NXIVM Corporation is alleged to be a multi-level, American, marketing company but has been labeled as a pyramid scheme!
So what let’s dive into some unknows about this company!
- NXIVM was alleged to be an American multi-level marketing company
- Based near Albany, New York
- That offered personal and professional development seminars through its “Executive Success Programs”
- NXIVM has been labeled by several journalists as a pyramid scheme
- And has also been accused by former members of being a recruiting platform for a cult operating within it
- Variously called “DOS” or “The Vow”
- In which women were branded and forced into sexual slavery
- In early 2018, NXIVM founder Keith Raniere and his associate, actress Allison Mack, were arrested
- They were indicted on federal charges related to DOS
- Including sex trafficking
- Both Mack and NXIVM co-founder Nancy Salzman pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in early 2019
- Raniere’s trial is expected to begin on April 29, 2019
- In 1998, Keith Raniere and Nancy Salzman founded NXIVM
- Offering “Executive Success Programs” (“ESPs”)
- And a range of techniques aimed at self-improvement
- Raniere stressed that the programs’ “main emphasis is to have people experience more joy in their lives”
- In 2003, Forbes magazine reported that some 3,700 people had taken part in ESP offerings
- Naming Sheila Johnson, Antonia Novello, Stephen Cooper of Enron, and Ana Cristina Fox, daughter of former Mexican president Vicente Fox
- Other participants were later reported to include Richard Branson, Linda Evans, Allison Mack, Kristin Kreuk, Grace Park, Nicki Clyne, and Sarah Edmondson
- In the early 2000s, Seagram heiresses Clare and Sara Bronfman became attached to the organization
- During seminars, students were expected to call Raniere and Salzman “Vanguard” and “Prefect”, respectively
- The Hollywood Reporter stated that Raniere “adopted the title ‘Vanguard’ from a favorite arcade game he had played as a child, in which the destruction of one’s enemies increased one’s own power”
- Within the organization, the reasoning for the titles was that Raniere was the leader of a philosophical movement
- And Salzman was his first student
- A prior business venture of Raniere’s, Consumers Buyline, was accused by the New York Attorney General of having been a pyramid scheme
- Raniere signed a consent order in 1996 in which he denied any wrongdoing
- But agreed to pay a $40,000 fine
- And to be permanently banned from “promoting, offering or granting participation in a chain distribution scheme”
- NXIVM’s training is a trade secret, subject to non-disclosure agreements
- But reportedly uses a technique the organization calls “rational inquiry”
- To facilitate personal and professional development
- In 2003, NXIVM sued the Ross Institute
- Alleging copyright infringement for publishing excerpts of content from its manual in three critical articles commissioned by cult investigator Rick Alan Ross
- And posted on his website
- Ross posted a psychiatrist’s assessment of NXIVM’s “secret” manual on his website
- The report called the regimen “expensive brainwashing”
- The manual was obtained by Ross from former member Stephanie Franco
- A co-defendant in the trial
- Who had signed a non-disclosure agreement not to divulge information from the manual to others
- NXIVM filed suits in both New York and New Jersey
- But both were later dismissed
- In October 2003, Forbes published an article on NXIVM and Raniere
- Vanity Fair subsequently reported of the article: “People at NXIVM were stunned. Expecting a positive story, the top ranks had spoken to Forbes, including Raniere, Salzman, and Sara Bronfman. What upset them above all were Edgar Bronfman’s remarks
- ‘I think it’s a cult,’ he told the magazine, going on to say that he was troubled about the ’emotional and financial’ investment in NXIVM by his daughters, to whom he hadn’t spoken in months”
- In 2006, Forbes published an article about the Bronfman sisters,
- Stating that they had taken out a line of credit to loan NXIVM US$2 million
- Repayable through personal training sessions from Salzman
- And for Salzman being available to take calls from Clare
- And a third Forbes article in 2010 discussed the failures of commodities and real-estate deals made pursuant to Raniere’s advice
- In 2006, actress Kristin Kreuk became involved with NXIVM
- Salzman and her daughter Lauren went to Vancouver to recruit Kreuk’s Smallville costar Allison Mack
- The younger Salzman bonded with Mack
- And the latter became involved
- Although Kreuk would subsequently leave NXIVM
- Mack became “an enthusiastic proselytizer” for NXIVM
- Persuading her parents to take courses
- And, after wrapping production of Smallville in 2011, moved to Clifton Park, New York near NXIVM’s home-base in Albany
- March to April 2007 saw a string of donations from NXIVM cult members to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, with over a dozen members donating the maximum allowable figure of $2,300
- The donations totalled $29,900
- The World Ethical Foundations Consortium sponsored a visit to Albany by the 14th Dalai Lama in 2009
- The visit was initially cancelled due to negative press surrounding NXIVM
- But was rescheduled
- And the Dalai Lama spoke at Albany’s Palace Theatre in May 2009
- Subsequently, in 2017, Lama Tenzin Dhonden, the self-styled “Personal Emissary for Peace for the Dalai Lama,” who had arranged the appearance, was suspended from his position amid corruption charges
- The investigation also revealed a personal relationship between Dhonden and Sara Bronfman
- Which began in 2009
- A report by the Ross Institute described its seminars as “expensive brainwashing”
- For several years, NXIVM was accused of being a cult controlled by Raniere
- In a 2010 article in the Albany Times Union, former NXIVM coaches characterized students as “prey” for use by Raniere
- In satisfying his sexual or gambling-related proclivities
- Kristin Keeffe left the group in 2014
- Describing Raniere as “dangerous”
- And stating that “all the worst things you know about NXIVM are true”
- Starting with an October 2017 article in The New York Times, details began to emerge about DOS
- A “secret sisterhood” within NXIVM
- In which female members were allegedly referred to as “slaves”
- Branded with the initials of Raniere and Mack
- Subjected to corporal punishment from their “masters”
- And required to provide nude photos or other potentially damaging information about themselves as “collateral”
- It has also been alleged that members of DOS were forced into sexual slavery
- Sarah Edmondson, a Canadian actress who had been an ESP participant since 2005, said that she left the group after Mack inducted her into DOS the preceding March at her Albany house
- Edmondson alleged that participants were blindfolded naked
- Held down by Mack and three other women
- And branded by NXIVM-affiliated doctor Danielle Roberts
- Using a cauterizing pen
- Appearing on an A&E show about cults, Edmondson would provide additional context on the use of the “collateral” concept
- Stating that it was used in innocuous forms from the earliest, outermost stages of NXIVM in order to acclimatize victims
- The Times would later report that “hundreds” of members left NXIVM after Edmondson went public about her experience
- On December 15, 2017, the ABC news magazine 20/20 aired an exposé featuring interviews with many former NXIVM adherents
- Including Edmondson and Catherine Oxenberg
- Who alleged that her daughter, India Oxenberg, was in danger due to the group
- Several former members reported financial and sexual predation carried out by NXIVM leaders
- Edmondson was featured in “Escaping NXIVM”
- During the first season of the CBC podcast Uncover
- In March 2018, Raniere was arrested and indicted on a variety of charges related to DOS
- He was arrested in Mexico and held in custody in New York after appearing in Federal Court in Fort Worth, Texas
- The indictment alleged that at least one woman was coerced into sex with Raniere
- Who forced DOS members to undergo the branding ritual alleged by Edmondson and others
- United States Attorney Richard Donoghue stated that Raniere “created a secret society of women whom he had sex with and branded with his initials, coercing them with the threat of releasing their highly personal information and taking their assets”
- And the FBI’s New York Field Office Assistant Director-in-Charge stated that Raniere “displayed a disgusting abuse of power in his efforts to denigrate and manipulate women he considered his sex slaves”
- On March 13, 2019, Nancy Salzman pleaded guilty to a charge of racketeering criminal conspiracy
- Her daughter, Lauren Salzman, was also charged in the case
- On April 8, 2019, Allison Mack pleaded guilty to charges she manipulated women into becoming sex slaves for the group’s spiritual leader
- Raniere and Mack are scheduled to be tried in federal court beginning on April 29, 2019
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