National Post (National Edition)
Prosecutors allege Bronfman heiress’s links to slave-master sex club.
BRONFMAN LINKED TO SLAVE-MASTER SEX CLUB
In January 2016, Clare Bronfman sent an email to NXIVM co-founder Keith Raniere with the subject “Adverse Party Identifying Info.” An attached spreadsheet she had created listed the names, phone numbers and email addresses of dozens of their perceived enemies.
The list, according to federal prosecutors, included journalists and an alleged victim of Raniere’s secret slave-master sex club — a highly secretive group that triggered a federal law enforcement investigation of NXIVM last year after reports surfaced that women were being branded with Raniere’s initials and coerced to have sex with him.
In a followup email last September, several months after the slave-master club began publicly unravelling, Bronfman sent Raniere another list. This one, prosecutors said, contained the individuals who had done “damage” to Raniere, their priority levels, and a catalogue of the potential crimes that might be pursued to discredit those adversaries.
“Bronfman went to significant lengths to compile information and threaten litigation against those she considered to be an enemy or critic of Raniere,” federal prosecutors wrote in a court filing this week.
The records were made public as part of a superseding indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court on Tuesday that charged Bronfman, Raniere and other top members of the organization with racketeering and criminal conspiracy. The underlying alleged crimes include money laundering, identity theft, forced labour, sex trafficking and wire fraud.
The court records for the first time unmask Bronfman’s deep involvement in the alleged criminal activities of Raniere, including helping him attack his enemies through litigation, computer hacking and the filing of potentially falsified criminal charges.
Bronfman, 39, is the daughter of former Seagram’s chairman Edgar Bronfman Sr, and an heiress to the Montreal-based liquor empire, once estimated to be worth $2.6 billion.
She has given tens of millions of dollars to Raniere to help fuel his efforts to expand NXIVM’S reach around the globe. Prosecutors, who have described the organization as a massive pyramid scheme, noted that Bronfman’s devotion to Raniere was demonstrated when she once “loaned” him $65 million to invest in the commodities market, which he subsequently lost and never repaid.
The charges unsealed this week indicate Bronfman has been much more than a duped heiress who fell under the spell of Raniere. They describe her as a witting coconspirator in crimes dating back nearly 15 years, and often carried out to destroy Raniere’s enemies, including journalists who investigated his background or defectors who tried to break from NXIVM’S ranks.
“Bronfman’s efforts to target and silence critics of Raniere is particularly concerning in light of the broader pattern of harassment, coercion and abusive litigation that is described as one of the means and methods of the conspirators in the superseding indictment,” assistant U.S. Attorney Moira Kim Penza wrote in a memo requesting high bond and home confinement for Bronfman and her co-defendants.
The superseding indictment expanded the pending criminal charges against Raniere, who was arrested in Mexico in March, and his alleged slave-master conspirator, television actress Allison Mack. In addition, it added Bronfman and three other defendants: NXIVM president and co-founder Nancy Salzman, her daughter Lauren Salzman, and longtime NXIVM bookkeeper Kathy Russell.
Raniere has remained in custody since his arrest. The other defendants have all been ordered released on conditions that include home confinement, electronic monitoring and high bonds; Bronfman’s bail has been set at $100 million and she has until Friday to secure it. A federal judge on Wednesday set a trial date for January in Brooklyn.
Bronfman and her co-defendants, including Raniere, have all pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Although NXIVM had offices across the country and overseas, the indictment indicates that most of the illegal conduct took place in New York’s Northern District, the federal jurisdiction that encompasses the Capital Region, where NXIVM has had its headquarters since the late 1990s and where Raniere has lived.
It’s also where multiple law enforcement agencies, including the U.S. attorney’s office in Albany, the state attorney general’s office and the Saratoga and Albany county district attorneys’ offices, have for years declined to pursue criminal investigations of Raniere or his organization.
Indeed, three years ago, the law enforcement agencies took no action when allegations were filed in Albany County Court that Bronfman had implanted a “key logger” virus on the computer of her late father, Edgar M. Bronfman Sr., so officials with the NXIVM corporation could secretly monitor his emails.
The allegations were attributed to Kristin Keeffe, who was part of the inner circle that ran NXIVM before she defected along with her young son.
Other allegations were raised against Bronfman in the Albany County case. Among them: that beginning in 2007, she and her sister, Sara, had paid a Canadian investigative firm more than $1.8 million to sift the financial records of U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and six federal judges presiding over litigation involving NXIVM.
The court records indicated the NXIVM officials also used the Canadian firm to try to obtain financial information on Edgar Bronfman and other officials with the Jewish World Congress, which Edgar Bronfman headed from 1981 to 2007.
Bronfman also is accused of illegally inducing an illegal immigrant to enter the United States in March 2009 for her own financial gain. As part of that scheme, prosecutors said, Bronfman is accused of committing money laundering by transferring money to another country to aid in the immigration fraud.
In 2016, after the death of one of Raniere’s girlfriends, Pamela Cafritz, Raniere allegedly continued to use her credit card as well as a bank account that held $8 million. Although Raniere had been designated as the administrator of her estate, prosecutors allege he had no right to use her credit card after her death.
BRONFMAN’S BAIL HAS BEEN SET AT $100 MILLION