Sex cultist: Retry me
Says witnesses lied about intent to file civil lawsuit
NXIVM sex cult leader Keith Raniere is asking for a doover trial in Brooklyn Federal Court, arguing that numerous witnesses lied on the stand when they denied they were planning to sue him posttrial.
Raniere, aka “Vanguard,” was swiftly convicted after just four hours of jury deliberations in June in the sordid sex-trafficking case that also ensnared a TV actress and a liquor heiress. He and his lawyers filed a motion Monday for a new trial, claiming witnesses perjured themselves when they said they did not plan on suing Raniere.
“Two of these witnesses … committed perjury at the trial by knowingly lying about their intention, plan and role in bringing a civil lawsuit against Raniere and others for monetary damages,” wrote Raniere’s lawyer Marc Agnifilo.
“The government knew or should have known that these witnesses committed perjury at the trial, and that the government not only permitted perjured testimony to be elicited to the jury, but also obstructed counsel’s efforts to reveal the motivations of these witnesses who have brought suit against Raniere.”
Victims of the cult filed a lawsuit against Raniere and other leaders of the group in late January, saying they were subject to increasingly sexist teachings as well as unlawful medical experiments.
The motion for a new trial cites testimony from Raniere’s original trial, where Agnifilo questioned a witness, known as Daniela, on whether or not she planned to file a lawsuit against Raniere.
“So as you sit here today, you have no intention of bringing a civil lawsuit?” Agnifilo asked Daniela.
“That’s right,” she said, according to trial transcript included in the motion.
The other witness accused of lying by Raniere’s attorneys is only known as “Nicole.” The lawyers say she is Jane Doe 4 in the federal lawsuit, even though she denied on the stand that she would be part of a civil suit.
But Agnifilo claims in court documents that Daniela is Jane Doe 1 in the lawsuit against Raniere, and that the civil lawyer, Neil Glazer, who represents the people suing Raniere, has repped the victims since the beginning of the criminal case.
Glazer shepherded dozens of NXIVM victims to interviews with federal prosecutors, the motion claims, and it should have been obvious to the feds that he planned on filing the class action lawsuit against Raniere.
Neither Glazer nor Raniere’s lawyers immediately responded to requests for comment.
The Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment on the motion for a new trial.
Raniere is scheduled to be sentenced next month.