Seagram heiress arrested in sex case

An heiress to the Seagram’s liquor fortune was arrested Tuesday in connection with her work with NXIVM, an upstate New York self-help group accused of branding some of its female followers and forcing them into unwanted sex.

Clare Bronfman, a daughter of the late billionaire philanthropist and former Seagram chairman Edgar Bronfman Sr., and three other people associated with the NXIVM organization are charged with racketeering conspiracy, the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn announced. She was scheduled to be arraigned in Brooklyn.

There was no immediate response to a message seeking comment from Bronfman’s attorney.

Also arrested were Nancy Salzman, who was NXIVM’s longtime president, her daughter, Lauren Salzman, and an employee of the group, Kathy Russell.

NXIVM’s founder and leader, Keith Raniere, was arrested in Mexico this year and brought to the U.S. to face charges that he, along with a NXIVM adherent, the TV actress Allison Mack, coerced followers into becoming “slaves” to senior members of the group.

In an indictment, prosecutors said Mack, who played a teenage friend of Superman in the CW network’s “Smallville,” helped Raniere recruit women to a secret sub-society within NXIVM whose members were branded by way of a surgical tool with a symbol that resembled his initials. Women were also expected to be subservient to “masters,” prosecutors said, including giving in to demands for sex.