Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Inside NXIVM: How a Hollywood star lured women into a sex cult

Episode Date: June 5, 2018

"Smallville" actress Allison Mack is free on $5 million bond for allegedly involvement in recruiting women for a sex cult that branded them with the initials of her and the cult leader. The former publicist of NXIVM Frank Parlato shares shocking insider details of how Mack and the group operated. Grace is joined by Seattle lawyer Anne Bremner, forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, New York psychologist Caryn Stark, and RadarOnline reporter Alexis Tereszcuk. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Did you know a recent law can leave your personal data exposed online for anybody to find? If you've turned on the news lately, you know the internet has created a dangerous new world. It's time you take back the power by using a new website called Truthfinder. Have you been issued a speeding ticket? Received a lien from the IRS? Did you forget about an embarrassing social media profile? That info may already be online. Truthfinder can help you find it. Truthfinder searches millions of public records, assembling

the data together in one report. Members get unlimited searches, so you can also look up those close to you and make sure they're not hiding something. Visit truthfinder.com slash Nancy. Enter your own name. Get started. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. An incredible talent, a star known to many, her face instantly recognizable. Allison Mack, a sex cult leader? It doesn't even make sense. This is a woman we have all invited into our homes a million times. This woman has starred in so many shows. You know her immediately when you

see her face. It's almost incomprehensible that she's a leader of a sex cult where women were branded with initials. Alexis Tereschuk joining me from RadarOnline.com, investigative reporter. Alexis, it's a little hard for me to believe this. I mean, you know how it is, Alexis, and I'll go to our shrink in a moment. Karen Stark joining us. When you invite somebody into your home repeatedly, even though you're sitting on the sofa and they're actually on tv and they

don't really know that they're in your in your den it feels like they're there it's really hard for me to believe the state better have a good case against this woman start at the beginning alexis terrestrial oh p.s i'm nancy grace this is crime stories thanks for being with us alexis what's going on so alice mack who is a famous actress, everybody knows her at that TV show Smallville, which everyone loves. She starred in it. She... About Superman, right? Yeah, exactly. Like, Superman is a young, hot high school guy. Okay, I thought I was losing my mind and I had her name wrong. This is the star of the Superman show, Smallville. Okay, go ahead. She has been arrested, hauled off out of her apartment in handcuffs for being the leader of a sex cult with this man called Keith Renier.

And it's called NXIVM. Wait, NXIVM. Isn't that some type of like an indigestion pill? Right. Wait, no. What is NXIVM? Okay, Jackie, apparently you know it. She's shaking her head yes.

And there's also a sex cult named nexium that's a very unfortunate choice for the sex cult to be named after an indigestion pill but that is neither here nor there and another thing to you missy alexis tereska when people are charged with felonies they usually are hauled out of their apartment in handcuffs whether they're a hollywood star or not but But go ahead. Well, she has not been receiving Hollywood star treatment, I don't think, since the arrest. But she was a member of this cult. She met this man, Keith.

And what the police are saying is that they spent years recruiting women around the country, around the world, to join what was supposed to be a female empowerment club. You know, kind of like a yoga class extraordinaire. And you would go and this man, Keith, is so charismatic and Allison's so beautiful and you want to be a part of this thing that gives women power. Instead, they were turned into sex slaves who were branded, branded literally with like a hot poker on their bodies to become a member of this cult.

And she has been charged. Wait, wait, wait. Alexis, you're talking so fast, I can't take it all in. Did I hear you say something about branding women with a hot something? I did. I called it a hot poker. I'm sure there's a medical term for it. Okay, guys, we're talking about the 35-year-old star of the hit series Smallville. Not only is she charged with being the ringleader of a cult that sucked women into a girl empowerment meeting.

It turned into basically kidnapping them and using them, brainwashing them as sex slaves, complete with a red-hot branding on their bodies. This, as it is emerging, apparently our dear beloved hermione yes emma watson from the harry potter hit series was there was an attempt to recruit her and kelly clarkson who we all love from american idol who goes on to be a singing sensation are they insane Is it true they try to recruit these two beloved stars, Emma Watson, Hermione, and Kelly Clarkson? Just tell me that much, Alexis. Yep, those are just a few of them. These are the most famous women in the world, and Alison Mack and Keith Renier were trying to bring them into this cult, And there's not a better word for

it. It's not a women's group. It's not a tennis club. It is a cult because these women were having to give when they joined and professed their faith to this cult, they were having, they were blackmailed. They had to give things like naked pictures of themselves. So the most compromising stories about themselves, they had to give this to the leaders of the group so that in case they ever left, this could be used. Oh, it sounds like a freaky, weird, felonious version of Scientology, where you have to be audited and tell all the worst things you've ever done in your life, and then they have it to hold over your head. Guys, hold on. With me is alexis teres chuck investigative reporter with radar online.com but now joining us is the journalist who originally broke the story of this cult it's real

at nxivm pronounced nexium its founder keith rain, allegedly subjecting women to humiliating sex acts and branding women in their pelvic area with a series of initials. It had a large base, has a large base in Albany, New York. First, crack this story, journalist Frank Perlato and the former NXIVM publicist. You can find out all about him and a lot of his work at Art Voice. Frank Perlato, thank you for being with us. This is such a wildly fantastical story. It's almost hard to believe. And when you start arresting Hollywood stars, you better have an airtight case, okay? Frank, you broke the story. What happened? Well, initially, it began, this cult, NXIVM, in 1998.

And in 2002, they achieved their first great recruit, and that was Seagram's heiress, Claire Brothman. With her hundreds of millions of dollars behind the cult, they were able to recruit various celebrities such as Kristen Kruk, Grace Park, and Allison Mack. Mack became a true believer, and in time she elevated herself to nearly the top of the cult and became Ranieri's top recruiter of young, attractive, nubile, slender women for Ranieri's invidious sex cult. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. What did you say? What kind of women? He had a type, and they were young, slender, long-haired, nubile, and attractive, preferably with a little bit of money. Okay, sorry, Jackie. We're out, okay? We're not getting into, as they say, the unique human development and women's movement. That is what Allison Mack had been tweeting and sending notes to Kelly Clarkson and also to Emma Watson, trying to lure them in. Luckily,

they're smart enough to stay away from it. Frank Parlato with me, former nexium publicist he's in charge of an incredible site called art voice and the journalist that first broke the story so it all starts off with a fringe group that manages to recruit an heiress from the seagrams liquor dynasty and she pumps a lot of money into it. They, according to Frank, solicit young, I don't believe I've heard anybody say the word nubile in a long time. It's flashback to Playboy 1990. But okay, not judging. Frank, young, thin women. Okay, what happens then, Frank frank it begins innocently enough the first meetings are

surrounded with a group of women all of them already in the cult who present a picture of normalcy a picture of a friendly wonderful kind of lovely lovely sorority. I think the term that's often used in these kinds of cult-like recruitment scenarios is love bombing. A woman comes in, she's told that this kind of program will improve her life. She'll get life coaching and she'll be mentored by other women who care about her. That's the initial deception. coaching and she'll be mentored by other women who care about her. That's the initial deception. Then what happens? So they have the facade of normalcy.

So you think you're joining a women's group. Is that right, Frank Peralotto? Yes, you are elbow to elbow with stars like Alison Mack or Kristen Krug. You're hobnobbing with Claire Brothman, who's a Seagram's heiress, and surrounded by attractive women, all of them slender. Later, you'll realize why they're so slender. They're kept on restrictive diets. But your initial impression is this is really quite an exciting opportunity for me or whoever it is that's joining. And then they begin the hypnotic induction. Okay, what's that? It's a very carefully laid out plan.

And Keith Raniere, the head of NXIVM, is a master hypnotist. This is his art and this is his specialty. And you begin by attending very long classes. They're very intense, high-intensity classes. They begin at 7 in the morning and they end at 10 or 11 at night. And there is a slow hypnotic process that goes on, very carefully laid scheme. Well, what are the classes about, Frank? They purport to be about new ways of doing critical thinking.

In fact, it's called rational inquiry. And they start to challenge the students on various kinds of conceptions that they've long held as their base of belief. Such as what? Well, for instance, they begin kind of innocently. They talk about the criminal code, the social mores. They ask you, for example, to make a list of all of the advantages that would accrue to you if your boyfriend or husband should happen to die. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Right there.

Right there. I've got a problem. Okay. Because it sounds to me, and Karen Stark with me, a New York psychologist, very well known. Karen, please don't hit me with a lot of psychological terms, but when somebody approaches you and starts talking to you about what challenging your belief system, like what's right and what's wrong, what's wrong with being a

Christian, what's wrong with Jewish beliefs, what's wrong with your long, your heritage, your heritage beliefs, what would happen if you weren't confined to a relationship a monogamous relationship with a boyfriend or a husband well that that may not be so bad but anyway that aside that one tiny tiny exception but i i hear what frank perlato is saying everybody with me is former nexium publicist frank perlato and he has an incredible site called Art Voice. He first broke the story. Karen Stark, that's exactly what happens when you get brainwashed. Your core beliefs, you're encouraged to start questioning them

until suddenly what you're doing doesn't seem wrong at all. I've seen it in gangs. It's the closest thing I could compare it to where year round it's so much crime that suddenly selling dope or committing murders as part of an initiation is really no big deal. There's a whole us versus them mentality that ensues and they choose people that are susceptible and as that brainwashing experience is occurring, that you just mentioned, Nancy, what happens is that they become more and more open to the suggestibility of the cult. And they're beginning to discover brain changes that occur. It's like an overload of information that starts to happen so that the individual

becomes more entrenched. And it's hard to believe how convincing this new world becomes. But think about Matt Manson and all the girls that he was able to attract to him, which when we're looking on the outside makes no sense. But this is a very inside. But I see a big difference, Karen Stark. Karen, I see a big difference because, I mean, you're the shrink, not me. You're the one with all those degrees. I'm just a trial lawyer. But Frank Peralato with me, former NXIVM publicist,

the journalist that broke the story and has a site called Art Voice. Frank, there's a big difference between taking in a teen, a homeless teen girl who's already addicted to drugs and a Hollywood star, not just one, but several. Somehow this guy, Rainieri, Keith Rainieri, managed to brainwash, you know, powerful and educated and wealthy women. So they're in these grueling classes about questioning their beliefs. How does it go, Frank Perlato, to getting branded with a hot iron on your pelvic region. Well, you have to consider that it took nine years from Alison Mack's first entree into the cult to the day she was branded and began to brand other women. Nine long years of hypnotic induction. So to Alexis Tereschuk, investigative reporter with RadarOnline.com, what starts as a women's

empowerment group with a facade of normalcy ends with sex trafficking and literally branding women physically? And these women were expected and pressured by Allison and Keith into having sex with Keith. And it wasn't just Allison and Keith. It was all of the women. And that's what they were told. And the indictment revealed that they were threatened with physical force and violence if they didn't submit to this, that they would be physically harmed if they didn't submit to have sex with Keith. And then the branding, they didn't submit to have sex with with keith and then the branding

they were really lied to these women were told that joining this organization you know into the the upper levels of the of the club splash cult that they would just get a small tattoo and the first woman that came out said i had i was fine with a small tattoo but instead they were taken into a room they were placed on a massage table face up. Three people held them. One person held each leg and the other held their shoulders and their arms, held them down. And this, these initials were cauterized into their body, burned into their body. And it literally took between like 20 and 30 minutes one of the women who came forward said i disassociated i i felt like i left my body i wept the entire time because it was so

awful what were the initials that were branded into the women keith reynier's initials are in this branding it's a k and an r design and fact, he has said, well, what if they were Bill Gates's initials? You wouldn't care, but because they're mine, you're upset about it? It's horrific that these women were burned this way. Nancy, in an interview with Allison Mack, apparently done before she was charged with sex trafficking, the actress actually says the branding of women was her idea. The New York Times Magazine just published the interview in which Mack talks about coming up with the idea to use a cauterizing pin to burn the initials KR

and AM, those are her initials, into the skin of the inductees into their secretive subgroup known as the Dominus Obsicrius Sororium, DOSO-S for short. Mack tells The Times she takes full responsibility for coming up with the brand after someone suggested a tattoo. But Mack said tattoos mean nothing. It's just something people get when they're drunk. She wanted the women to do something she says was more meaningful, something that took guts. Well, I would care no matter who initials were branded into my skin or my daughter's skin,

branded to Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert and professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University. You know, Joseph Scott Morgan, long story short, no jury is going to believe a woman willingly submitted to being branded with a hot iron, a series of initials whose initials still remain to be seen. That is your prime forensic evidence right there. Yeah, and this is not something that's going to be going away. It's branded into the skin. It creates this nasty looking kind of

keloid scar. I've seen these on gang members primarily. And it's really interesting, Nancy, you paralleled this earlier talking about gang membership. One of the things that some gangs and even fraternal organizations will do is take a coat hanger, for instance, and bend it into a particular shape, heat, superheat it, and then brand it in. And it's really interesting that these women are so beaten down at this point mentally and emotionally where they get them to this point where the leader obviously feels comfortable with doing this to them, and they allow it to a certain degree to be done to them because they're staying within this environment. It's almost like all norms have been stripped away.

Of course, this is more Karen's area, but yeah, it is something. It is a unique identifier that is left behind that will be connected back to them when and if this thing makes it to court. And I think it will. You know, to Ann Bremner, a high-profile Seattle lawyer who has been at the forefront of so many, many renowned cases. In what universe is it suddenly okay to hold a woman down by force and brand her with a hot iron? I mean, at any point, didn't these people go, whoa, this is so wrong. I got to get out of here. Well, I mean, it's just so alarming and amazing. And, you know, with these cults, somebody just, I think Karen mentioned the Manson cult.

I mean, they went out and killed for him. And I don't, we don't understand it. You know, at some point you say, I've got to get out of here. But now they're branded in some way submissive. And there's so many felonies here. Like Joseph Scott Morgan just said, this case I think will see court. And I hope it sees it sooner rather than later with this recent arrest. Well, we'll see.

You're right about that, Ann Bremner. The star now, formerly charged, Alison Mack, the star of the superhero hit series Smallville about Superman, Alison Mack's bizarre blog she had, detailed life in an alleged sex cult. And while she says, quote, it seems like it has been a lifetime in here already, it's not going to matter as to her feelings about if she wanted to get out because her actions belie that. She was taking part, according to the state, in recruiting and using young girls, women in a sex cult where they were physically branded with a hot iron.

I want you to hear on ABC's 2020 a report on this this group is called NXIVM. And it's right here in our country. And there are Hollywood stars and wealthy, educated women as part of it. Take a listen to this, including former members as they describe being stripped naked, blindfolded, tattooed, and abused. Listen to ABC's 2020. Five women summoned to a house outside Albany, New York, one night this past March. Sarah Edmondson says she was one of them, willingly participating in a strange initiation ritual

led by a woman who told everyone to take off their clothes and put on a blindfold. Led us in blindfolded and sat us in a semicircle, buck naked, no clothes, on a sheepskin rug. Like, could that be any weirder? No, it could not be any weirder. We were all, you know, my goodness, what's going on here? This is so weird. Weird doesn't begin to cover it.

Sarah told authorities she thought they were there to get tattoos. Instead, she says they found out they were all going to be branded. It sounds like a horror movie, what you're describing. It was a horror movie. It was the most inhumane, horrific way to treat anybody. There's a brand new website causing a lot of trouble for people with something to hide. Have you ever had a bad feeling about somebody? Maybe suspected your partner's cheating? Maybe worried about your online reputation? If you answer yes

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You are here. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories with an incredible story, almost too hard to believe a Hollywood star along with wealthy and educated women take part in a sex trafficking cult where women are actually branded and it's all happening right under our noses and these are educated uh well-to-do people that get sucked into this. These are not homeless people that have nowhere else to go, and nobody misses them. No one knows what's happening. No, these are people with families, with income, with education. You were just listening to ABC's 2020 and a report on NXIVM. It's spelled N-X-I-V-M. And with me is the former publicist for NXIVM who broke the story, journalist Frank Peralotto.

You can find him on Art Voice online. Frank, I still don't understand how women were brainwashed into thinking this was okay, as now charges of sex trafficking are going down. Where do those, from where do those charges stem? Well, the charges that have been so far revealed in the indictment, and there will be superseding indictments coming soon, I am convinced, emanate from two witnesses, and there are others, but strictly speaking, the indictment speaks of a Jane Doe one

and a Jane Doe number two. Both of these escaped slaves from the sex cult who told their horrifying stories, first to me, and then I encouraged them to go to the FBI and tell their entire story, which they did. Go ahead, Frank. Their horror emanated primarily from this,

and this is a secret that many don't yet understand. It just didn't start with branding. It began by the procurement, the assiduous procurement by Allison Mack of blackmail-worthy material. So this slippery slope occurred where you began as a women's empowerment. You were brainwashed. You gave blackmail-worthy material to Allison and Keith Raniere. And suddenly you found that what you thought was voluntary no longer became voluntary but coerced. So let me understand this.

Alexis Tereschuk, RadarOnline.com investigative reporter. This sex cult NXIVM, which allegedly forces women to have relations with its leader and brands them, we believe, with his initials and others, are allegedly in, quote, war mode, going to battle to save Keith Raniere, their leader, and Smallville actress Allison Mack. Now, I'm trying to figure out what exactly the allegations are. Alexis Tereschuk, as far as the sex trafficking goes, what is the origin of the claim? So for sex trafficking, she has been accused of recruiting these women from all over and taking them to different places to have sex with Keith Rainier. And what they're saying is they used either force or coercion. She, excuse me, used force or coercion to make them have sex with him.

And so they traveled all over the world, this group did. And in fact, when she, the last video we saw of Allison Mack is she, Keith was arrested in March in Mexico. They'd been hiding out in a very, very, very high end home in Mexico. And the authorities captured him. Allison jumps in a car and there is video of her chasing the police and chasing the car that Keith is in, in hysterics, basically. She is so upset that her leader has been arrested. And she's not somebody who was like, oh, yeah, this is right. This is bad. This guy's finally been arrested.

Thank goodness for me. No. She is convinced that this guy is being treated unfairly. And so she was chasing the police down as if to try to rescue him from the cops in Mexico. Wow. Well, as a matter of fact, take a listen to Hollywood star Alison Mack as she is interviewing the alleged cult leader about his program that, quote, helps actors be better actors. Okay, listen. I wanted to talk a little bit about The Source,

which is the company that you created for actors, artists, people who want to get better at expressing in general. Several years ago when we first met, I had said to you, would you be willing to work with me on becoming a better actress? And you said, yeah, you know, we'll talk about it. And then several years later, you started working with me and a bunch of other people to develop a curriculum specifically for actors. And I've been talking to different people about it, and like different actors and things like that,

enrolling them in the idea of coming and participating and seeing what you've created, because it's been incredible for me. And a lot of the questions that they ask is like, how is it different than Meisner how is it different than Stella Adler or whatever and a lot of what the answers that I've given have been like well it it's sort of it's sort of it's a partnership with that because it gives you the foundation underneath all of the technical skills and all of the kind of traditional approaches to acting that we've had throughout time. Like it really gets to the core of the actor so that you can work on the raw material and

then everything else that they produce is affected by that. But I don't know, like I'm curious to know what your perception is of the curriculum that you created and where it came from. Well, it comes from a mix of human behavior and philosophy and also really technical communication. You know, acting is all about a type of communication and being not only more aware but more congruent in your communication. So you want people to, if you will, and it would be a bit common in what I say, you want people to buy your character.

Right. And the way they buy it is they find it congruent and authentic. The question is, I mean, if someone could be totally congruent in a character and express authentically through that character, so they could do any sort of a scene or whatever, certainly that actor could do anything. So the question is, how do you achieve that? How do you achieve congruence?

How do you achieve authenticity? And do you achieve congruence? How do you achieve authenticity? And I think there are many roads to do this. The thing that I think makes the source a bit unique is I come from a non-acting background. You could say, I don't know what I'm talking about. So that's good and bad. The good aspect is it comes from a behaviorist, humanist sort of practical and philosophical background, dealing with communication, dealing with all sorts of things relating to the psychodynamics of people and humans without being tainted by the current pedagogy of acting.

And there's both a good and a bad. The good is when you have something that comes in like that fresh, it provides a tool that goes outside of the box of all the normal tool sets. You know, any actor that wants to create a methodology of acting, especially if they know there's other methodologies, they're influenced in a certain way. And that can be very, very good. But at times, it's also good to have something that is not influenced in the normal way by that, as if coming from another planet.

So to some degree, the source is not just created for actors. It's created for human communication. It's something that can be used in arbitration. It's something that can be used in negotiations. It's something that can be used in parenting. It's something that can be used in negotiations it's something that can be used in parenting it's something that can be used in a love relationship and it comes from that perspective but does have a strong application

to what you would call that authentic congruent expression and it's not tainted by the other schools that are all extraordinary. It's not at all that they're not great. It's that this is different. As you hear Allison Mack interviewing the cult leader, compare that, the dichotomy of these victims describing being stripped naked, blindfolded, and tattooed. Sarah says she devoted 12 years to NXIVM, recruiting hundreds of new members, rising through the organization, even opening and running a center in Vancouver. Along the way, becoming best friends with Nancy Saltzman's daughter, Lauren, who was maid of honor at Sarah's wedding.

She's like my therapist, and in the ranking system, she's also above me. Then in March, after all their years together in NXIVM, Sarah says Lauren approached her about a new and mysterious opportunity. She said, I want to invite you to something that totally changed my life. It was a secret sorority for women only.

Life-changing, but top secret. And the first step is making a vow of obedience to her as me being a slave and her being my master. Slave? She used the word slave? She used the word slave. Did you object? Of course, yeah, I objected every stage of the way. And she said, it's just a metaphor.

It's a guru disciple. Then came the night that Sarah says she and four other women submitted one by one to being branded by this woman, she says, Dr. Danielle Roberts. And the woman on the table screamed out in pain, you know, twisted and turned and yelled. And the woman I was with holding her legs down, we looked at each other and we just wept.

Why didn't you let go and run out of there even naked? It didn't seem like a choice at the time. She points to years of NXIVM training. And all the indoctrination, all the years of women are weak, women have no character. Now is the time to prove I can do it. Sarah gives another explanation for her obedience. Before she joined the secret sorority and got branded,

she says Lauren Saltzman had demanded highly compromising collateral. You need to provide something to me that I'm gonna hold forever, just to confirm and to solidify that you'll never share the secret. So what did you give her? So I gave her a written confessional. She says for her and some others, the price of admission to the secret group also included providing nude photos of themselves.

So understand when women do that, it's very difficult to say, no, I'm not doing this because the person has something of you with them. Instantly, all my alarm bells are going off. Absolutely. So why did you do it? I did it because I trusted her. That was from ABC's 2020 report on NXIVM. This is how the whole thing works.

During arraignment, a grand jury heard testimony from former members of the cult. They claim the Hollywood star, Mac, would lure young ladies into joining the cult and then demand they turned over, quote, collateral. The collateral would be compromising photos or their personal assets, money, belongings, car titles. That collateral was then used by MAC, according to the grand jury, to control the women who were transformed into branded sex slaves. And this is all from court filings. Now, the founder, Ranieri, was arrested the way Alexis Terezeschuk just told us in Mexico. The state said that during the past 20 years, Ranieri established a series of self-help programs. Self-help programs. They had centers, so they were getting a lot of money funding in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, South America, and it was a pyramid scheme. The courses cost thousands of dollars, and the people that took them were then encouraged to pay for other classes and recruit other people to take the classes so they could rise up within the ranks.

It's like, it's a pyramid scheme. Ann Bremner, it's like a Ponzi scheme. Ann Bremner, Seattle lawyer, explain what I mean by pyramid. Basically, it's like Amway or any of these kinds of things that you just keep building membership by using your members to go out and get other people and just keep building that pyramid. There's a lot of financial ones like that too, but this is human trafficking and it's just self-perpetuating. And here it's criminal. And what they're also claiming is that Allison Mack, the Hollywood star, would force women to become sex slaves after they joined the group by threatening to drain all their assets or release those compromising photos. So what would happen, Frank Peralotto with me, the former NXIVM publicist,

the journalist that first broke the story, you can find him at Art Voice, what would happen if someone tried to stop and leave the cult? Well, they threatened them with the release of their quote-unquote collateral. It all exploded last year around May of 2017 when the secret part of NXIVM, they call it DOS, and that stands for Dominus Obsequius Sororium, or the master over the slave women, became revealed to the external group of NXIVM, the women who had not yet been branded. And that caused kind of a chaotic explosion with the NXIVM and a rather rapid exodus. Allison stuck with the group as did the core slaves. And even when the women were threatened, some of them, like Sarah Edmondson, decided to

leave anyway and risk the collateral being released. Wow. It's just amazing that this is happening right here under our own noses. Guys, if you're not familiar with Allison Mack, the Hollywood star, she played Chloe in Smallville, and that was the hit show about Clark Kent star. She played Chloe in Smallville, and that was the hit show about Clark Kent, Superman, being raised in Smallville, Kansas, before he was known as Superman. And it lasted 10 seasons. She was also in Aunt Bully. She was in Honey. We Shrunk Ourselves. She's been in a lot of movies and is very well known in the celebrity community.

And then there's the Seagram's heiress as well, who now apparently is taking over Mac's position. Take a listen to this. According to promotional materials, even as a child, Raniere was destined for greatness. Speaking in full sentences at age one, reading at age two, judo champ and concert-level pianist at 13. I was told that he was one of the smartest men in the world and just an incredible man.

With that, I'm going to pass the microphone over to Mr. Ranieri. So incredible, it seems, that an ordinary name just won't do. Participants say they're taught to call Ranieri Vanguard. Vanguard, yes. Vanguard is the name that we refer to Keith as because he is a leader of a philosophical movement. The second highest-ranking member of NXIVM is a woman named Nancy Saltzman. Former members say she is known as Prefect.

So, Keith and Nancy, Vanguard and Prefect. At the heart of NXIVM training is something called intensives, which former members say are like group therapy, running as long as 14 hours a day for up to 16 days. Edmondson says she attended her first in 2005 when she was 27. I left my five-day, my initial training, as if a veil had been lifted and I could see things more clearly in my life. I could communicate better with people. That sounds fantastic.

Yeah, it was great. Classes are invitation only, and they are not cheap. A five-day intensive will run you $3,000. A 16-day is $7,500. In promotional videos and materials, it claims more than 16,000 people worldwide have taken NXIVM courses. Many testify to its effectiveness. I learned through the tools that there was a different way.

Sarah was recruited into the group by filmmaker Mark Vicente. What was it that was so compelling to you? Just a way to break down and understand certain things in my life in a way I never had before. Ranieri is fiercely protective of his teachings, requiring participants to sign confidentiality agreements. Everyone signed it, and if you didn't sign it,

you couldn't take the curriculum. If you entertain your children... We do know that NXIVM has its own lingo. Students are taught about overcoming disintegrations to become more potent and less suppressive, and avoiding people termed parasites or luciferians. Did you know about a recent law that could leave your personal data exposed online for anybody to find? If you've turned on the news lately, you know the internet has created a dangerous new world. Data breaches expose private information. There's a new cyber security threat every other day and criminals can sell the identity of you and your family on the dark web. It's time you take the power back by using a new website called Truthfinder. Truthfinder allows you to find out exactly what information exists about you online.

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Enter your own name. Get started. Guys, thank you for being with us here on Crime Stories. I'm Nancy Grace, and we are shocked about a cult right here under our own noses that has used women as sex slaves after branding them and these are educated and many of them well-to-do women some of them Hollywood stars in fact apparently even trying to recruit Hermione that's Emma Watson from the Harry Potter series, trying to recruit Kelly Clarkson. And of course, Hermione and Kelly Clarkson were not involved in any way. But so many other women fell for it.

As it was first noted, it had the appearance of normalcy. Okay. And women got into it as a women empowerment group. But I want you to listen to Hollywood star Allison Mack. She is on YouTube, and she is raving about a women's empowerment group. Here, she's calling it by different initials, but it's NXIVM. Listen. So when someone's being authentic, you get the feeling that not only that there's a person there in the moment,

but somehow you reach into their very essence and you meet a unique individual. I don't know why. It makes me want to cry. It's beautiful. I think it's... Sorry. Okay. So...

But why do you think that's... So emotional for me? Yes. I don't know. I think because it seems like it's something that I just, I feel like I want it. Authenticity. And I think... What do you want about authenticity? I think that there's a relaxed kind of exchange that happens between people when there's no pretense. And it seems like to me those are the most moving, most meaningful, most important moments in life.

Not disagreeing with you, but why? Yeah, it's funny. I mean, it feels like but why? Yeah, it's funny. I mean, it feels like in a silly way, it's like that's where love is. Like that's where like two, I guess it's the existential thing. Like it feels like two souls can like come together without any sort of barrier or boundary. And somehow there's completion or not aloneness or transcendence in some way that because it feels like the sole purpose of those things is to generate that kind of an experience for people you know to karen stark new york psychologist karen when you're in so deep in something i guess it seems normal to you

it seems normal to you and it seems normal to the people around you. And maybe for people who are vulnerable for the first time, they get a strong feeling of belonging to something. It always involves a charismatic leader so that you're enticed and you feel like you're getting the special attention. She talks about Alex and Max, the fact that he was her mentor, that he mentored her in acting and the skills of acting, and they made it all sound very legitimate. You took courses, there was a curriculum. It became extremely enticing to be a part of this group, particularly because there were so many people who were celebrities or who had a great deal of money. And you begin to question, well, why would they be a member of this group if it were not legitimate? We are talking about a cult that started in Albany, New York, upstate New York,

with connections all over the world. Now, it poses as a self-help organization to empower women, and it rides the coattails of girl power. It ends up in the spotlight when the New York Times investigation exposed that the women in the group were referred to as slaves and subjected to ritual humiliations. They starved themselves. They were forced to starve themselves to achieve the cult leader's beauty ideal and to have repeated relations with him. Okay. Alexis Tereschuk, Radar Online investigative reporter. Where is he right now, Keith Raniere? He is in custody. He was arrested in March and extradited back to the United States. So he is awaiting trial.

The interesting thing is Allison Mack got released from jail. And according to court paper, she is working with federal prosecutors on a plea deal. So she might actually turn on him after having been his right-hand woman for all these years. You know, I'm noticing something, too. Ann Bremmer, Seattle lawyer. Ann, just like we saw with Harvey Weinstein, you know, he would have other women do his dirty work, set up meetings, set up, quote, interviews with Hollywood starlets. And women would see another woman and think, oh, this is OK.

Do you see that same thing, according to prosecutors working here? Because according to U.S. Attorney Maura Pinza, Allison Mack was one of the top members of this scheme, which was designed to give Ranieri sex slaves under the guise of female empowerment, and that she, Mack, starved women until they fit Ranieri's sexual feminine ideal. So a woman is lured in by another woman. She thinks it's safe, then it's too late. Well, that's why it'd be so hard to have her as a turned witness in a case like this.

I mean, it's just so abhorrent, you know, what she's done in the name of women's empowerment during this Me Too tsunami in so many ways that we're seeing. And her talking about women's empowerment, I mean, it's all criminal all the way around. And she's going to try and escape that. She's out on, was it a $5 million bail? And he's still in custody and she may well turn. To Frank Peralotto, former NXIVM publicist, founder of Art Voice and the journalist that broke the story. Frank, how did you become involved with NXIVM as their publicist? Well, I was originally retained to work for them by Claire Groffman, the Seagram's heiress, who funds the entire operation of NXIVM. She funded all of the branding and the cult network. And I was retained back in 2007 to try to help

them get a better public persona. Even at that time, people in the media were labeling this group as a cult. Well, Frank, how did you get out of it? Why? I had uncovered that Keith Raniere, the head of the cult, had embezzled or swindled Claire Brothman out of $100 million. And I approached Claire and I told her that her money was missing and that Keith was in charge of that money. $100 million disappeared. And she didn't really want to accept that finding, which later wound up being proven to be true. She was content with him swindling her out of $100 million.

And Keith Raniere fired me. Wow. There is also alleged connections to the 26-year-old daughter of Dynasty actress Catherine Oxenberg and the granddaughter of Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia. We're talking about alleged claims that India Oxenberg, the 26-year-old daughter and granddaughter, was brainwashed by this cult. She's beautiful and she fits exactly the physical description that Frank Peralotto and Alexis Tereschukuk are describing the tall, thin, blonde, again, the 26-year-old daughter of the Dynasty star, Catherine Oxenberg, the granddaughter of a princess in Yugoslavia,

was hauling plastic tubs full of restaurant fare. She toiled at menial tasks and was allegedly a sex cult slave. This is incredible to me. Her family allegedly claiming they believe she was indeed brainwashed by this leader, Keith Raniere, he would lure young waif-like women and groom them, brand them with a hot iron. It's almost more than I can believe is happening here in our country under the guise, the disguise, the shroud, the facade of normalcy, where once again, women are being persecuted and mistreated. And I do not care how much money you have or how rich you are or how well-connected you are. You're going to jail, Ranieri.

And Mac, we're on to you. So help me. If they cut a deal with her. I don't care what she starred in. They are wrong. She needs to go to jail and rot right along with Keith Ranieri for what they have done to these young girls. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. There's a brand new website causing a lot of trouble for people with something to hide.

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