Say sex cult NXIVM had an ‘enemies list’
A top NXIVM official kept a box of financial information in her upstate New York home to be used against “enemies” of the secretive self-help organization, including judges, reporters and their own lawyers, prosecutors said Tuesday at the sex trafficking trial of leader Keith Raniere.
NXIVM President and co-founder Nancy Salzman, who previously pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy in connection with the Albany-based group that allegedly fronted a sex slave cult, had the cache of would-be blackmail material stored in the basement of her house when authorities raided it, prosecutors said during arguments in Brooklyn Federal Court.
It included “financial dossiers” for several NXIVM foes, including “numerous” reporters, lawyers who worked for the group, federal judges overseeing NXIVM-related suits and even late Seagram Co. CEO Edgar Bronfman Sr., whose daughters Clare and Sara were involved in NXIVM.
Clare, 40, a die-hard Raniere follower, pleaded guilty in April to harboring an undocumented immigrant and enabling credit card fraud in her role as the group’s benefactor.
The box of information shows the group’s propensity to “gather this type of financial information on individuals they believed were enemies of NXIVM,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Moira Penza argued about the documents found in Salzman’s Halfmoon residence.
“They investigated their own lawyers,” Penza said, adding they also looked into Albany Times Union employees and self-proclaimed cult expert Rick Ross. Penza wants the files as evidence with the next witness, a federal agent who found the goods.
Testimony was put on hold for a day due to an ill juror. The agent is expected to testify Wednesday.