The story
Founded by Keith Raniere and Nancy Salzman on Jul 20, 1998.1
Before founding NXIVM, Raniere created Consumers Buyline, a business venture that the New York Attorney General accused 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".
Founding and initial success
In 1998, Raniere and Nancy Salzman founded NXIVM, a personal development company offering "Executive Success Programs" (ESP) and a range of techniques for self-improvement. Raniere claimed that its "main emphasis is to have people experience more joy in their lives". In one account cited by former NXIVM member Sarah Edmondson, Raniere chose the name based on the ancient Roman system of debt bondage known as nexum. The 2002 registration with United States Patent and Trademark Office for the NXIVM trademark states that "The foreign wording in the mark translates into English as 'the next millennium'".
During NXIVM seminars, students would call Raniere and Salzman "Vanguard" and "Prefect", respectively. The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Raniere adopted the title from the 1981 video game Vanguard, "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.
By 2003, 3,700 people had taken part in ESP classes. Reported participants included businesswoman Sheila Johnson, former Surgeon General Antonia Novello, Enron executive Stephen Cooper, Ana Cristina Fox (daughter of former Mexican president Vicente Fox), entrepreneur Richard Branson (who denied having taken the classes), businessman Edgar Bronfman Sr., and actresses Linda Evans, Grace Park, and Nicki Clyne. In the early 2000s, Seagram heiresses Clare and Sara Bronfman, daughters of Edgar Bronfman Sr., became attached to the organization.
Cult allegations in early 2000s
NXIVM claimed its training was a trade secret, subject to non-disclosure agreements, but reportedly used a technique the organization called "rational inquiry" to facilitate personal and professional development. In 2003, NXIVM sued the Ross Institute in the case known as NXIVM Corp. v. 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 that called the regimen "expensive brainwashing".
Ross obtained the manual 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 New York and New Jersey, but both were dismissed. On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal, ruling that the defendant's critical analysis was fair use since the secondary use was transformative as criticism and was not a potential replacement for the original on the market.
In October 2003, Forbes published a critical article on NXIVM and Raniere. According to Vanity Fair, NXIVM leadership, who had spoken to Forbes, had expected a positive story. They were especially upset by remarks made by Edgar Bronfman Sr., who told Forbes that he believed NXIVM was a cult and that he was troubled by his daughters' "emotional and financial investment" in it. In 2006, Forbes published an article about the Bronfman sisters, stating that they had taken out a line of credit to loan NXIVM $2 million, repayable through personal training sessions and phone consultations with Salzman. Another Forbes article in 2010 discussed the failures of commodities and real estate deals by the Bronfmans made on Raniere's advice.
Recruitment in Vancouver
After actress Kristin Kreuk became involved with NXIVM in 2006, Salzman and her daughter Lauren, a junior NXIVM leader, went to Vancouver to recruit Kreuk's Smallville co-star Allison Mack. Lauren bonded with Mack (the two women eventually became Raniere's inner circle and his sexual partners). Kreuk, however, left NXIVM in 2013. 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, to be near NXIVM's home base in Albany.
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2008–2010
In 2008, the Bronfman sisters allegedly pressured Stephen Herbits, a confidant of their father, to ask Albany County District Attorney David Soares, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, and New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram to begin criminal investigations into NXIVM's critics. NXIVM reportedly kept dossiers on Soares, Spitzer, political consultants Roger Stone and Steve Pigeon, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, and Albany Times Union publisher George Randolph Hearst III in a box in the basement of Nancy Salzman's home. According to the Times Union, NXIVM "developed a reputation for aggressively pursuing critics and defectors who broke from its ranks, including using litigation to punish critics of Raniere, the organization, or its training methods."
The World Ethical Foundations Consortium, an organization co-founded by Raniere and the Bronfman sisters, sponsored a visit to Albany by the Dalai Lama in 2009. The visit was initially canceled by the Dalai Lama owing to negative press about NXIVM, but was rescheduled; the Dalai Lama spoke at the Hart Theater at the Egg in Albany in May 2009. The Bronfman sisters announced at the talk that they were broke and could not pay him. He said that he gives talks to spread dharma, not for money. 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.
NXIVM has been described as a pyramid scheme, a sex-trafficking operation, a cult, and a sex cult. In a 2010 Times Union article, former NXIVM coaches characterized students as "prey" for Raniere's sexual or gambling-related proclivities. Kristin Keeffe, a longtime partner of Raniere and mother of his child, left the group in 2014 and called Raniere "dangerous", saying, "All the worst things you know about NXIVM are true."
Related organizations
NXIVM has been associated with several related organizations. Jness was a society aimed at women, while the Society of Protectors was aimed primarily at men. A third group was known by the acronym DOS, short for "Dominus Obsequious Sororium", which, according to one member, means "master over slave women". In 2006, Raniere founded Rainbow Cultural Garden, an international chain of childcare organizations in which children were to be exposed to seven different languages.
In 2014, Raniere founded the NXIVM-affiliated news organization The Knife of Aristotle, to identify and measure media bias.
Exposure of "DOS" and NXIVM downfall
Starting with reports by Frank Parlato in June 2017 and bolstered by an October 2017
article in The New York Times, details began to emerge about "DOS", a secret society of women that started in 2015 within NXIVM in which female members were allegedly called 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". Law enforcement representatives have alleged that DOS members were forced into sexual slavery.
Whistleblowers' accounts
Sarah Edmondson, a Canadian actress who had been an ESP participant since 2005, said that she left NXIVM after Mack inducted her into DOS at her Albany home. Edmondson alleged that DOS participants were blindfolded naked, held down by Mack and three other women, and branded on the lower abdomen with a cauterizing pen by NXIVM-affiliated doctor Danielle Roberts. Appearing on an A&E television program about cults, Edmondson provided additional context for the use of the "collateral" concept, saying that it was used in innocuous forms from the earliest, outermost stages of NXIVM in order to acclimate victims—for example, collateralizing small amounts of money that one might forfeit if one did not go to the gym one day. The New York Times later reported that hundreds of members left NXIVM after Edmondson went public about her experience.
On December 15, 2017, the ABC newsmagazine 20/20 aired an exposé including interviews with many former NXIVM adherents, including Edmondson and Catherine Oxenberg, who alleged that her daughter, India Oxenberg, was in danger from the group. Several former members reported financial and sexual predation by NXIVM leaders. Edmondson further appeared in "Escaping NXIVM", during the first season of the CBC podcast Uncover.
Seven socially prominent Mexican citizens, including Emiliano Salinas (son of former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari) and Ana Cristina Fox (daughter of former president Vicente Fox), Rosa Laura Junco, Loreta Garza Dávila (a business leader from Nuevo Leon), Daniela Padilla, and Mónica Durán, have been accused of involvement.
Arrest of Raniere
In March 2018, Raniere was arrested and indicted on charges related to DOS, including sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, and conspiracy to commit forced labor. 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".
Indictment of Raniere and co-conspirators
On April 20, 2018, Mack was arrested and indicted on similar charges to Raniere's. According to prosecutors, after she recruited women into first NXIVM and then DOS, Mack was allegedly paid by Raniere to coerce them into engaging in sexual activity with Raniere. Mack was further alleged to be DOS's second-in-command after Raniere. On April 24, Mack was released on $5 million bond pending trial and held under house arrest with her parents in California. On May 4, Raniere pleaded not guilty.
Salzman's home was raided shortly after Raniere's arrest, and prosecutors stated during his arraignment that further arrests and a superseding indictment for Raniere and Mack should be expected. In late May, authorities moved to seize two NXIVM-owned properties near Albany.
In April 2018, the New York Post reported that NXIVM had moved to Brooklyn, New York, and was being led by Clare Bronfman. On June 12, 2018, the Times Union reported that NXIVM had suspended its operations owing to "extraordinary circumstances facing the company". Bronfman was arrested on July 24 and charged with racketeering. She was released to house arrest after signing a $100 million bail bond. Also arrested and charged with the same crime were NXIVM President Nancy Salzman; her daughter, Lauren Salzman; and another NXIVM employee, Kathy Russell.
Guilty pleas, corporations and conviction
On March 13, 2019, Nancy Salzman pleaded guilty to a charge of racketeering criminal conspiracy. She agreed, as nominal owner, not to contest forfeiture of NXIVM-related assets including real estate as well as corporations that owned Keith Raniere and NXIVM's trademark and patent portfolio.
The same day as Nancy Salzman's plea, the court unsealed a second (and final) superseding indictment against Raniere and his codefendants, adding the charge that Raniere produced and kept child sexual abuse material of a girl who was 15 at the time.
Later in March 2019, Lauren Salzman pleaded guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy; she later testified against Raniere and received leniency.
Sentencing documents for Allison Mack state that she entered proffer sessions on April 2, 2019. The government credited her for providing relevant emails, documents and recordings later used to convict Raniere. On April 8, 2019, Mack pleaded guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy. Though not called to testify against Keith Raniere, prosecutors said that Mack, "was available to testify at Raniere’s trial if requested to do so."
On April 19, 2019, Bronfman pleaded guilty to charges of harboring an illegal immigrant and identity fraud; bookkeeper Kathy Russell pleaded guilty to visa fraud.
The federal trial of Keith Raniere began on May 7, 2019. On June 19, 2019, the jury convicted him of all counts.
NXIVM after Raniere's conviction
The assets of NXIVM were held by Nancy Salzman, including several corporate entities and titles to intellectual property. As part of her plea agreement with the government, Salzman did not contest asset forfeiture.
Following the conviction of Keith Raniere, members of the defunct organization split, with many speaking out against Raniere and the organization. A small number of NXIVM members continue to support Raniere and protest his innocence. Attorneys for Raniere submitted letters from 56 supporters requesting leniency for Raniere.
Civil lawsuit against NXIVM leadership
In January 2020, Sarah Edmondson became lead plaintiff in a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act civil suit filed in United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York accusing Raniere and 14 associates (including Nancy Salzman, Clare Bronfman, Sara Bronfman, Lauren Salzman, Allison Mack, Kathy Russell, Karen Unterreiner, Brandon Porter, Danielle Roberts, and Nicki Clyne) of conducting illegal psychological experiments on members of the company and abusing them physically, emotionally and financially.
Raniere and loyalists activities
In summer 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic preventing in-person visitation to the Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn, Raniere's remaining followers, including actress Nicki Clyne, began assembling to dance near the jail. Though they initially claimed to be entertaining all of the detainees, they were seen with a sign addressed to "Kay Rose," a name sharing Raniere's initials. The group began calling itself "The Forgotten Ones" and "We Are As You." Former NXIVM member turned prosecution witness Mark Vicente dismissed the group as a "cover movement" to support Raniere.
While incarcerated, Raniere has maintained his leadership role over NXIVM, regularly communicating with his followers by phone and through TRULINCS email. A July 16, 2020, intelligence analysis memorandum from the Federal Bureau of Prisons' Counter Terrorism Unit states that Raniere instructed his follower Suneel Chakravorty to get more women to dance "erotically" outside of the MDC. In response, authorities at the MDC moved Raniere to another unit to keep the dancers out of his line of sight. A frustrated Raniere instructed his followers to help get him moved back by ingratiating themselves to prison staff, including offering coffee and donuts as they left their shifts.
Ahead of his sentencing, prosecutors submitted a number of Raniere's communications and disciplinary issues in prison as evidence of remorselessness and that he continues to control his followers. The communications included Raniere instructing his followers to have Alan Dershowitz, the attorney who successfully negotiated a non-prosecution agreement of the late Jeffrey Epstein, speak on his behalf; Dershowitz did not comment on the matter. Prosecutors also submitted documentation that Raniere and his follower Chakravorty used a false name and "burner phone" to evade detection, with Raniere instructing Chakravorty to "get scrutiny" on Judge Nicholas Garaufis, explaining that "the judge needs to know he's being watched".
In March 2023, Clyne published a statement announcing that she would no longer defend Raniere or advocate for his release, writing that she had "come to certain realizations" that left her "no choice but to renounce the man who influenced them".
Sentencing and appeals for Raniere and Bronfman
On September 30, 2020, Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York sentenced Clare Bronfman to six years and nine months in federal prison. The sentence was more severe than those recommended by guidelines, with Garaufis stating that, "Raniere and his adherents appear to understand Ms. Bronfman’s continued loyalty—even after his trial and conviction, during which all the details of his sexual abuse and exploitation became known to the world."
Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., attorney for Bronfman, called the sentence "an abomination." Sullivan filed notice of appeal on October 7, 2020. Bronfman only could appeal the sentence, as she forfeited the right to appeal her conviction as part of her plea.
On October 27, 2020, federal judge Nicholas Garaufis sentenced Raniere to a prison term of 120 years in prison and fined him $1.75 million. Attorneys for Keith Raniere gave notice of appeal of both his conviction and sentence on November 4, 2020.
In January 2021, Raniere was transferred from Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn to begin serving his 120-year sentence. The Federal Bureau of Prisons first transferred him temporarily to United States Penitentiary, Lewisburg, a medium-security penitentiary, followed by a transfer to his permanent prison at United States Penitentiary, Tucson. The facility in Tucson, Arizona, is noted as the sole facility in the federal prison system that is both specially designated for sex offenders and also at maximum-security level.
In a hearing on restitution claims against Raniere, criminal defense attorney Marc Fernich represented Keith Raniere and stated that Bronfman had paid his fee.
Oral arguments on both Raniere and Bronfman's appeals were heard before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on May 3, 2022. On December 9, 2022, the federal appeals court upheld the convictions and sentences for Keith Raniere and Clare Bronfman.
Bronfman initially served her sentence in Federal Detention Center, Philadelphia, and later at Federal Correctional Institution, Danbury. As of June 27, 2025, she is no longer in BOP custody.
Marc Elliot v. Lions Gate Entertainment libel case
In 2021, Raniere supporter Marc Elliot filed a lawsuit against Lions Gate Entertainment in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, alleging that he was libelled and defamed by the Starz network documentary Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult. Joseph Tully, the attorney who represented Elliot, also represented Raniere in his appeals. The court dismissed the lawsuit and ordered Elliot to pay Lions Gate Entertainment's attorneys' fees and costs, finding that the documentary "impl[ied] that Plaintiff was a devoted member of an organization whose leader has been implicated in a range of serious sexual crimes, but this assertion – however unflattering – is substantially true."
Raniere v. Garland prison case
In May 2022, Keith Raniere sued the U.S. Department of Justice and Bureau of Prisons, alleging violation of his civil rights. Raniere sought an injunction allowing visitation and phone calls from follower Suneel Chakravorty, who he claims is a paralegal working on his appeals. The Department of Justice, Bureau of Prisons and authorities at USP Tucson argued the injunction should be denied because Chakravorty was not a paralegal but merely "an ardent former ESP and NXIVM coach with whom [Raniere] is banned from associating."
From Wikipedia’s article on NXIVM, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4