Keith Raniere

Keith Allen Raniere ( ran-YAIR-ee; born August 26, 1960) is an American cult leader who was convicted of a pattern of racketeering activity, including human trafficking, sex offenses, and fraud. Raniere co-founded NXIVM, a purported self-help multi-level marketing company offering personal development seminars and headquartered in Albany, New York. Operating from 1998 to 2018, NXIVM had 700 members at its height, including celebrities and the wealthy. Within NXIVM, Raniere was referred to as "Vanguard".

Scholars in the fields of religious studies, law, and sociology describe NXIVM as a cult. Mental health professionals and cult experts such as Rick Alan Ross, Diane Benscoter, and Steve Hassan have called Raniere a cult leader who manipulates and exerts coercive control over his followers. Multiple women have said they were sexually abused by Raniere, including three who have reported being underage at the time of the abuse.

In 2018, reports of abuse related to a secret society within NXIVM, known as "DOS" or "the Vow", led to the arrests of Raniere and five other NXIVM associates. On June 19, 2019, a jury in the Eastern District of New York convicted Raniere of racketeering for a pattern of crimes, including the sexual exploitation of a child, sex trafficking of women, and conspiracy to commit forced labor. The court received more than 100 victim impact statements detailing the harm Raniere caused. On October 27, 2020, Judge Nicholas Garaufis sentenced Raniere to 120 years incarceration and a $1.75 million fine.

Early life

Raniere was born on August 26, 1960, in Brooklyn, New York City, the only child of James Raniere (1932–2020), an advertising executive, and Vera Oschypko (1931–1978), a ballroom-dancing instructor. When Raniere was five years old, his family relocated to Suffern, New York. His parents separated when he was eight.

Raniere attended Suffern High School for ninth grade before transferring to Rockland Country Day School. He graduated in June 1978, two months prior to his eighteenth birthday. As an adult, Raniere reported that he read Isaac Asimov's mind control-themed work Second Foundation at age 12 and credited the novel with inspiring his work in NXIVM. In 1982, Raniere graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a 2.26 GPA, barely passing and failing many classes. He was employed as a computer programmer for the New York State Division of Parole.

Describing a conversation with Raniere's father, his former partner, Barbara Bouchey, recalled, "[James] said ... [they] told Keith about how gifted and how intelligent he was. And he said it was almost like a switch went off. And suddenly, overnight, [Raniere] turned into ... Jesus Christ ... [thinking] he was superior and better than everybody, like he was a deity. [James] said it was that [snaps] dramatic and that profound; he said it went right to [Raniere's] head." According to Bouchey, Raniere's mother also reported hearing "dozens of young girls ... calling the house, and [that Raniere] ... was telling every single girl the same thing: 'I love you. You're the special one. You're important. You are the only one in my life, and I love you.' And Vera says, 'He's saying this to all these girls. He's clearly lying 'cause all of them are not special!'"

In June 1988, the Albany Times Union profiled Raniere, reporting on his membership in the Mega Society after he achieved a high score on the MEGA test, an unsupervised, 48-question test published in the April 1985 issue of Omni magazine. Although the MEGA test has been widely criticized as not having been properly validated, the 1989 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records (the last edition to include a category for highest IQ) described the Mega Society as "the most exclusive ultrahigh IQ society", and the 1989 Australian edition identified Raniere, Marilyn vos Savant, and Eric Hart as the highest-scoring members of the group.

Career

Throughout the 1980s, Raniere was involved with the multi-level marketing company Amway. In 1990, he founded a multi-level marketing company of his own, Consumers' Buyline Inc. (CBI), a buying club that offered discounts in exchange for recruitment. At a CBI pitch meeting, Raniere met Toni Natalie, who subsequently became a top seller for the organization, along with her then-husband. Natalie and her son later moved to Clifton Park, New York, to be near Raniere; her marriage ended shortly thereafter. Natalie and Raniere dated for the next eight years.

In 1993, CBI began to decline, and regulators in twenty states launched investigations into the entity. New York State filed a lawsuit alleging that CBI was a pyramid scheme. In 1994, Raniere created National Health Network, a multi-level seller of vitamins; that business failed three years later. In 1996, Raniere signed a consent order with New York State resolving the case against CBI; without admitting wrongdoing, he agreed to pay a $40,000 fine. He ultimately only paid $9,000 to the state; despite having claimed a multimillion-dollar net worth, he said he was unable to pay the remainder. The consent order also permanently barred Raniere from "promoting, offering or granting participation in a chain distribution scheme".

NXIVM: Executive Success Programs

Foundation

In 1998, Natalie met Nancy Salzman, a nurse and a practitioner of hypnotism and neuro-linguistic programming. Natalie recalled:

Nancy said, "You're so wonderful; how can I help you?" So I said, "Well, you can help me with my boyfriend." He had grandiose ideas and his hours were becoming erratic again ... She listened and she said, "Oh that's easy, I can help you. He's a sociopath ..." They met, and four days later she came out with the glazed eyes and gave me the, "You don't know who he is", and I was like, "Wow, there goes another one."

Raniere and Salzman founded Executive Success Programs (ESP), a personal-development company offering a range of techniques aimed at self-improvement. A few years later, the program was rebranded under the name NXIVM. Raniere "adopted the title 'Vanguard' from a favorite arcade game in which the destruction of one's enemies increased one's own power." Much of NXIVM was influenced by the teachings of Ayn Rand, one of Raniere's favorite authors. In 2002, Raniere and Salzman succeeded in recruiting members of the influential Bronfman family, heirs to the multibillion-dollar Seagram fortune. Sara Bronfman initially became involved, followed by sister Clare Bronfman. Their father, Edgar Bronfman Sr., took a NXIVM course the following year.

NXIVM teachings drew upon diverse influences, including Ayn Rand ("parasites"), L. Ron Hubbard ("suppressives"), Milton Erickson's hypnosis, Isaac Asimov's science fiction, Rudolf Steiner, Tony Robbins and neuro-linguistic programming. NXIVM incorporated elements of multi-level marketing and practices from judo, with colored cloth for rank and bowing.

Forbes exposé

In October 2003, Raniere was featured, cloaked in shadows, on the cover of Forbes magazine, accompanied by the appellation "The World's Strangest Executive Coach". The "devastating" cover story, penned by Michael Freedman and entitled "Cult of Personality", was later described as "a gold mine of previously unpublished information". It discussed Raniere's title of "Vanguard"; detailed the failure of CBI; and included a quote from Edgar Bronfman accusing the organization of being a cult.

Vanity Fair subsequently reported on the Forbes article's impact within the group: "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." According to Vanity Fair, the article was a turning point in Raniere's relationship with Edgar: one anonymous source said that the article's publication "was when Edgar Bronfman became NXIVM's enemy". A witness at Raniere's trial later testified that Bronfman's computer was compromised and his emails monitored by group members for a period of years.

Commodities trades

From January 2005 until late 2007, Raniere lost nearly $70 million in commodities trading. Bouchey spent $1.6 million covering losses of commodities trades which Raniere had made in her name. Raniere suggested to Clare Bronfman that the losses were due to market manipulation by her father. Beginning in August 2005, the Bronfman sisters covered the losses, ultimately using $150 million of their own funds in support of Raniere and his organization.