NXIVM enlists Amanda Knox in latest bid to help free Raniere
Followers give prosecutors list of ethics queries about their case, enjoin answers
Loyalists to NXIVM leader Keith Raniere are enlisting Amanda Knox, who was convicted but ultimately exonerated of a 2007 murder in Italy, in an attempt to turn the tables on the federal prosecutors who went after the man they call “Vanguard.”
In a court filing Saturday, prosecutors said that about 10 members of NXIVM — including one holding a video camera — dropped off petitions at the U.S. Attorney’s office in Brooklyn on Friday, demanding Raniere’s prosecutors answer a set of questions. His petition — framed as an affidavit — demands that prosecutors answer whether they tampered with evidence, suborned perjury, threatened witnesses and more.
Calling it an effort to hold prosecutors and judges accountable, the NXIVM members additionally plan to launch a podcast, hold a $35,000 “Innocence Challenge” and gather signatures on a petition that was already signed by supporters such as Knox, an American exchange student targeted by Italian authorities for the murder of her roommate in a case that attracted international attention.
“It’s absurd in so many ways that I don’t know where to begin,” attorney Neil Glazer, who represents victims of NXIVM in a civil suit filed earlier this year, told the Times Union in an email on Sunday. “I’ve never seen anything like this bizarre document in all my years of legal practice.”
“This is nothing more than a publicity stunt, orchestrated by Raniere to throw up smoke and mirrors and to peddle conspiracy theories to keep his remaining disciples in the fold,” Glazer added.
Knox’s signature was included among the “initial group of brave journalists and advocates who have agreed to support this important initiative,” Raniere’s supporters posted on their website.
Reached Sunday via email, Knox confirmed her support of the initiative.
“I was contacted by some former members of NXIVM who claim that Mr. Raniere has been wrongfully convicted, and that the story being told in the media is wrong,” Knox told the Times Union. “I personally do not know enough about the case to make any judgments about whether his conviction is wrongful or not.
“These supporters of Mr. Raniere asked me to sign a petition asking the prosecutors in the case to affirm some principles of prosecutorial conduct that any prosecutor should be able to affirm, such as not engaging in perjury, not tampering with evidence, and not threatening witnesses,” Knox added. “I signed the petition because violation of these practices would constitute prosecutorial misconduct, regardless of Mr. Raniere’s guilt or innocence.”
Also listed as signatories of the petition were Valentino Dixon, a Buffalo man who spent 27 years in prison for a murder he did not commit; Diana Davison, who runs the Lighthouse Project, a Canadian nonprofit offering free assistance to the wrongfully accused; and Walter Pavlo, an author and speaker on white-collar crime who runs a group called 500 Pearl Street, the address of a federal courthouse in Manhattan.
“I was aware of the case against Mr. Raniere and his NXIVM organization when I signed the petition,” Davison told the Times Union. “Regardless of who an accused is, the duty of a prosecutor to conduct a fair trial remains the same. In cases such as this, where the evidence is seen to be overwhelming, there is no justification for a prosecutor to mislead the court or misrepresent the evidence, if that is what happened. If Mr. Raniere’s trial was handled fairly then there should be no controversy and the prosecutors should have no trouble signing the affidavit presented. If there was any prosecutorial misconduct then the public should demand to know why the trial was compromised.”
Davison said the public’s dislike for a defendant should create an extra duty of care.
“My signature on the petition is not an endorsement of Mr. Raniere and I take no position on his guilt or innocence. I have no hesitation in signing any petition which seeks to safeguard the integrity of the legal system,” she said.
Emails detailed in court documents show the effort is the brainchild of Raniere, the purported self-help guru convicted in June 2019 of all charges against him, including sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy and racketeering charges that includes underlying acts of possessing child pornography, identity theft, extortion and fraud.
Prosecutors have asked Senior U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis, who presided over Raniere’s trial, to sentence the 60-year-old former Halfmoon man to life in prison.
“These efforts appear to be directed by the defendant Keith Raniere, as ref lected in the enclosed correspondence from defendant Keith Raniere through his prison email account,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Tanya Hajjar and Mark Lesko told the judge, who will sentence Raniere on Oct. 27.
The effort includes many of the same Raniere disciples who, in a show of support for him and other inmates amid the COVID-19 pandemic, began dancing this summer outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where Raniere is being held.
They now say they are part of a new group, Make Justice Blind, which they described as a partnership between their group and the media. The group’s team is comprised entirely of longtime members of NXIVM, including actress Nicki Clyne and Michele Hatchett, two members of Raniere’s secret “master/slave” group in which women were branded on their pelvic areas with Raniere’s initials. Also on board are NXIVM member Eduardo Ansunsolo, who attended Raniere’s trial; Marc Elliot, a longtime NXIVM member and motivational speaker who credits Raniere with helping him overcome Tourette syndrome; and Suneel Chakravorty, who attended Raniere’s trial and has been in contact with the jailed Raniere.
Raniere wrote the most recent documents himself, as evidenced in a petition he sent to Chakravorty on June 16. Chakravorty then emailed the petitions to acting U.S. Attorney Seth DUCharme, his predecessor, Richard Donoghue, and the prosecutors on Raniere’s case, who include Hajjar, Lesko and Moira Kim Penza, the lead prosecutor at Raniere’s trial; Penza is now in private practice.
At the same time the 10 NXIVM devotees dropped off their package of questions at the U.S. Attorney’s office, another member of the group tried to drop off the same package at Penza’s private law office, prosecutors said. Penza declined comment on Sunday.
“Will you support public accountability?” Chakravorty stated in the subject line of the Sept. 25 email.
“The affidavit contains 8 simple statements that we would like you all to review and respond to, either affirming or denying each point, regarding your conduct, and that of your office, in the case of USA v. Keith Raniere. … Please honor this demand for public accountability to the people you serve and respond to the affidavit no later than 5PM ET on Wednesday, September 30. Also please confirm receipt of this email.”
“Potential witnesses for the defense were threatened, corrupted, and coerced along with the prosecution’s tampering with vital evidence,” Raniere’s petition alleges. “After all of this, the prosecution made inaccurate and inf lammatory statements to the press, to justify, cover, and praise their actions. Prosecutors and judges should no longer be able to hide and shelter corruption, political agenda, and prejudicial injustice.”
Glazer said these latest documents are a stunt that has no basis in the prosecutorial process. “These Raniere devotees allude to this questionnaire being some new kind of procedure they want to introduce into the system. If so, they have to actually work within the many mechanisms in our democratic system of governance to incorporate the change, rather than just show up en masse at the U.S. Attorney’s Office and demand that prosecutors sign or initial this ridiculous document, which has no basis in the law. They cannot just appear at an office with some loopy form and insist that the prosecutors place their initials and signatures on it. “
On Wednesday, Clare Bronfman, a longtime NXIVM executive and an heiress to the Seagrams liquor fortune, will be sentenced by Garaufis for her guilty plea in 2019 to conspiracy to conceal and harbor illegal aliens for financial gain, and fraudulent use of identification. Her lawyer has asked for three years probation; the prosecution has asked for a five-year sentence.
Under federal sentencing guidelines, she faces 21 to 27 months behind bars. The judge is considering an “above guidelines” sentence.