‘CREEPY’ CULTER
'SLAVE’ EXPOSES LEADER’S SEXPLOITS
A former NXIVM member who thought leader Keith Raniere was “creepy” became a “slave” in his secret sex society and sent him nude photos on demand, she testified Tuesday.
Prosecutors say Raniere was the leader of the upstate selfhelp group that was really a means for him and his avid followers to recruit women as sex slaves who were branded with his initials. The alleged victim, a 32-year-old British woman who testified as “Sylvie” at the start of Raniere’s sex trafficking and racketeering trial, said she met him at age 18 when she was recruited into the group by Seagram liquor heiress Clare Bronfman, a Raniere acolyte.
In 2015, about a decade after Sylvie joined, one of the group’s “masters,” a woman, recruited her for a new sect called DOS under the twisted leader’s umbrella of supposed self-improvement programs, Sylvie testified.
DOS—an acronym for a Latin phrase that loosely translates to “Lord/Master of the Obedient Female Companions,” was a secret society within NXIVM of female “slaves” who recruited other “slaves,” according to court documents.
Her first “assignment” was to “seduce [Raniere],” which she said she didn’t want to do. She also said that she found him “quite creepy” and on several occasions had made her feel uncomfortable with inappropriate comments.
But she dutifully started coming onto him via an encrypted text messaging app — which soon escalated into Raniere pushing her to send him explicit nude photos of her, she said.
“You look hot in your glasses,” Sylvie texted Raniere sheepishly on WhatsApp, she testified. “You’re going to have to do better than that,” Raniere responded.
Raniere (center in court sketch) told her a simple face selfie did not suffice, to get “more vulnerable” for him, and she sent him nude shots of her body and her vagina, said Sylvie, who choked up recalling the episode.
When her father in the U.K. found the X-rated images in a deleted iCloud file, she was horrified and stopped.
But her NXIVM master scolded her for ending her task “without permission.” Raniere allowed cleared her to stop sending photos, but noted “the next step would be in person.”
Testimony adjourned for the day before Sylvie was asked about the extent of her sexual involvement with Raniere.
The aspiring professional horse jumper had come to the U.S. to work on Bronfman’s Albany-area farm. Bronfman, 40, who last month pleaded guilty to charges stemming from her involvement with NXIVM, paid for Sylvie’s first set of self-fulfillment classes with NXIVM — about $3,500, the witness said on the first day of what’s expected to be a six-week trial.