Keith Raniere

Keith Raniere (born August 26, 1960 in Brooklyn , New York City , USA ) is an American entrepreneur and psycho coach . In 1998 he founded a sect disguised as a self-help organization, in which he kept women as slaves and enriched himself with them. In 2019, a jury in a Brooklyn court found him guilty of organized crime ( racketeering ) and sexual trafficking in human beings. He had "forced women to sexual intercourse through systematic humiliation and slander".

Life

Raniere was already considered gifted as a child. He received three degrees from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute . In 1988 he caused a stir in his hometown of Albany , New York, because the elite Mega Society accepted him as a 27-year-old. He had undergone an intelligence test that had not been validated by independent psychologists, in which he achieved an IQ of 178.

In 1990 he founded his first company, Consumer's Buyline Inc. , which used network marketing techniques and did not sell actual products. Several US prosecutors filed a lawsuit against the company for operating a pyramid scheme that suggested mass fraud. 250,000 people were involved and basically distributed shopping vouchers. Among other things, because of the bad press, the Consumer's Buyline went bankrupt in 1997. Raniere admitted no guilt and reached an out of court settlement.

Company NXIVM

In 1998 he founded the NXIVM Corporation with the nurse Nancy Salzman, which promoted self-discovery with seminars . The organization had branches (“chapters”) in the USA, Canada and Mexico with well over 10,000 customers. NXIVM was a sect or secret society that disguised Raniere as a self-help organization .

Raniere was represented with NXIVM in numerous media and spread his ideas through many channels. He said of the free press, for example, that with its misinformation it had become a second judiciary in the state that had no morals. He submitted several patents for his methods, such as "determining whether a Luciferian can be rehabilitated" or a device that measures sleep phases. He called his principal coaching method the "Executive Success Program".

In 2003, a Forbes article pointed to the manipulative side of Raniere's methods. In it, some participants stated that the program was sectarian and aimed at a psychological dismantling of the personality. In addition, as is typical with sects, one would be separated from family and social environment and introduced into a bizarre world with its own language behavior and ritual practices.

In October 2017, some women appeared before the press accusing Raniere of keeping them in a harem like slaves . He did not tolerate any contradiction and was called “Vanguard” - a pioneer. His business partner Salzman said the participants "Prefect" ( Prefect ). All women were branded with tattoos: the initials "KR" were part of the initiation process. Raniere demanded nude photos or other compromising material of new applicants, which he later used in many cases to blackmail them.

Arrest and trial

Keith Raniere was arrested in Mexico in March 2018. The New York Attorney's Office has been charged with sex trafficking. In this context, his alleged accomplice, actress Allison Mack , was arrested on April 20, 2018 , and Seagram's heiress Clare Bronfman was arrested in June 2018 . In this context, she is also accused of human trafficking and financial support for a criminal organization. In May 2019, the criminal trial began in the Federal District Court in Brooklyn, which ended on June 19, 2019 with a guilty verdict on all counts. The sentence should first be announced in September 2019.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Colin Moynihan: Nxivm Trial: Leader Convicted After Trial Exposed Sex Cult's Sordid Inner Workings . In: The New York Times . June 19, 2019, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed June 19, 2019]).
2. ↑ From RPI to NXIVM: Keith Raniere timeline . In: Times Union . ( timesunion.com [accessed March 29, 2018]).
3. ^ Trial By Media: The Press as A Global Judicial Process. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 28, 2018 ; Retrieved March 28, 2018 (American English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ Patent application US20130281879A1: Determination of whether a luciferian can be rehabilitated
5. ↑ Sleep Guidance Apparatus , U.S. Patent 7,041,049 - Claim 20
6. ↑ Michael Freedman: Cult of Personality . In: Forbes . ( forbes.com [accessed March 28, 2018]).
7. ^ Barry Meier: Inside a Secretive Group Where Women Are Branded . In: The New York Times . October 17, 2017, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed March 28, 2018]).
8. ^ Barry Meier: Inside a Secretive Group Where Women Are Branded . In: The New York Times . October 17, 2017, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed April 10, 2019]).
9. ↑ Human trafficking: US actress as cult supporter: Branding with initials of the leader orf.at, April 21, 2018, accessed April 22, 2018.
10. ^ Barry Meier: Authorities Raid Homes Linked to Cultlike Group that Branded Women . In: The New York Times . March 27, 2018, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed March 28, 2018]).
11. ↑ 'Sex-slave' group leader arrested by FBI . In: BBC News . March 27, 2018 ( bbc.com [accessed March 28, 2018]).
12. ↑ Christopher Mele: Allison Mack of 'Smallville' Is Charged With Sex Trafficking , nytimes.com . April 20, 2018. 
13. ^ "Smallville" actress: leader of a sex cult? ., kurier.at of November 12, 2017 (accessed April 21, 2018)
14. ↑ https://m.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/nxivm-sekte-seagram-erbin-clare-bronfman-festhaben-a-1220207.html
15. ↑ Jury finds Keith Raniere guilty on all charges. Spiegel Online, June 20, 2019, accessed on the same day.