DOJ Opposes Clare Bronfman’s Motion for Sentence Reduction

Pen drawing of Clare Bronfman by MK10 Art

The US DOJ has filed a response to Clare Bronfman’s February 22 motion for a sentence reduction before US District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis.

She seeks to be released immediately from prison.

Bronfman, an executive board member of NXIVM and heiress to the Seagram liquor fortune, was sentenced in federal court in Brooklyn on September 30, 2020 to 81 months in prison for her role in the NXIVM enterprise.

In calculating the sentence, Judge Garaufis stated that 81 months was three times the upper end of federal sentencing guidelines for the crimes of credit card fraud and harboring illegal aliens for financial gain.

In explaining his decision to sentence her to a term much longer than the guidelines suggest, the judge said Bronfman “repeatedly and consistently leveraged her wealth and social status as a means of intimidating, controlling and punishing individuals whom Raniere perceived as his adversaries, particularly NXIVM’s detractors and critics” and noted she worked “hand-in-hand with Raniere to intimidate and silence victims of Raniere’s brutal campaign of sexual abuse and exploitation.”

Many were surprised at the sentence, which was actually 21 months longer than the DOJ requested.

Bronfman now seeks to be freed based on her argument that these should apply a recent amendment to the United States Sentencing Guidelines, which provides a six-month sentencing guidelines reduction for specific defendants classified as “zero-point offenders”—those without any previous criminal history.

Since Bronfman was sentenced to three times the guidelines, she argues that 18 months should be shaved off her sentence, which would result in her going home immediately.

Bronfman is currently set to be released on June 29, 2025, and is eligible for transfer to home confinement in December of this year.

The BOP has also advised the DOJ that Bronfman may be referred to a residential reentry center within the next few months.

The judge is not bound to accept Brofman’s legal argument, for he sentenced her to 81 months and said it was three times the sentencing guidelines

The DOJ wants the judge to let her stay where she is—at the Philadelphia Detention Center, where she is an inmate and works in the facility, cleaning the administrative offices and bathrooms and, on occasion, shoveling snow.

The DOJ’s response written by AUSA Tanya Hajjar, who prosecuted Raniere at trial, was hard hitting.

Hajjar wrote of Bronfman’s financial coercion, writing that legally “Bronfman is ineligible for a reduction in her sentence pursuant to Amendment 821, because she fails to satisfy the criteria that ‘the defendant did not personally cause substantial financial hardship.’”

Hajjar continued, “Clare Bronfman funded and promoted the criminal enterprise led by her codefendant Keith Raniere…recruiting … women with no legal status in the United States, into Nxivm-affiliated organizations… she obtained a labor force of desperate individuals dependent on her and on Raniere for their continued legal status in the United States… Bronfman’s conduct had severe and devastating effects on her victims.”

Bronfman previously appealed her sentence at the Second Circuit which was denied.

In the meantime, Nancy Salzman is scheduled for release from custody on Tuesday to begin her five year probation.

Frank Parlato