Keith Raniere ran NXIVM's Executive Success program for years, guaranteeing participants that they would learn how to topple any obstacles in their path on the road to finding their true north in business and in life.
Though the self-improvement courses attracted some big names in business and entertainment over the years, there was a far more disturbing operation taking place behind the scenes.
In June 2019, Raniere was found guilty of sex trafficking, attempted sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, racketeering and racketeering conspiracy for presiding over a trafficking ring in which women were recruited as "slaves" by other female members, or "masters," and manipulated into having sex with the NXIVM co-founder.
And today, in proceedings postponed multiple times, including earlier this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Raniere was sentenced to 120 years in prison for his crimes.
Raniere has insisted he's innocent, telling Dateline earlier this month in his first interview from jail that he was sorry for the hurt people had suffered, but that he had been the victim of an unfair trial.
"I apologize for my participation in all of this—this pain and suffering," he said. "I've clearly participated. I've been the leader of the community. And it has come to this. Even if it is by oppression, I am absolutely sorry and pained. This is a horrible situation."
He continued, "This is a horrible tragedy with many, many people being hurt. There is a horrible injustice here. And whether you think I'm the devil or not, the justice process has to be examined."
On Friday, the judge denied his latest request for a new trial.
Earlier last year, five women, including Smallville actress Allison Mack, pleaded guilty to lesser charges, leaving Raniere as the only one who went to trial following a months-long federal investigation into NXIVM and DOS—a secret sorority that included 15 to 20 women recruited primarily to be sex partners for Raniere, a commitment (for the women) that included a ceremony in which they were branded with a symbol incorporating Raniere and Mack's initials.
DOS was said to be an acronym for the Latin "Dominus Obsequious Sororium," which reportedly roughly translates into "Master of the Obedient Female Companions."
"Over the last seven weeks, this trial has revealed that Raniere, who portrayed himself as a savant and a genius, was in fact, a master manipulator, a con man and the crime boss of a cult-like organization involved in sex trafficking, child pornography, extortion, compelled abortions, branding, degradation and humiliation," said Richard P. Donoghue, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, shortly after the verdict was handed down.
"His crimes, and the crimes of his co-conspirators, ruined marriages, careers, fortunes and lives. The evidence proved that Raniere was truly a modern-day Svengali."
Neither Raniere nor Mack ended up taking the stand, but multiple women did—some identified only by their first names—to testify to the abuses perpetrated by Raniere and those he enlisted to carry out his sordid vision.
In a motion to have the charges dismissed that was filed in December 2018, Raniere's legal team argued that NXIVM was a "wonderful humanitarian organization" whose members have "sought to end the violence in Mexico, have introduced tools useful to people with difficult conditions, such as Tourette's syndrome, have pioneered multi-linguistic schools for young children, who would become proficient in multiple languages and later multi-cultural adults, and have developed approaches to help people lead happier, more productive, more enriched lives."
A gated villa in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, was where FBI agents had tracked Raniere down to arrest him that March, following a months-long investigation into the allegations raised against him and NXIVM.
Prosecutors alleged, meanwhile, that NXIVM—a purported self-help organization based in Albany, N.Y., that since its establishment in the late 1990s had attracted more than 16,000 people, including actors and corporate leaders, to its Executive Success Programs and other seminars—was a pyramid scheme in which participants could only move up the ladder by paying more and recruiting more people. To even get the chance to meet Raniere, participants usually had to complete a 16-day course that cost $7,500.
Mack, who once called Raniere "a wonderful teacher and mentor" was also originally charged with sex trafficking before pleading guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy.
One former DOS member, Nicole, testified that she was ordered to address Mack as "Madame Mack," and was asked to sign a waiver releasing NXIVM from liability in the case of incidents such as "disfigurement" or "physical and psychological injuries." But Nicole didn't want to sign and, eventually, Mack seemed to forget about it.
Another woman, Sylvie, testified that she signed similar papers.
A third woman, Jay, testified that Mack would also refer to DOS as "The Agency," because "her slaves were all actresses and models and were beautiful, so it was as if she was running an agency."
Incidentally, multiple women testified that Raniere had erectile dysfunction issues.
Nicole said in court that she was first drawn to NXIVM's self-help program as an aspiring actress looking to jump-start her career after moving to New York in 2014. An ex-boyfriend had told her about all the rich and famous people, including several actors, associated with the organization.
From the beginning, Nicole said, she thought that the general fawning over Raniere—his annual birthday celebration was "V-Week," referring to his nickname "Vanguard"—was strange. After a week-long program, she was urged by her ex and Mack to sign up for more classes. She ended up teaching classes to supplement her income. When she told Mack that she was worried she was making the wrong choices, Mack told her about a society within NXIVM for women called "The Vow," Nicole recalled.
The Vow was DOS.
"[Mack] said that she couldn't let me out no matter how hard I cried because it would show me that if I cried hard enough, I could get out of anything," Nicole testified. She ended up remaining in DOS for over a year. When she finally got Raniere's attention after sending him multiple emails (at Mack's command, she said), Nicole said that Raniere took her to a cabin in the woods one day where he blindfolded her, had her lie on a table, tied her to the table, and had another woman perform oral sex on her. Nicole said she didn't realize another person was in the room till it was happening and Raniere started talking at the same time.
Prosecutors said the entire encounter was videotaped.
Nicole said she finally extricated herself from NXIVM in 2017. She never got her collateral back. "Once I'd gotten enough separation, there's not been one moment that I am not grateful that I am no longer in that situation," she said on the stand.
The defense didn't call any witnesses during the trial. Raniere's attorney Marc Agnifilo told the jury, "You may find him repulsive, disgusting and offensive. We don't convict people in this country for being repulsive or offensive. Unpopular ideas aren't criminal. Disgusting ideas aren't criminal."
Until his arrest, Raniere had been running NXIVM for years in plain sight, touting his programs as key stepping stones for people who wanted to harness their best selves and realize their true potential. Here's a primer of some of the key players and the roles they played in creating—and unraveling—this tangled web:
Keith Raniere
On June 19, 2019, NXIVM co-founder Keith Raniere was found guilty of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, attempted sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy.
The charges against him alleged that Raniere, known as "Vanguard" within the NXIVM community, presided over a secret smaller group called DOS, for which Allison Mack, who had risen through the ranks of the NXIVM organization to become a "first-line master," recruited other women for the purpose of having sex with him.
As part of their initiation, the women would turn over compromising photos or other items and information that could be used against them if they disobeyed, and were branded on their pelvis with an abstract symbol that incorporated Raniere and Mack's initials.
"If one woman is having an issue, it hurts Keith, and if he's hurting, you're hurting," a woman identified as a former member of DOS told The Hollywood Reporter in 2018. "So if you do something he doesn't like, you get an army of women, sister wives, coming after you. You get ostracized. No one wants to socialize with you unless you get back in line."
On Oct. 27, 2020, he was sentenced to 120 years in prison and fined $1.75 million.
Allison Mack
Allison Mack, who played reporter Chloe Sullivan on Smallville for 10 seasons, pleaded guilty in April 2019 to racketeering conspiracy and racketeering acts of state law extortion and forced labor. (Additional charges of sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy and forced labor conspiracy were dropped.)
She first attended a NXIVM seminar in Vancouver with her Smallville co-star Kristin Kreuk in 2006, a program billed as a "women's movement" called Jness. Their high-profile presences had been planned for, because some of the organization's top people (those closest to Raniere) flew in for the occasion. The group put on a charm offensive for the newcomer and invited her to meet Raniere, who, they said, could help her acting career. Mack accepted, was flown to their Albany, N.Y., location via private jet, and stayed for weeks.
When she entered her guilty plea on April 18, 2019, Mack told the court, "I was lost. Through it all, I believed Keith Raniere's intentions were to help people. I was wrong."
She admitted to selling DOS to potential recruits by describing it as a female-empowerment group, to making members hand over photos and information for blackmail purposes, and to obtaining "labor and services" from two women
A former roommate who lived with Mack after she got involved with NXIVM told The Hollywood Reporter in 2018, "I don't think she was thinking she was actually trafficking girls. It doesn't mean she doesn't deserve punishment, but I think she had drunk enough Kool-Aid to really believe that these girls were going to save the world with his super-sperm."
Mack was given a three-year prison sentence in 2021, but was released early in 2023.
Nicki Clyne
Mack's now ex-wife Nicki Clyne said she herself was a member of DOS and objected to people calling the group a sex cult.
"We're not denying that certain things took place," Clyne said on CBS This Morning in September 2020. "There is evidence that certain things happened. How they happened, why they happened and why certain people chose them—that's a whole other conversation." She added, "I wouldn't trade my experiences for anything."
The actress also said, however, that she hadn't spoken to Mack for a year and a half. The terms of Mack's bail included not being allowed contact with anyone involved in NXIVM or the case against Raniere.
"This has been the hardest, most humbling experience of my life," Clyne said.
Best known for playing flight deck officer Cally Henderson on Battlestar Galactica, Clyne stepped away from acting for a decade after leaving the show in 2008. She picked up again in 2018 as part of the ensemble on the sci-fi webseries Personal Space.
Nancy Salzman
After meeting Raniere in 1997, former psychiatric nurse Nancy Salzman co-founded NXIVM with him in Albany and was known in the organization as "Prefect."
Salzman pleaded guilty in March 2019 to a charge of racketeering criminal conspiracy after being accused of identity theft and falsifying records in relation to a lawsuit filed against the company.
"I want you to know I am pleading guilty because I am, in fact, guilty," she said in court at the time. "I accept that some of the things I did were not just wrong, but sometimes criminal. I justified them by saying that what we were doing was for the greater good."
In so doing, she also said, "I compromised my principles."
She was sentenced to 42 months in prison in September 2021.
Lauren Salzman
Nancy's daughter Lauren Salzman allegedly hosted pre-branding ceremonies for DOS members at her home before the women were allegedly blindfolded and driven to a different location for the actual procedure. Per a 2017 New York Times report, Lauren would instruct the women to say, "Master, please brand me, it would be an honor."
She was also one of the VIPs dispatched to meet Mack in Vancouver in 2006. "By the end of the weekend, Lauren and Allison were like best friends," former NXIVM member Susan Dones recalled to The Hollywood Reporter in 2018.
Lauren pleaded guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy on March 25, 2019, at a hearing that wasn't on the court docket, the transcript sealed until portions could be redacted.
In cooperation with prosecutors, Lauren testified in federal court that May. She admitted to helping Raniere attempt to hide in 2018 when the FBI raided the villa where he was staying in Mexico—where she had traveled with the intention of participating, along with other DOS members, in a "recommitment ceremony" to re-pledge their loyalty to him.
Prosecutors recommended leniency based on her cooperation and Lauren was sentenced in July 2021 to five years' probation.
Clare Bronfman
Clare Bronfman, a daughter of late business mogul Edgar Bronfman Sr. and heiress to the Seagrams liquor fortune, was accused of financing what turned out to be illegal conduct after meeting Raniere in 2002 and becoming, first, a NXIVM acolyte, and ultimately a board member, as well as Raniere's benefactor and legal advocate who allegedly financed lawsuits on his behalf against perceived enemies.
In 2003, Bronfman's father estimated to Forbes that she had loaned NXIVM $2 million, which she denied at the time. "I think it's a cult," said Bronfman Sr., who died in 2013.
On April 19, 2019, Bronfman pleaded guilty to conspiring to conceal and harbor an undocumented immigrant for financial gain, and fraudulent use of identification for helping Raniere use a deceased person's credit card. Part of her sentence called for her to forfeit $6 million.
"I am truly remorseful," Bronfman told U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis. "I endeavored to do good in the world and help people—however, I have made mistakes."
She was sentenced on Sept. 30, 2020, to 81 months in prison. Explaining the hefty penalty, Garaufis stated that he was "troubled by evidence suggesting that Ms. Bronfman repeatedly and consistently leveraged her wealth and social status as a means of intimidating, controlling and punishing" people who had left NXIVM or were perceived to be its adversaries.
Bronfman was released from prison into a halfway house in May 2024, per the Albany Times-Union.
Kathy Russell
Right after Bronfman entered her plea, longtime NXIVM bookkeeper Kathy Russell pleaded guilty to one count of visa fraud for helping to falsify documents, according to the Albany Times Union.
"I know what I did was wrong," Russell said. "I'm very sorry for the trouble I have caused. I have compromised my own principles, and I'm going to have to live with that for the rest of my life."
Bronfman and Russell were the last of Raniere's co-defendants to enter pleas, leaving him to stand trial alone.
"We don't believe Ms. Russell and Ms. Bronfman should have been charged," Raniere's attorney Marc Agnifilo told the NY Times, "and we are happy they're out of the case."
Russell was sentenced in October 2021 to two years' probation and 200 hours of community service.
Sara Bronfman
Clare's older sister Sara Bronfman, here with mom Georgiana, was not charged with any crime related to Raniere or NXIVM.
Like her sister, however, she was a longtime NXIVM member and along with Clare allegedly gave millions to the organization.
Mark Vicente, a former NXIVM member who was featured in the HBO docuseries The Vow, testified that Sara was part of Raniere's "trusted group."
Vanity Fair reported in 2010 that in six years the Bronfman sisters had taken more than $150 million out of their trusts and bank accounts for NXIVM-related purposes, including $66 million to help bail Raniere out of personal financial trouble, $11 million for a 22-seater jet, and millions to aid NXIVM's legal battles when it would go after perceived enemies (or "suppressives") in court. They tried to conceal the massive amount they were spending from their father, the report alleged.
"I think there are personal reasons regarding the conflict they have with their family that keep them affiliated with [NXIVM]," a friend of the sisters told the magazine. "On some level, I think they feel the affiliation is reinforcing their version of things, in opposition to the opinion of their family."
Frank R. Parlato Jr.
The Bronfman sisters hired Buffalo-area developer Frank R. Parlato Jr. as a consultant and in 2011 accused him of defrauding them of $1 million.
The FBI had been investigating his business dealings for several years and he was indicted in New York in 2015 on charges including wire fraud and stealing from the Bronfman sisters. He denied all of the charges, and a judge dismissed the ones pertaining to the sisters in May 2018, according to The Buffalo News.
Parlato pleaded guilty to one count of willful failure to file an IRS form in August 2022 and the remaining counts against him were dismissed.
Meanwhile, Parlato meticulously chronicled NXIVM's alleged crimes and the subsequent legal proceedings against Raniere, Clare Bronfman and others on his website, Frank Report. Per the NY Times, many NXIVM members learned about DOS for the first time from reading his site, particularly a post titled "Branded Slaves and Master Raniere," prompting more members to reach out to him.
"I am glad to have played a part [in the investigation of NXIVM] through my reporting," Parlato said in a statement in May 2018. "I have been credited by many organizations across the country with providing the information that led to the indictment against Raniere."
Raniere gave his first interview from jail to Parlato for Dateline in October 2020.
Sarah Edmondson
Canadian actress Sarah Edmondson detailed her experience as a NXIVM and DOS member to the New York Times in 2017, describing how she was branded after being told she would be getting a small tattoo.
"I wept the whole time," she told the paper about the branding, which she said occurred in March 2017. "I disassociated out of my body."
Edmondson helped establish NXIVM's chapter in Vancouver after joining in 2007, which in turn attracted other actresses, including Clyne and her Battlestar Galactica costar Grace Park.
Like former member Vicente, Edmonson was also prominently featured on HBO's The Vow.
She has said that Lauren Salzman first told her about DOS—after the actress had written a letter detailing past indiscretions and handed it over. Edmondson said Salzman described the secret society as a force for good, a way in which women could overcome their society-imposed overemotional natures. "She made it sound like a badass-bitch boot camp," the actress recalled.
In May 2017, she and her husband Anthony Ames told Lauren that they were leaving the program. Months later, NXIVM filed a criminal report against Edmondson and two other women from the Vancouver center, accusing them of mischief and other wrongdoing. No charges were ever filed.
Catherine Oxenberg
Dynasty alum Catherine Oxenberg also spoke out against NXIVM after daughter India Oxenberg joined the program—which she was introduced to by her mom, who said she thought it was just a self-help course—and ended up a member of DOS.
"She said it was a character-building experience," Oxenberg told the Times, recalling how she became alarmed when India grew scarily thin and told her she was missing periods.
"I never gave up," Oxenberg, author of Captive: A Mother's Crusade to Save Her Daughter from a Terrifying Cult, told E! News in August 2018. "I must be hard-wired as a mom, I'm not capable of giving up. Even in the hopeless moments I just kept persevering and trusting that it would turn around."
India told People in October 2020 that her mother's support had proved key to her recovery.
"She made a safe place for me to talk and she would listen when memories would come flooding back, and I remembered more and more about what happened," India said. "Sometimes I would have panic attacks and my mom would just hold me and tell me I was safe."
India Oxenberg
In 2019, India joined two fellow former members—identified by prosecutors as "Nicole" and "Jay"—in court to watch closing arguments against Raniere.
Jay testified during the trial that she became a DOS "slave" after being recruited by India, turning over an old sex tape and personal information as collateral.
Recalling what it was like providing her own collateral, which included taking nude photos of herself and revealing secrets about her family, India told People in October 2020, "In reality, it was like I handed over the keys to lock myself in prison."
India, who moved back to Los Angeles after Raniere was arrested in 2018, detailed her experience in the Starz docuseries Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult. She said that Mack limited her diet to 500 calories a day so that she would remain skinny, per Raniere's preference.
"One of my first commands was to seduce Keith," India said. "Allison said it was to make me feel less vulnerable. And I wanted to believe her."
India, who also gave a victim impact statement before Raniere's sentencing, explained, "I want to help people and reclaim my voice and be me again and not a headline of 'cult girl.' I want people to know who I really am."
Following sentencing, FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William F. Sweeney Jr. said in a statement, "Raniere's reign of control over the women he scarred, both physically and emotionally, is the making of a horror story. It is inconceivable to think of the sexual exploitation, abuse, seclusion, and mind control his victims suffered—at his direction.
"Today the judge has given him 120 years to think about whether or not the torture he inflicted on others for more than a decade, and the distress he brought to their families, was worth it in the end.
(Originally published April 27, 2019, at 3 a.m. PT)