I did not know about Raniere’s cruelty

A reader was curious about my contact with Keith Raniere and so I will give the short answer:.

I had regular access to Keith and at the time I liked him quite a bit.

I knew he was different; I thought he was bright, maybe brilliant; he seemed to be enjoying his life and frankly it did not matter to me that he had a number of adoring slaves who he bedded.

At that time I did not know about the underage women he had sex with or the imprisonment.

I assumed the sexual relationships with his students were entirely consensual.

I found out later that he punished with a vengeance those who did not do as he wished. He made it out as an issue of “justice” and not to punish his enemies was an “ethical breach.”

My own ethic is that having a different opinion, or making a different choice, than Raniere would prefer, is deserving of no punishment at all.

And any punishment for actual damaging actions (assuming such occurred) should be limited to recovery of damages, not years and tens of millions of dollars worth of legal harassment.

And if Raniere actually loves humanity as much as he claims, after recovering the damages he would forgive.

I am aware of no case where he has ever forgiven.

It wasn’t until much later did I realize how cruel he could be to the women who left him.