A federal jury took just hours to convict a New York man on Wednesday on multiple charges of running a cult-like group that kept women as virtual sex prisoners to service him.
In less than one full day of deliberations, the Brooklyn panel found Keith Raniere, 58, guilty of racketeering, sex trafficking and possession of child pornographyrelated to NXIVM (pronounced "nexium") — a purported self-help organization that he ran near Albany.
Within NXIVM, he created a secret sorority called DOS in which female "slaves" turned over compromising materials that were used to blackmail and force them into sex, prosecutors said.
Raniere faces up to life behind bars. He's scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 25.
U.S. Attorney Richard P. Donoghue thanked his prosecutors, the law enforcement, jurors and the judge for Wednesday's verdict.
“Thanks to these efforts of these many participants, Keith Raniere's crime spree has ended and his victims will finally see justice," he told reporters outside court.
Actress Catherine Oxenberg, whose daughter is a former member of NXIVM, said Wednesday's verdict allayed her fears that Raniere "would get away with murder again as he has done in the past."
“I had to save a child who was caught in the grips of this cult," said the "Dynasty" actress, who penned a book about her NXIVM experience, "Captive: A Mother's Crusade to Save Her Daughter from a Terrifying Cult." "I wasn’t going to stop until I succeeded."
Raniere's former girlfriend, Toni Natalie, who blew the whistle on him years ago, wore a shirt with vertical black-and-white stripes to the courtroom on Wednesday. She wanted to remind Raniere that "he’d be looking through bars for the rest of his life."
"Keith has said to me, `The next time I see you, you'll be dead or in jail,’ " Natalie said outside court. "Well I’m alive and he’s in jail and it looks like for life. He didn’t win."
Several of Raniere's cohorts, such as "Smallville" actress Allison Mack, had already pleaded guilty.
Mack, 36, is facing up to 40 years in prison after she admitted to committing offenses that included extortion and forced labor in her role as a high-ranking member of NXIVM.
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Mack, group president Nancy Salzman, her daughter Lauren Salzman, the operation's longtime bookkeeper Kathy Russell and Seagram liquor heiress Clare Bronfman have all pleaded guilty to various charges.
"His crimes and the crimes of his co-conspirators ruined marriages, careers, fortunes and lives," Donoghue said. "The evidence proved that Raniere was truly a modern day Svengali."
Defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo said he was disappointed that the jury didn't take longer to deliberate or acquit his client on at least some charges.
But he added: "I hope that people find peace and solace in the verdict."
Jurors heard from multiple women who testified that they were the defendant's sex slaves and were branded with the initials of Raniere, who was called their "supreme master."
Lauren Salzman testified that she and her co-defendants brainwashed women and pushed them to be obedient. A written instruction for sorority members was, "You should be a hungry dog for your master," according to Lauren Salzman.
The organization collected nude pictures and other compromising material of female members and called it "collateral" that would ensure their silence, according to witnesses and prosecutors.
One witness said she was told to seduce Raniere in 2015, and couldn't refuse because another woman who was her "master" had collected embarrassing material from her.
The so-called collateral included a letter written to her parents where she falsely claimed she was a prostitute.
"I had to do what my master said to do or my collateral would be released," the 32-year-old woman from England told jurors.
CORRECTION (Sept. 8, 2021, 1:45 p.m. ET): An earlier version of this article misspelled the first name of an heir to the Seagram’s liquor fortune. She is Clare Bronfman, not Claire.
