable young women.” (Variety, 04-26-2018)

India Oxenberg = good

GOOD GUY: “For seven years, India Oxenberg was the frog slowly boiling in the pot of water that was so-called self-empowerment group NXIVM.” (Variety, 10-13-2020)

Allison Mack = bad. She used the argument that she was  ‘brainwashed’ as one of her primary arguments for leniency before the judge.

BAD GUY: “Former [DOS] member Jessica Joan …  described Mack as ‘a demon of a woman’ [and said] ‘She sought me out like a predator stalking their prey.’ (Rolling Stone, 06-30-2021)

India started with NXIVM when she was 19. She invested her entire six-figure inheritance into courses and trainings even before she started in DOS several years later.

GOOD GUY: The Starz series Seduced “allows India to explain how she—as a 19-year-old looking for direction—fell for the organization Raniere pitched as a self-improvement program, along with an estimated 17,000 other members … Reclaiming her narrative is just part of India’s extensive healing journey.” (Vanity Fair, 10-13-2020)

And what about the government? Although the fairy tale version would have the government (aka, the “fairy godmother”) swoop in, evaluate the situation and then make things right, that’s not what actually happened. Instead of a savior, the government seems to have been a threat.

Why would I say that?

According to India’s lawyer Anne Champion, “The concern was if India was going to be targeted by these prosecutors” (Seduced Ep 4, 45:03, bold added for emphasis). Champion described India’s predicament as, “one of those situations where your clear choices are to cooperate [with the government] or be charged” (Seduced Ep 4, 39:51).

So the government, including the FBI, prosecutors, and Judge NIcholas G. Garaufis, did not act in good faith as a righter-of-wrongs, but instead used the weight of their authority to achieve convictions. The government did not evaluate or investigate in order to discover if crimes had been committed but rather searched for material to support the predetermined conclusion that crimes had occurred.

At some point, Judge Nicholas Garaufis became convinced Keith Raniere was evil. Raniere claims on appeal that the judge decided his guilt prior to trial and he did not provide him with a fair trial.

 

Lead prosecutor Moira Kim Penza became famous from the NXIVM case. Some of Raniere’s supporters say she gave scant attention to his due process rights.

This is evident in the words of lead prosecutor Moira Kim Penza, who explained that “we were in a situation where we needed to have charges that we could put into place quickly while continuing our investigation” (Seduced Ep 4, 29:22).

Furthermore, during proffer sessions with the government, DOS members reported that, “it seemed [the government’s] goal was to tell me my perspective” (Michele Hatchette) and that Penza appeared “vested in her opinions and hypotheses being correct. As I asserted contrary data or opinions to hers she often got visibly upset…” (Danielle Roberts).

Danielle Roberts felt that prosecutor Moira Kim Penza had a desire to coach and shift the narrative of women to make them fit her narrative.

Specifically, the government sought to force the simplistic good guy/bad guy narrative as a rewrite over some women’s own lived experiences. Danielle described how “at the end of the first interview [Penza] offered me victim support services so that I could be properly ‘treated’ for the abuse I had undergone, clearly indicating to me she had dismissed my testimony and rendered me incompetent in her mind” (bold added for emphasis).

Michele recalled that “At one point, the prosecutor raised her voice in disbelief of my ownership of my decisions, insisting instead that I only acted out of fear because I felt threatened… It seemed clear to me that the government was trying to manipulate me into saying that my decision to join DOS… was without my consent and I was in constant fear that [my Master] would expose my collateral” (bold added for emphasis).

India Oxenberg and Michele Hatchette have different views of DOS today.

The tale of DOS is absolutely not a simple story of good guys and bad guys. In this article, I have barely scratched the surface of the public narrative and already we see how the people involved are much more complex than two-dimensional storybook characters of a pure dark or pure light nature.

And the women of the Dossier Project are further proof that DOS cannot be shoehorned into the mold of a children’s story. In stark contrast to the “fairy tale” version of DOS, we stand firm in our assertion that our participation in the DOS sorority was entirely borne of conscious choices we made as adult women. We aren’t the victims or villains that the media and government tries to paint us. We aren’t fantastical characters, good guys or bad guys. We are real people with a real story – it is imperfect, complex and true.

***

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Frank Parlato

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Erasend
Erasend
1 year ago

Interesting choice to dye hair gray. Got to admit she pulls it off.

How hard would it have been to be completely honest about DOS, who created the branding and what the brand was? Full disclosure from the jump and would have avoided the whole thing, NXIVM and DOS would still be around with an ever growing harem. By now Mottishaw would have recruited who knows how many woman to get that branding for Raniere and how many of those would she had sex with while Raniere watched? Good times to her I am sure, dashed by unnecessary secrecy.

The good old cult days...
The good old cult days...
1 year ago

Remember when we lied to our closest female friends and used blackmail to get them all to unwittingly brand our collective master/boyfriend’s initials near the pussies?

Fun times!

Anonymous
Anonymous
1 year ago

Though summer
Turns to winter and
The present disappears
The laughter we
Were glad to share will
Echo through the years

When other nights
And other days
May find us gone
Our separate ways
We will have these
Moments to remember

Seduction Assignment
Seduction Assignment
1 year ago
Reply to  Anonymous

Good morning, M’
Will eat less today
Acts of care – wait
Is that my hair?

Blank i stare.
Strands in fingers
Not on my head

I ask myself (again)
Am I dead?

So cold here it may be true
Text photo of my food to you.

I think I died
When he touched me
Deep inside
With his tongue

My branded vagina
It went numb

So hungry, tired
I feel dumb

It’s warmer home
In L.A.
But in Albany
I stay

Please tell me Master
What to do?

I’d be so lost
If not for you.

Anonymous
Anonymous
1 year ago

Nice verse — much appreciated!

Anonymous
Anonymous
1 year ago
Reply to  Anonymous

Agreed, nice writing. Funny and sad at the same time.
Anon 947

Doctor Friend
Doctor Friend
1 year ago

Mr. Mottishaw-

Question:
Did your WIFE have unprotected sex with Keith Raniere?

Answer:
Go get yourself an HPV test.

Warning:

HPV can lead to penis and throat cancer.

Don’t believe me? Then go ask Michael Douglas.

SupportFrank
SupportFrank
1 year ago

I keep wondering why: ANY former NXIVM associate who is still adamant and loyal, would come to Frank, ask him to post their viewpoints and expect any other result than the posters here will reveal any and all flaws in their thinking and otherwise rip them a new asshole? Honestly, you don’t really need this kind of attention – think it through without making yourself a public spectacle! And don’t fall for further multi-marketing schemes like “Symmetry Financial” you can do better than selling life insurance and annuities as Esther Carlson’s downline! Get a job and lay low!

Anonymous
Anonymous
1 year ago

SO PATHETIC. SO DISGUSTING. The smarter women have already revealed that coercive control was employed. F these detractors who would rather defend a CHILD RAPING PIG over women that were scarred and burned after being misled about what the branding symbols even were!! She should be ashamed of herself. Uglyhearted old vile POS.

Ex
Ex
1 year ago
Reply to  Anonymous

Calm down, anti-cult tribal ninny. Take a chill pill.

Anonymous
Anonymous
1 year ago
Reply to  Ex

So you want people to be chill about child rape?

There are some things in life that are worth getting upset about and raping children is one of them

Fully conscious criminal choices
Fully conscious criminal choices
1 year ago

You cannot make a fully conscious choice when you lack critical information. When you intentionally withhold critical information from people, you are participating in a conspiracy to take their fully conscious choice away from them

smtolle
smtolle
1 year ago

Is Frank Report ever going to end? Or just report the same story over and over?

What about Frank’s own criminal case? One where he’s a defendant. Let’s hear something about that! At least it would be a new story!

AnonyMaker
AnonyMaker
1 year ago

Let’s say we grant that was the experience of Mottishaw and 7 others.

Aren’t there many more than 8 other people, who have said they found it controlling and abusive? Isn’t it then likely that those in the DOSsier project either were lucky and missed the worst of it, or were exceptions in some other way, rather than representative?

One of my observations from the study of high control groups or cults is that members often mimic the leaders’ and gurus’ self-centered egoism, and willingness to benefit from the exploitation of others. That comes out of utilitarian ‘ends justify the means’ and even amoral ‘might makes right’ philosophies or worldviews, including a tendency to blame victims and to view the disaffected and defectors as those who just failed to live up to standards and surmount challenges.

It’s thus not uncommon to find apologist members or ex-members who seem satisfied that they got something they wanted out of their participation – again, perhaps because they were lucky enough not to have experienced some of the worst manipulation and abuse, or even in some cases even because they were deliberately favored and groomed. They are often seemingly unconcerned that others, perhaps more often than not, may have suffered, unbothered that they may have benefitted at the expense of others, and even blame the disillusioned and victimized for not having made the best of it.

Anonymous
Anonymous
1 year ago
Reply to  AnonyMaker

Absolutely, people can suffer different levels of abuse in a high control group.

Even in a dysfunctional family, not every child is molested. In fact, it is a well-documented fact that sometimes an entire family chooses to abuse a specific child while treating the other children in that same home with what would be considered traditional family values.

It is the height of arrogance, disordered logic and tunnel-vision to insist that what was true for you in a given situation must be exactly the same experience for a 100 others.

You cannot possibly know that. You can live in the same home as others and not even know everything that is happening under its roof.

Nice Guy
Nice Guy
1 year ago
Reply to  AnonyMaker

AnonyMaker-

“t’s say we grant that was the experience of Mottishaw and 7 others. Aren’t there many more than 8 other people.”

I’d say there are roughly over 30z
***

You almost always make incontrovertible points.

Except for the time you thought Epstein’s island helicopter landing-site, berm was an oil depo. ;)!

Wanna Be My Friend?
Wanna Be My Friend?
1 year ago

huntingpeople2 January 9, 2022 at 10:09 pm (who is certainly NOT a sock puppet for Alanzo) makes an insightful point.

Why wasn’t Raniere smart enough to instruct his attorneys to use the “way of making new friends” defense?

Demanding blackmail material, branding, trafficking young girls across international and state borders to make them available for rape and other forms of sexual abuse by a hairy troll… those are definitely unique, women-empowering way of making new friends, right?

Abelard
Abelard
1 year ago

This is the 4th or 5th submission that tells the same story. “We were in an organization where we called ourselves slaves and acted like slaves, and it was immensely empowering and not like slavery at all.” That sounds dumb to everyone else. It always will. Just deal with it.

L
L
1 year ago
Reply to  Abelard

Where’s the like button?

Nice Guy
Nice Guy
1 year ago
Reply to  Abelard

“That sounds dumb to everyone else. It always will. Just deal with it.”
-Abelard

Sadly, cultists like Leah Mottishaw and ALANZO will never understand how dumb they sound to everyone else.

Mottishaw and Alanzo are both repeating the same MANTRA they were brainwashed to say.

I pity both poor souls.

Alex
Alex
1 year ago
Reply to  Nice Guy

:-)))

Tell me you have 0 chance at appeal...
Tell me you have 0 chance at appeal...
1 year ago

When your only argument is, “But India…”

After all these years.

Erasend
Erasend
1 year ago

Once again, they ignore collateral, branding and Camila.

While I agree that India is no hero, India’s status as a “hero” had no bearing on the trial. As for the defense of DOS, this remains weak sauce as they still refuse to confront the main arguments the government had against NXIVM and DOS. Instead, they are effectively whining the government did their job of using DOS to help their case against Raniere. Well duh, of course, they were going to do that.

Really, they are upset their past keeps coming up and are trying to change the PR of it all. They then hope magic occurs and everyone loves DOS which will somehow lead to Raniere’s exoneration (the mind boggles how they arrive at this as a feasible thing.) But how is a PR campaign supposed to work when article after article from these women have no coherent reason on why DOS is good beyond “well we liked it and thought it was great. Besides, we volunteered for all that stuff so that makes it all right.” The morality of it all remains an area they give no viewpoint on which is telling.

LaLaLad
LaLaLad
1 year ago

If Danielle Roberts’ testimony that failed to convince the prosecutors was so favorable to DOS, why didn’t the defense present it instead?

If the “participation in the DOS sorority was entirely borne of conscious choices we made as adult women,” why not explain why adult women would make a conscious choice to supply blackmail material BEFORE even knowing what they were joining?

If Kristin Kook was too smart to head One Asian or even join, why didn’t others take the hint?

You Blew It
You Blew It
1 year ago
Reply to  LaLaLad

You said Kristen Kook and smart in the same sentence.

Anonymous
Anonymous
1 year ago
Reply to  You Blew It

“You said Kristen Kook and smart in the same sentence”

Kook isn’t serving a sentence like Mack is, so that’s smart at least.

At Least
At Least
1 year ago
Reply to  Anonymous

“Smart at least” isn’t letting the smelly one ravish your body. Hmm.

Anonymous
Anonymous
1 year ago
Reply to  At Least

Pea Onyu is the only one who claims that Smelly ravished Kook. I suspect Pea is just a troll, and others are just speculating or fantasizing. Me thinks if Kook was a harem girl, Smelly would more likely have ravished his cream-dream’s pretty face than her body.

Anonymous
Anonymous
1 year ago

Consenting to abuse does not change the fact that you are being abused.

Aristotle’s Sausage
Aristotle’s Sausage
1 year ago

Mottishaw seems confused. She starts off by saying real life isn’t like fairy tales, with good guys and bad guys (really??? You don’t say!!! 🙄)

Then, she expresses amazement that the government officials aren’t pure good guys.

Of course, they’re not. Doesn’t change the fact that Raniere is guilty though.

With this genius in charge, no wonder The Knife of Aristotle failed.

She needs to learn how to construct a coherent argument.

Every Parents Dream
Every Parents Dream
1 year ago

Her parents and family must be very proud of her.

Her mom must show her DOS photos to all her friends and talk about her shared husband Keith Raniere to all her friends.

It’s everything we wanted for our daughter, her parents must tell their friends.

Our daughter is a key figure in this program leftover from NXIVM and fights for what is right in the world.

It’s every parent’s dream for their child.

So Proud
So Proud
1 year ago

Reminds me of one of only two [that I know of] protestant jokes:

Daughter returns to family home after long absence bearing expensive gifts for her parents. She tells them she has something to confess:

“Mummy, Daddy God forgive me, God have mercy on my soul I’ve become… a prostitute”

On hearing this the father looks like he is about to expire from a heart attack… but soon recovers.

‘Jeez-o, a prostitute?.. thank God for that..I thought for a moment there you said you had become… a protestant”

Anonymous
Anonymous
1 year ago

All the women who continue to defend this group are buffoons and not remotely “empowered” at all. They were deceived by a pseudo-intellectual hack, who barely maintained a C average in college. Only ignorant fools can be swindled to believe that the “collateral” that was actually blackmail was like a bank loan.

Ouch
Ouch
1 year ago

Those photos of Leah are old and still her grey is on full display. I’d hate to see what she looks like today, almost as she hates what she sees when she wakes up and looks in the mirror every morning.

As all the Discarded DOS Dolls learn the hard way, anorexia and menopause are a nasty combo.

huntingpeople2
huntingpeople2
1 year ago
Reply to  Ouch

Who cares what you think of a woman’s hair color? Jamie Lee Curtis rocks hers happily, why does it matter to you?

Grim Fairy Tale
Grim Fairy Tale
1 year ago
Reply to  Ouch

The two small pix of Leah in the post reveals her lush full lips — and as the Big Bad Wolf said to Red Riding Hood, “Better to service the master, my dear…but only if your service is entirely borne of a conscious choice made as an adult women.

Curious about this reaction
Curious about this reaction
1 year ago
Reply to  Ouch

Would love to have a look at what you see when you look in the mirror, but I can’t help but think it must be frightening

Anonymous
Anonymous
1 year ago

Yeah I don’t get it. Despite still supporting this cult idiocy, Leah is quite an attractive woman even with the gray. She should break the mental and emotional chains of this fruitless endeavor and truly be an empowered woman by herself in her own profession and with her immediate family and real friends, not some clique bound to the thoughts and actions of a disturbed man who’s going to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Anonymous
Anonymous
1 year ago

So the remaining cult slaves DO believe that a woman CAN act out of fear – if the government asks the woman to cooperate (and there’s a perceived threat hanging over her head from her own wrongdoing).

But the cult slaves DO NOT believe that a woman can act out of fear if there’s life-ruining collateral hanging over their head…

Huh. Convenient.

It’s not surprising that a group for Asian women founded on the misogynistic, antiquated ideas of a white male failed.

It is a surprise that even 20 women were willing to pay $ money $ to drink bubble tea, watch movies and shop with each other.

Friends don’t usually charge each other for that kind of company.

huntingpeople2
huntingpeople2
1 year ago
Reply to  Anonymous

Hmm, many groups charge dues so they can try new things together perhaps was similar in nature?
A way of making new friends.

Anonymous
Anonymous
1 year ago
Reply to  huntingpeople2

Do you speak from experience?

Must you pay the other girls to be your friend?

rich
rich
1 year ago
Reply to  Anonymous

They are all insecure.

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: frankreport76@gmail.com

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