Bronfman Sisters’ Crucial Role: The Financial Backbone of Yellow NXIVM at the Heart of the Lawsuit

Among the seven remaining defendants, the federal civil lawsuit, Edmondson v Raniere continues mainly against Seagram’s heiresses, NXIVM leaders Clare and Sara Bronfman, and NXIVM founder Keith Raniere.

Clare Bronfman and Raniere are currently serving time in federal prison.

Also remaining as defendants in the civil lawsuit are Allison Mack and Kathy Russell, who took plea deals in the federal criminal case against NXIVM leaders.

Mack recently left prison after serving 21 months in connection with NXIVM-related racketeering and conspiracy crimes. She is on probation.

The former NXIVM bookkeeper, Kathy Russell, is on probation for NXIVM-related immigration fraud. Russell never served time in prison.

Kathy Russell got probation.

Defendants Brandon Porter and Danielle Roberts, both physicians, lost their medical licenses because of NXIVM-related allegations but were not charged criminally.

Regardless of the different plaintiffs’ varied claims and tales of victimization against the other defendants, the Bronfman sisters are the only defendants of importance in this civil suit.

But for their funding Raniere, there would have been no NXIVM, no DOS, and likely only mostly penny-ante crimes, such as those Toni Natalie and Raniere conspired to do in the 1990s.

Authorities would have prosecuted Raniere and swatted him down, like the small-time grifter he was. The Bronfman wealth was the game changer.

It took the Eastern District of NY prosecutors to tackle the behemoth Bronfmans and the millions they provided for defense.

Sara Smiles

Sara Bronfman, one of the highest-ranked NXIVM members, fled the US in 2018 before her sister’s arrest and lives in Portugal.

A prominent investment manager in New York, whose clients are some of the wealthiest in the world, manages her portfolio. FR estimates her net worth at $500 million.

Clare’s Net Worth Increases

Clare Bronfman disclosed her net worth at $200 million to the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York when she sought bail after her 2018 arrest.

FR uncovered she failed to disclose more than $100 million in assets to the court, failing to list her ownership of 80 percent of Wakaya Island in Fiji and its principal resort, Wakaya Club and Spa, and her scattered Los Angeles real estate holdings, which the author recovered for her and which she has titled in various corporate names.

Clare’s net worth has likely grown since 2018 since she no longer funds the NXIVM enterprise or Raniere’s investments.

She continues to fund Raniere’s legal efforts to get out of prison and her own failed attempts to get placed in a lower security facility.

Still, her net worth is growing thanks to prison and its limitations on her tomfoolery.  Bronfman is currently at the maximum security Philadelphia Detention Center.

Clare’s Fruitless Prison Fight

After significant legal expenditure and maneuvering, Clare got the BOP to assign her to the low-security Danbury prison.

She wanted more. She sued the BOP in the US District Court for the District of Connecticut for not placing her in the lowest security camp at Danbury.

She offered many legal arguments through her attorneys, each exquisitely presented by her legal team at great expense.

With a tone often found in Bronfman’s other litigation conducted on behalf of Raniere, her lawyers saturated her pleadings with righteousness and haughty indignation.

The filings exposed the BOP’s many misdeeds concerning the heiress’ ill-treatment. The tone of her filings assumed that a trembling BOP would effectuate her transfer to the Danbury Camp without delay.

The lawyers overlooked one small point. The BOP has custody of the heiress.

Instead of rebutting the arguments made to persuade a federal judge to force her to move to the nicer camp, the BOP removed her from the jurisdiction, transferring her from the low-security facility in Danbury back to the maximum-security Philadelphia Detention Center where she started.

Key Points to Ponder

The key to the NXIVM civil lawsuit is tying the Bronfman sisters to the innumerable harms NXIVM and Raniere did to his followers by their funding, recruiting, intimidating, enabling, and knowingly promoting reckless and illegal acts in which both sisters were often active participants.

Always arrogant and self-assured that their wealth and status exempt them from all the ordinary decencies all other humans are called to account to obey, they wrecked many lives.

This time the tide may change, the worm may turn and the wreckers wrecked.  And the beasts are called to the slaughter at the end of the hunt.

Both sisters excel in wasting money and stupidity, and none can ever offer them good advice. I will venture mine, since I served them well in the past – only to have them turn again and rend me.

They tried to serve me up for a lifetime in prison.

Settle Stupids

They should settle the lawsuit, especially Sara, if the judge does not dismiss the case.

Why?

For one thing, they can settle for not much more than they will spend in lawyers’ fees, and not risk losing much more if the jury goes against them.

A trial will also garner a lot of bad publicity. 

But that is not the reason. The reason is goodwill – and money.

These two women should realize that all their contacts, everyone who gets anywhere near to them does so with an adverse impression for their roles of harm in NXIVM, whether they speak of it openly or not.

Most do not speak of it, and the foolish heiresses might think it is not in the minds of those they meet and does not guide their conduct in dealing with these two – as untrustworthy, unreliable and reckless.

Good people will stay away, and only scoundrels will venture to do business with them.

Settle Sara

If they, or at least Sara, used a fraction of the money they used to destroy others to help their victims, their reputation would make a sharp uptick, and that would attract opportunities, including financial.

People would not hold their noses when dealing with them. 

Instead of being a force for evil, selfishness, idleness, and moral rot, they might work oppositely and be known for charity and kindness.

Many wealthy people give millions, and their enhanced reputation brings them goodwill, which brings financial advantages as a direct result of their charities. They make more money directly from their well-publicized charity than the amount they donate.  

For purely greed-driven reasons, Sara should at least settle. It will make her millions.

Clare too Stupid

Clare is probably thinking as she mops excrement off the floor from the backed-up sewers at the Philadelphia Detention Center that no price is too high to support a man the rest of the world knows as a villain—unconscious of the harm she has done to so many, including herself.

I wish she could wake up. But I know better.

Bumble on fool.