Raniere, NXIVM doctor speak on ‘Dateline NBC’
Roberts says women wanted to be branded at time
NXIVM leader Keith Raniere and the doctor who branded his initials on women in his “master/ slave” club defended their actions — with the physician claiming the women “wanted it,” according to Friday night’s Dateline NBC interview.
In a two-hour special, Raniere, 60, formerly of Halfmoon, gave the newsmagazine an exclusive interview from behind bars, where he is serving 120 years in prison.
“If you look at my longterm partners, I’m even against tattooing,” Raniere told Dateline NBC. “I don’t have tattoos. None of my partners have tattoos. If my partners want to get them, that’s up to them.”
Danielle Roberts, an osteopath from Long Island who lived for a time in Halfmoon, told Dateline interviewer Kate Snow that “no patient-physician relationship” existed between her and the women she branded in Dominus Obsequious Sororium group, known as DOS.
The show, titled “Collateral Damage,” included interviews with former DOS member India Oxenberg, her mother, actress Catherine Oxenberg and this Times Union reporter, among others. In DOS, women were asked to hand over material known as “collateral” — such as naked photos or false and embarrassing claims about themselves and their fami“i lies — to join the so-called sorority billed as a women’s empowerment group.
Once they joined DOS, the women learned they were “slaves” who answered to “masters” in a pyramid structure whose leader, unknown to the women, was Raniere. He demanded they live on 500-aday calorie diets, respond to “readiness” drills at all hours of the night and, in some cases, to seduce him sexually.
Roberts, who faces the possible loss of her medical license on state Department of Health Disciplinary charges, was a member of DOS and remains loyal to Raniere. She is among a group of NXIVM members who danced outside Raniere’s federal lock-up in Brooklyn last summer. Raniere is now in a federal prison in Tucson, Arizona, where he recently was recovering from COVID-19.
Roberts strongly defended her actions.
“These women didn’t come to me because they thought I was a doctor,” Roberts told Snow. “They had no idea who the branding technician was going to be, you know? There was no patient-physician relationship.”
Snow replied: “But my question, just as a human being hearing this story — ”
“Yeah, of course,” Roberts said.
“My question is you are a doctor,” Snow said.
“I am,” Roberts responded. understand you’re saying you weren’t practicing medicine in that moment,” Snow pressed Roberts. “But you are a doctor. You’re a trained doctor. You took an oath. How could you then, you know, inflict pain on people?”
“Well, I think pain and harm are two different things,” Roberts replied. “You know, I think people are making an assumption that people were harmed. Nobody was harmed in this. These women wanted this, they asked for this. You know, I mean and I understand now that narrative has changed and they’re saying other things...”
Snow again pressed Roberts.
“Because there are women who have said, ‘I didn’t want this. I felt like I had to do it,’” she said. “There are women who have said — India Oxenberg said to me, ‘I didn’t really want this.’ She’s now covered it up with another tattoo. She’s ashamed that she has the brand.”
“And I feel badly that that’s how they’ve chosen to perceive it,” Roberts answered. “I feel badly about that — understand that when they were in the room with me, they wanted it. They said they wanted it. They were laughing.”
In June 2019, a federal jury in Brooklyn convicted the personal growth guru known as “Vanguard” on all charges, including sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy and racketeering charges that include underlying acts of extortion, possession of child pornography and identity theft.