Argentina Arrests Yoga Sex Abusive Teacher, 84 – Will US Follow Suit With Swami, 72?

All we need to say in a prefatory comment is that if it could happen in Argentina, it can happen in Gold Beach. 

Judge Ariel Lijo in Argentina has indicted 19 individuals for criminal conspiracy, human trafficking with the purpose of sexual exploitation, money laundering, and smuggling concerning their involvement in a yoga school in Buenos Aires.

The Argentinian yoga school, which had offices in New York, Las Vegas, and Chicago, was a religious sect that coerced female members to have sex with wealthy men for money and benefits.

Yogi Percowicz told followers he knows all, sees all and can rule all for their spiritual welfare. 

According to prosecutors, The Buenos Aires Yoga School, which operated under the leadership of Juan Percowicz, 84, for more than 30 years, lured individuals with promises of eternal happiness, but in fact, exploited them sexually and financially. 

Prosecutors accused the school of preying on people who were underage or had severe health problems, including addictions.

Members included lawyers and accountants who advised leaders on a complex money laundering network, including starting businesses and buying real estate in Argentina and the United States.

Opera star Placido Domingo had contact with the organization’s leaders for more than two decades.

Transatlantic law firm McAllister Olivarius has launched an independent investigation of the Yoga School and its ties to the United States for potential civil action against the school to help victims collect financial remuneration. 

McAllister Olivarius recently hired attorney Carol Merchasin to oversee a new practice focusing on sexual misconduct in spiritual communities, including yoga communities.

Carol Merchasin attorney.

Judge Lijo denied bail for 14 of the 19 people indicted, and ordered their assets frozen. That means their chance of the 14 not being convicted is almost zero, for once in pretrial custody, it is nearly impossible to mount a defense.

Prosecutors had requested indictments of 20 people.

Argentinian law enforcement officials are searching for six suspects believed to be in the United States, where the school had offices in New York, Las Vegas and Chicago.

McAllister Olivarius has offices in the US and UK, with practice areas including trafficking, sexual violence, employment, higher education, and online reputation and privacy.

If you believe the Buenos Aires Yoga School abused you., contact McAllister Olivarius (www.mcolaw.com). 

“As we saw with the scandals of Ashtanga yoga, sexual abuse is a problem that persists in yoga communities precisely because so many practitioners feel a spiritual connection to their mentors,” says attorney Merchasin. “It is important to look beyond established religions and understand that the same patterns of coercion, sexual violence and sexual exploitation exist in non-traditional communities.”

The Agrentinian yoga group operated by giving living quarters, working in the organization, and making sure they started socializing exclusively with people who were part of the organization.

Students worked and performed sexually to obtain economic benefit for Percowicz and other leaders of the organization, Judge Lijo said.  Members were ordered to have sex with wealthy men. Female students were told to predetermine what they could get from each man, and then had to do whatever it took to meet their goals, Lijo said.

It is unclear whether the woman could have refused this dishonest scheme or what their punishment would have been.

Yogi Percowicz told his followers that he had “divine powers” and was a fount of wisdom, as he quoted classic literature and religious scriptures.

Percowicz devised a hierarchical ranking system of seven levels. The leaders of the group promised students they would receive the highest teachings in philosophy, and achieve a status of a cosmic  healing when they rose up the rank.

The only goal of the group’s leaders was to make money, Lijo said.

Before Chetanananda watchers get too excited and expect some judge to simply order the arrest of the Swami, Sadvi, Jen, Moni, Gretchen, Jimmy and the rest, remember that the rules in Argentina, including their observance of what we call due process, are not the same as in the USA. 

But the similarities sound eerily similar in Buenos Aires, Portland and Gold Beach.

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Frank Parlato

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  • Just because we have not read anything new on the Frank Report about Shoemaker for a week or two, that does not mean that Shoemaker has stopped his evil ways and changed! Here is an eyewitness report on how Rudi (Albert Rudolf) pulled people into his orbit to take advantage of them and to exploit their labor. Guy Boster writes about his encounters with Rudi. How Rudi got Guy’s wife, Barbara to take dictation, type/write his book (Labor exploitation) and how Howard Boster, aka Swami Prakashananda, when he was 15 years old. came to live with Rudi at the Big Indian Center. There were other underage kids who came to Big Indian, some of them had a rough time there, maybe some of them are ready to tell their stories now? The state of New York has the window open to file a claim for sexual abuse as an adult.
    https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/24/us/new-york-adult-survivors-act/index.html. Carol Merchasin and the law firm she is associated with are ready to help all victims of Shoemaker. https://mcolaw.com/team/carol-merchasin/

    Guy also tells us of the donations he and his wife sent to Rudi to support the center at Big Indian and to bring Muktananda to the USA. Remember Muktananda? The pedophile who taught Rudi, Shoemaker, and Kruckman how to be traumatizing cult leaders? https://frankreport.com/2021/04/07/an-australian-keith-raniere-similar-story-but-with-a-different-outcome/

    https://frankreport.com/2022/08/13/chetanananda-was-a-chip-off-his-old-pervert-guru-muktananda/

    http://www.rudi.org/remembering-rudi/2016/5/17/the-best-part-of-new-york-by-guy-boster

    The Best Part Of New York
    by Guy Boster

    In 1968, I was working at an ad agency on Madison Avenue and living on the Upper East Side when my girlfriend Barbara came home one night and announced that she was going to study yoga. A friend of hers had told her about Rudi, and she was eager to meet him. I must have walked by his store a thousand times before I met him, but I had never thought to go in.

    So she called Rudi, and he told her to come down to his store, which was on Seventh Avenue in the East Village, right next to the Village Vanguard. I came along with her. It was late afternoon, and the shop was completely packed with Asian art and antiques. Rudi talked to us for a while and described his work. He gave us the double breath technique. He asked us to wait with him until class started that evening, and we did. After he finished work, we took a cab with him to his house.

    So we went and had our first class. I was sitting there in the back with my sunglasses on, and I remember looking up and seeing two Catholic priests in the first row. They had their black clerical attire. I thought to myself, “If they’re here, there’s definitely something going on. What would they be doing in a place like this?” After class, when it was time to leave, we hugged Rudi, and I said, “I don’t know if I’m coming back.” Barbara said, “Well, I am.” Then I decided I would come back, too.

    We came back the next night and the next, and after a week we had become regulars. Part of it was because there was something happening, I wasn’t completely sure what, and part of it was social, because immediately we met some really nice people that we became close to very quickly. Barbara was very good at making friends, and I was not as fast, but I went along. We met people like the owners of Serendipity, a very famous restaurant—Calvin Holt and Stephen Bruce.
    Bruce and Blanche Rubin were getting married a few months after we met Rudi, and they did the whole Jewish wedding at Rudi’s house. I thought at the time, “Isn’t that sweet.”

    When Barbara and I decided to get married, Rudi invited us to use his place. We were married there in September 1969, without the Jewish ceremony. Our ceremony was conducted by a Universal Life Minister, and it was very beautiful. Rudi let us have both the wedding and the reception there, and he bought us the cake at Ferrara’s, the famous Italian bakery in Little Italy. Barbara’s parents and family came, and they were totally freaked out by Rudi’s place. They were Russian Orthodox and Polish Catholic, and they had never seen anything like it before in their lives. My family came too, and my father, an Orthodox Jew, was a bit leery, but my mom loved Asian everything and thought it was great. My brother Howard was the best man. Rudi was so gracious to everyone through the whole thing.

    Barbara and I went to California on our honeymoon, and we kept in touch with Rudi every day, and sent donations as we could. When we came back, we went to class constantly. Occasionally Rudi would invite us upstairs afterwards to his apartment. This was before he started having people around him all the time. One evening we were watching television with Rudi and Barbara was sitting on the couch with him. Rudi took Barbara’s hand. After we left, Barbara said, “I have never felt so much heat coming out of somebody’s hand. What’s going on?”

    Once in a while Rudi would have a poker game upstairs. We’d all be sitting on the floor, and every time he had a bad hand, he’d put his foot on somebody and they’d jump, and his cards would go flying. We’d have to re-deal.
    Some nights he would sit and work with us after class for a while. Eventually he’d say, “Okay. That’s enough. Turn around and watch TV.” So we’d watch TV. His favorite shows were the Dick Van Dyke Show and the Avengers.

    Once he left us in the middle of class, pointing to Michael Austin to finish the class for him. We found out later he went to the hospital with food poisoning. He had eaten at Luchow’s, the famous German restaurant on Fourth Street.
    Rudi had an eclectic circle of friends that included theater people and artists. I remember walking into his living room one day and seeing Alan Arkin sitting there.

    One night I was throwing a surprise birthday party for Barbara at Serendipity. I invited a lot of people, including Rudi. As we were having dinner, Rudi would put his fingers in the water glasses and flick water at people—a way of transmitting shakti. It was a wonderful night.

    It was up at Big Indian one weekend that I first met Michael Shoemaker. I saw him walking around with Rudi, and I thought he must be somebody important. Then I got to know him a bit before he was sent to Bloomington.
    When my brother came to my wedding at Rudi’s, he was only 15 years old. A few years later, he had come up to visit us in New York and we went up to Big Indian. Rudi had big bonfires in a pit, he’d throw everything in there—money, poetry, whatever we were attached to. Howard (now Swami Prakashananda) saw all this. Eventually, I got a call from my mom asking if I thought Rudi would let Howard move up to the Farm (as she called Big Indian). I went down to the store the next day to ask Rudi, and Rudi said, “Get him up here now.” So Howard took a bus up from Virginia, and that was that. That was a few months before Rudi passed away.

    One day I went home from work, thinking I wanted to get out of New York City, and said to Barbara, “Let’s move to Big Indian.” She said, “You go and ask Rudi if it’s okay.” She knew what was coming. I went and asked Rudi, and he said, “Absolutely not. You’d last about a week there.” I quickly realized that he was completely right.
    We were in New York when Rudi decided to bring Muktananda over. We donated some money to help him, but Rudi footed most of the bill. He told us, “Be warned. This is a complicated man, but he’s very powerful. I’m bringing him over for your benefit.”

    Bruce Rubin and Beau Buchanan were going to make a movie about Muktananda’s visit. We were going up to Big Indian one weekend when they were filming, and it was the first time that Rudi gave shaktipat. We were all out on the front lawn, and Rudi started to work with people. This captured the cameraman’s attention, and the footage is in the film. Rudi’s dentist, Jack Light, was out on the lawn. He was a big guy and must have weighed about 200 pounds. Well, Rudi touched him and he fell right into Barbara, knocking her over. It’s in the movie.

    Now, Muktananda didn’t like this because the movie was supposed to be about him. So he got all in a huff. Bruce, to his credit, sat up all night waiting outside Muktananda’s room for Muktananda to wake up so that Bruce could apologize. When Muktananda got up, he blessed him.

    We were in Europe a year later when we got a postcard from someone saying that Rudi had left Muktananda. Rudi had had enough. Muktananda had put him through hell. Muktananda would say, “These people love me and they get nothing. You don’t love me and you get everything.”

    I remember one story, among many, about Rudi that I like. I wasn’t there, but I heard he was coming back from Big Indian one time in a car with some students. He had been on a fast, a grape diet, because he was working with someone with cancer. The car got a flat tire, and across the road from where the car stopped was a pizza stand. Rudi said, “Well, it must be God’s will,” and went over and got a slice of pizza.

    At some point Rudi decided to write a book. I walked into the store one day, and he said, “I have a title for my book. What do you think?” And I said, “Well what is it?” He replied, “Spiritual Cannibalism,” and my mouth dropped open. Then he explained what he meant by it, and I said, “Oh, that’s great.”

    Barbara took dictation for the book. She would go down to the store after work and sit there and take shorthand. Rudi just talked, stream of consciousness (obviously a superior consciousness), and Barbara would come home and type it up. She’d bring it down to the store the next day. On Sunday mornings, we would go over to his place, and he would have breakfast, bagels and cream cheese and lox. He would talk to the group that was there. Barbara took everything down. She put the whole book together. She got pregnant while she was working on it, so our daughter was absorbing all this material in utero. Every time he said something profound, the baby would kick and Barbara would tell him. Rudi would say, “Oh, that must have been really good. Let’s keep in it in the book.”

    Barbara’s work was finished and she had the baby in December 1972. Rudi came to the hospital and was going to name the baby, but I screwed that up. I went down to the store a few days later to apologize, and Rudi yelled at me. He did give her a middle name, though—Om.

    The afternoon before Rudi died, I was at the store attempting to retouch a thangka for him. I knew nothing about thangkas but had bought all these paints because I thought I could do it. It turned out I couldn’t. As I was leaving, I said goodbye to Rudi before he left for the airport. It was the last time I saw him

  • I have seen that J. Michael Shoemaker is only posting sunsets and flowers on his Instagram account. No more “loved ones” or shots of his great physic. Has the Frank Report caused him to have a few really bad days? Do the “loved ones” want to hide their association with this monster? Thanksgiving is coming up, who will cook and clean for Shoemaker? Will there be a group photo? There will be some empty chairs at the table this year. It seems that Shoemaker has been left by many of his “loved ones”.

    If you have something to tell Frank that you want the world to know about Shoemaker, give Frank a call. Or, you can also write a comment for all to see.

    How were you recruited? How were you groomed? How were you exploited? How did you escape? How did you recover?

    Every piece in this wicked puzzle makes his 50 years of abuse plain to see.If you were harmed by this man, there is no shame, you were entrapped by a well oiled cult machine that fed vicims to Shoemaker. He did not work alone. Use the Frank Report to speak out against all those who participated in your harm. There are so many victims/survivors who now have this space to bring to light the dangerous and harmful practices of Shoemaker and his cult.

    Yesterday, November 18 was Cult Awarness day, a day to remember all the victims of cults. Heavens Gate, Jonestown, Charles Manson, Tony Alamo, OSHO, 3HO, Children of God, Branch Davidians, Nxivm, Aum Shinrickyo and so many more.

  • This is so sad
    So disturbing
    And it needs to stop

    We are surrounded by predators: coaches, teachers, priests, neighbors, step parents, parents ,baby sitters, restaurant owners, professors, law enforcement, doctors, lawyers, psychotherapists, massage therapists, auto repair mechanics, it just goes on and on and on…yes yoga gurus..
    Some perverse doo-doo brains are absolutely in this field
    And yes, celebrities..in the entertainment and political worlds.

    Trust no one.

  • Shoemaker, Percowica, Raniere: Why are these traumatizing narcissists the same, why will they all end up in jail?

    Let’s play BINGO

    Judge Ariel Lijo in Argentina has indicted 19 individuals for criminal conspiracy, human trafficking with the purpose of sexual exploitation, money laundering, and smuggling concerning their involvement in a yoga school in Buenos Aires.

    Bingo!
    Raniere got charged with conspiracy and trafficking too. Shoemaker has organized a criminal enterprise, to exploit and harm others. Frank Report has published articles that expose how Jim conspired to have Ruth drugged and harmed, how Jim conspired to have Dan provide free labor.

    https://frankreport.com/2022/08/08/the-story-of-my-rape-by-lama-wangdu-his-accomplices-drugged-me-first/

    https://frankreport.com/2022/09/28/hazardous-asbestos-drugs-death-and-crazy-swami/#comments

    Frank Reports documented how Sharon Ward, Shoemaker’s right hand in all things criminal, exploited Ruth’ s labor:
    https://frankreport.com/2022/09/08/swamis-evil-first-assistant-what-makes-sharon-ward-tick/

    Let’s find more BINGOS

    The Argentinian yoga school, which had offices in New York, Las Vegas, and Chicago, was a religious sect that coerced female members to have sex with wealthy men for money and benefits.

    Raniere had Nxivm offices in New York, Canada and Mexico to recruit and funnel money and women to him in Albany, New York. Shoemaker had Centers in Boston, California, Indiana and Ohio to recruit wealthy donors, to exploit “loved ones” labor in his business enterprises like the Tao and yoga teacher training sessions and to recruit young vulnerable people to his cult.

    BINGO, three cult leaders all use the same culty tricks to get what they want at the expense of everyone else they touch. Sex, money, power and suffering are what they deal in.

    Yogi Percowicz told followers he knows all, sees all and can rule all for their spiritual welfare.

    Moni, one of Shoemaker’s victims, has told us the very same things about J. Michael Shoemaker. So who really rules the universe? Percowicz, “Vanguard” (Raniere) or Swami Chetanananda? (J. Michael Shoemaker) All three say the same thing, BINGO, all three are the rulers of the universe, but can they rule from prison?

    According to prosecutors, The Buenos Aires Yoga School, which operated under the leadership of Juan Percowicz, 84, for more than 30 years, lured individuals with promises of eternal happiness, but in fact, exploited them sexually and financially.

    BINGO, Percowicz, 30 years of abuse, Raniere, decades of abuse and Shoemaker, 50 years of abuse. They can get away with creating a criminal enterprise in plain sight because coercive control is invisible. Coercive control is almost impossible to address because coercive control is invisible while it is in plain sight. People cannot recognize it even when they come face to face with it. They blame the victim, certainly we have seen that in the comments on the Frank Report. This advantages the cult leaders like Percowicz, Ranieri and Shoemaker. Cult leaders and cult apologists, use people’s lack of knowledge about coercive control against them to exploit vulnerabilities. Cult leaders do this within the minds of the victim, they use this control groom the cult members to accept their criminal actions, and even within law enforcement systems where the police ask, “why didn’t you leave”, did you say “no”?. Where is consent within a coercive controlling cult?

    BINGO. In Argentina, in the case of Percowicz, the prosecutors accused the school of preying on people who were underage or had severe health problems, including addictions. In the Frank Report Dan, Ayaz and Jessica were all involved with substance abuse and recovery. Raniere had sex with a child.

    Members included lawyers and accountants who advised leaders on a complex money laundering network, including starting businesses and buying real estate in Argentina and the United States.

    BINGO What has Shoemaker done? Bought real estate in Portland and now in Gold Beach. Here is a quote from a resident of Gold Beach on a Reddit thread, “They’ve been buying up property left and right around the town I live in… Like, a TON of property.
    After reading all the info in this thread, it has me genuinely worried. I don’t want any disgusting stuff like this to go on in the place that I call home.
    If they moved here thinking that they’d have an easier time staying out of the public eye with these acts, they’re surely going to regret their decision. Word spreads around this town at an incredible rate, everybody knows everybody. If he commits any serious crimes here, he will surely get caught up.
    It’s a little hillbilly town that frankly doesn’t appreciate the “hippy woo woo” types already… let alone portland sex cults.”

    The Agrentinian yoga group operated by giving living quarters, working in the organization, and making sure they started socializing exclusively with people who were part of the organization.

    BINGO Raniere had his DOS slaves move to Albany and share living quarters with other members, most of them “worked” for Nxivm controlled businesses, Shoemaker kept his “loved ones” in an ashram where they performed “seva” as a means to earn their room and board. He keeps his “loved ones” isolated as the ex-members wrote in the Leaving Nityananda Institute letter, “ We mourn their loss of compassion for estranged family members, former friends, and the world at large. We are dismayed that they are not allowed the freedom to speak to ex-students”

    It is unclear whether the woman could have refused this dishonest scheme or what their punishment would have been.

    BINGO Shoemaker used the same type of coercive control that removes the ability to provide informed consent. “We were encouraged to inform on one another as the price for “closeness” to the guru. This bred an environment of fear and mistrust in which we did not dare discuss sensitive issues with each other. The implicit message was that loyalty to anyone else in the community equaled disloyalty to Swami Chetanananda. We learned not to trust ourselves, our former moral and ethical standards, and our intuitions that something was seriously wrong. We grew accustomed to accepting blame for his problems. We learned to lie to ourselves and others to “protect Swami Chetanananda’s privacy.” Taken from the leaving Nityananda Institute letter.

    Yogi Percowicz told his followers that he had “divine powers” and was a fount of wisdom, as he quoted classic literature and religious scriptures.

    BINGO: Vanguard told his followers that he was the smartest and most ethical person alive; Shoemaker tells his followers that he is an avatar of a Goddess and he has brought the teachings of ancient Tibet to his “loved ones”.
    Percowicz devised a hierarchical ranking system of seven levels. The leaders of the group promised students they would receive the highest teachings in philosophy, and achieve a status of a cosmic healing when they rose up the rank.
    BINGO: Raniere gave Nxivm the striped path. Shoemaker has his inner circle of “loved ones”.

    The only goal of the group’s leaders was to make money, Lijo said.

    BINGO: The only goal of all culty traumatizing narcissistic cult leaders is money, power and sex through harm, exploitation and abuse.

    Shoemaker, Percowica, Raniere: Why are these traumatizing narcissists the same, why will they all end up in jail?

    Let’s play BINGO

    Judge Ariel Lijo in Argentina has indicted 19 individuals for criminal conspiracy, human trafficking with the purpose of sexual exploitation, money laundering, and smuggling concerning their involvement in a yoga school in Buenos Aires.

    Bingo!

    Raniere got charged with conspiracy and trafficking too. Shoemaker has organized a criminal enterprise, to exploit and harm others. Frank Report has published articles that expose how Jim conspired to have Ruth drugged and harmed, how Jim conspired to have Dan provide free labor.

    https://frankreport.com/2022/08/08/the-story-of-my-rape-by-lama-wangdu-his-accomplices-drugged-me-first/

    https://frankreport.com/2022/09/28/hazardous-asbestos-drugs-death-and-crazy-swami/#comments

    Frank Reports documented how Sharon Ward, Shoemaker’s right hand in all things criminal, exploited Ruth’ s labor:

    https://frankreport.com/2022/09/08/swamis-evil-first-assistant-what-makes-sharon-ward-tick/

    Let’s find more BINGOS

    The Argentinian yoga school, which had offices in New York, Las Vegas, and Chicago, was a religious sect that coerced female members to have sex with wealthy men for money and benefits.

    Raniere had Nxivm offices in New York, Canada and Mexico to recruit and funnel money and women to him in Albany, New York. Shoemaker had Centers in Boston, California, Indiana and Ohio to recruit wealthy donors, to exploit “loved ones” labor in his business enterprises like the Tao and yoga teacher training sessions and to recruit young vulnerable people to his cult.

    BINGO, three cult leaders all use the same culty tricks to get what they want at the expense of everyone else they touch. Sex, money, power and suffering are what they deal in.

    Yogi Percowicz told followers he knows all, sees all and can rule all for their spiritual welfare.

    Moni, one of Shoemaker’s victims, has told us the very same things about J. Michael Shoemaker. So who really rules the universe? Percowicz, “Vanguard” (Raniere) or Swami Chetanananda? (J. Michael Shoemaker) All three say the same thing, BINGO, all three are the rulers of the universe, but can they rule from prison?

    According to prosecutors, The Buenos Aires Yoga School, which operated under the leadership of Juan Percowicz, 84, for more than 30 years, lured individuals with promises of eternal happiness, but in fact, exploited them sexually and financially.

    BINGO, Percowicz, 30 years of abuse, Raniere, decades of abuse and Shoemaker, 50 years of abuse. They can get away with creating a criminal enterprise in plain sight because coercive control is invisible. Coercive control is almost impossible to address because coercive control is invisible while it is in plain sight. People cannot recognize it even when they come face to face with it. They blame the victim, certainly we have seen that in the comments on the Frank Report. This advantages the cult leaders like Percowicz, Ranieri and Shoemaker. Cult leaders and cult apologists, use people’s lack of knowledge about coercive control against them to exploit vulnerabilities. Cult leaders do this within the minds of the victim, they use this control groom the cult members to accept their criminal actions, and even within law enforcement systems where the police ask, “why didn’t you leave”, did you say “no”?. Where is consent within a coercive controlling cult?

    BINGO. In Argentina, in the case of Percowicz, the prosecutors accused the school of preying on people who were underage or had severe health problems, including addictions. In the Frank Report Dan, Ayaz and Jessica were all involved with substance abuse and recovery. Raniere had sex with a child.

    Members included lawyers and accountants who advised leaders on a complex money laundering network, including starting businesses and buying real estate in Argentina and the United States.

    BINGO What has Shoemaker done? Bought real estate in Portland and now in Gold Beach. Here is a quote from a resident of Gold Beach on a Reddit thread, “They’ve been buying up property left and right around the town I live in… Like, a TON of property. After reading all the info in this thread, it has me genuinely worried. I don’t want any disgusting stuff like this to go on in the place that I call home.
    If they moved here thinking that they’d have an easier time staying out of the public eye with these acts, they’re surely going to regret their decision. Word spreads around this town at an incredible rate, everybody knows everybody. If he commits any serious crimes here, he will surely get caught up.
    It’s a little hillbilly town that frankly doesn’t appreciate the “hippy woo woo” types already… let alone portland sex cults.”

    The Agrentinian yoga group operated by giving living quarters, working in the organization, and making sure they started socializing exclusively with people who were part of the organization.

    BINGO Raniere had his DOS slaves move to Albany and share living quarters with other members, most of them “worked” for Nxivm controlled businesses, Shoemaker kept his “loved ones” in an ashram where they performed “seva” as a means to earn their room and board. He keeps his “loved ones” isolated as the ex-members wrote in the Leaving Nityananda Institute letter, “ We mourn their loss of compassion for estranged family members, former friends, and the world at large. We are dismayed that they are not allowed the freedom to speak to ex-students”

    It is unclear whether the woman could have refused this dishonest scheme or what their punishment would have been.

    BINGO Shoemaker used the same type of coercive control that removes the ability to provide informed consent. “We were encouraged to inform on one another as the price for “closeness” to the guru. This bred an environment of fear and mistrust in which we did not dare discuss sensitive issues with each other. The implicit message was that loyalty to anyone else in the community equaled disloyalty to Swami Chetanananda. We learned not to trust ourselves, our former moral and ethical standards, and our intuitions that something was seriously wrong. We grew accustomed to accepting blame for his problems. We learned to lie to ourselves and others to “protect Swami Chetanananda’s privacy.” Taken from the leaving Nityananda Institute letter.

    Yogi Percowicz told his followers that he had “divine powers” and was a fount of wisdom, as he quoted classic literature and religious scriptures.

    BINGO: Vanguard told his followers that he was the smartest and most ethical person alive; Shoemaker tells his followers that he is an avatar of a Goddess and he has brought the teachings of ancient Tibet to his “loved ones”.

    Percowicz devised a hierarchical ranking system of seven levels. The leaders of the group promised students they would receive the highest teachings in philosophy, and achieve a status of a cosmic healing when they rose up the rank.

    BINGO: Raniere gave Nxivm the striped path. Shoemaker has his inner circle of “loved ones”.

    The only goal of the group’s leaders was to make money, Lijo said.

    BINGO: The only goal of all culty traumatizing narcissistic cult leaders is money, power and sex through harm, exploitation and abuse.

    Albany, Buenos Aires, Portland and Gold Beach. All the same.

  • Before Chetanananda watchers get too excited and expect some judge to simply order the arrest of the Swami (J. Michael Shoemaker), Sadvi (Sharon Ward), Jen, Moni, Gretchen, Jimmy and the rest, (from Frank Report)

    Remember that a criminal case has to be developed by law enforcement. If you have been harmed, abused, or exploited as outlined in the many articles that have appeared on the Frank Report, you can report your experiences to:

    Criminal Activity:
    Nathan Wollstein, detective, Portland Police Department, 503-545-3482
    Jordan White, chief of police, Gold Beach, 541-247-6671
    Brendan Dennard, FBI, 503-460-8340
    John Ward, Sheriff, Curry County Oregon, 541-247-3242, 800-543-8471

    Human Trafficking
    Paul K. Chang, DOL, 714-418-8620

    Civil Action
    http://www.mcolaw.com, 833-568-4080, 833-563-4080, law firm mentioned in this article where Carol Merchasin serves at counsel
    https://frankreport.com/2022/09/09/if-ward-used-fake-internships-in-last-10-years-its-rico/

  • So many parallels to Shoemaker’s set up.
    Lawyers specializing in cult abuse are popping up and these charlatans are going to prison.

  • Today’s chicks will teach you about your own body and you’ll be pegged before you know it, loser.
    No pickup line needed.

  • I’d want these people held accountable but let them be in home confinement prior to trial. Otherwise just say they’re guilty because that’s what imprisoning prior to trial amounts to.

    They’re destroyed before they enter the courtroom.

  • It’s great there’s a tough judge. But putting them behind bars prior to conviction eliminates any possibility of an innocent verdict.

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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