Uncover - S1 Escaping NXIVM Bonus: Inside the Trial

Episode Date: May 14, 2019

The team behind season one of Uncover: Escaping NXIVM takes us inside the trial of NXIVM co-founder Keith Raniere and speaks with former member of the group Sarah Edmondson about her thoughts on the trial.

The music teacher says it was consensual sex. His former students say it was rape. He had sex with me once in the classroom, in a closet. Something happened to me too. I thought he was our little predator. Why wasn't he stopped? These women seek answers and justice. I'm Julie Ireton, host of The Banned Teacher.

It's available now on CBC Listen, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just that somebody could be this diabolical. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello? Hi. Gotcha. Hi. So where are you? I'm outside the court. We've just finished the third day.

I have a ton of stuff to tell you about. It's been a fascinating three days of trial so far. I cannot wait to hear it. And I know everybody who loved our podcast can't wait to hear it. And that's why we're doing this special edition of the podcast. I'll actually have to run right now because I see people are coming out of the building, but I'm going to come back to Toronto shortly and give you the full rundown of what has taken place so far in week one of Keith Raniere's trial. Have a safe flight home and I'll talk to you soon, Josh. See you soon. Bye. Hello, Josh. Hello.

Welcome back. Thank you. Should we get this started? Yes. I am Josh Bloch. This is a bonus episode of Uncover Escaping NXIVM. And I'm Kathleen Goldtar, one of the producers of Escaping NXIVM. And you've just come back from three full days of the Keith Raniere trial. I have. And I want to tell you about it. But just before I do, just to remind listeners of how we got here.

Initially, Keith Raniere was arrested with five other NXIVM leaders, five women who were part of his inner circle. They've all pleaded guilty. So Keith actually, Keith Raniere is standing trial alone. There was Nancy Salzman, the president of NXIVM. There was her daughter, Lauren Salzman. There was Kathy Russell, a longtime bookkeeper, and Claire Bronfman. And of course,IVM. There was her daughter, Lauren Salzman. There was Kathy Russell, a longtime bookkeeper,

and Claire Bronfman. And of course, Allison Mack. And do we know if we'll be hearing from any of these women as witnesses during the trial? We don't know yet. Any or all of them could testify at the trial, but it's to be seen. Okay, so you're back at the courthouse. You and I were there about a year and a half ago when he was first charged and asking for bail. A lot has happened. I remember the anticipation of just getting to the courthouse and seeing Keith and all the excitement around that. What was it like this time?

So there has been a lot of anticipation again heading into this trial. I got there at 7.30 in the morning. There was already a long lineup outside the courthouse, many people wanting to get into that courtroom, not only media, but other people that have been affected by this case, by this story. I did get into the courtroom and in there sitting behind me was Barbara Boucher, who you might remember as Keith's longstanding girlfriend, a member of NXIVM before she left in 2009. Anybody that knows me knows that I'm a tough girl. I'm assertive. I'm a dog on a bone.

A couple seats down from her was Tony Natale, who was also Keith's ex-girlfriend from even before NXIVM. You see my bracelet? It says orange jumpsuit. The thing that takes my fear away is I see Keith in an orange jumpsuit. And Anthony Ames, who's better known as Nippy, who is Sarah Edmondson's husband, he was also in the courtroom and he pointed out a few people who were actually followers of Keith, who are still loyal to Keith, who were in the courtroom as well. Were they outnumbered though? I mean, the majority of the people must have been non-Keith supporters. That's right. There was only a few people who were there supporting Keith. And did Keith look put together? Did he look disheveled? Like, tell me a little bit about what he looked like. Yeah, I mean, so last time we saw him wearing a prison jumpsuit. This time

he's in civilian clothes. He was wearing a soft sweater and a collared blue shirt. He looked professorial. He was listening carefully, taking notes, occasionally whispering into the ears of his lawyers. So the first thing is the opening statements from both the prosecution and the defense. Always fascinating because they lay out their case. So tell me about the prosecution's case. Well, right.

This trial very much is about two different stories about who Keith Raniere is and what NXIVM was. The prosecution says Keith pretends to be a guru, but he's a conman. He's the crime boss of a criminal organization. And they talked about how he slowly built trust with people and then used that trust to control people, to make money and to gain power. And they talked about how he groomed underage girls for sex. So then you heard from the defense.

And just to remind people, we've also heard from the defense, right? So you interviewed Mark Agnifilo. These are choices. You know, eye-open, adult, knowing, voluntary choices that these people are making. And for the government to just sort of say,

well, you know, they're brainwashed. You know, they're effectively brainwashed. That's really what the government's saying. How closely related was his defense or his opening statements to what you ended up talking to him about in the podcast? They were pretty similar. I mean, the main argument that Mark Agniflo was making was he started off by saying Keith Bernieri acted in good faith. He has spent his life. His record is that he's helped people.

He is committed to helping people achieve their personal and professional goals. He also said that similar to what he said in the podcast, look, the people that were part of NXIVM were adults, many of them well-educated and successful adults. And you have to look at that personal responsibility here. They entered this group eyes wide open. They knew what they were a part of. So the first witness, it was a young woman. Tell me about her. So the first witness was Sylvie. They just used her first name in this case. And she was a member of DOS, which is that secret women's group that was affiliated with NXIVM, the one that Sarah Edmondson was a part of as well. It's amazing, isn't it? Because really up until this point, you and I have only ever heard from Sarah as a member of DOS. I know that Alison Mack has spoken

to others about being a member of DOS, I know that Alison Mack has spoken to others about being a member of DOS, but really there aren't too many women coming forward and saying they were members of this group. So it's fascinating to hear her. Our window into this story and the inner workings of NXIVM and DOS has been very small and this trial will blow that open in a lot of ways. So how did she end up on the stand against Keith? What happened? Well, so here's her story. Sylvie is from the UK. She's a competitive show jumper. When she's 18 years old, she meets Claire Bronfman, who was part of NXIVM at the time and also a competitive show jumper. She meets her at a competition in Europe. Claire invites her to come to the US to train with her. And Sylvie agrees. It's an exciting

opportunity. She moves to just outside Albany, where Claire lives, where NXIVM is headquartered. And she very quickly becomes part of the NXIVM world. lives, where NXIVM is headquartered, and she very quickly becomes part of the NXIVM world. She starts taking NXIVM courses, and she gets very, very deep into it. This is back in 2003. So how did she go from being a NXIVM student with the courses to getting into DOS? So flash forward over 10 years, in 2015, she's approached by another woman in NXIVM named Monica Durant, and she's pitched on joining this group, which she's told by another woman in NXIVM named Monica Durant and she's pitched on joining this group which she's told is not affiliated with NXIVM Keith Ranieri's not involved with it

it's a women's only group to take her personal training to the next level very similar to the pitch that Sarah was given and she said in order for you to join you have to hand over collateral the collateral ends up being a letter that she writes to her parents falsely confessing that she's a prostitute. The letter includes a naked picture of herself. And she becomes part

of this world. She has to call Monica her master. She gets involved in readiness drills where she has to respond to text messages asking if she's ready within one minute. She is now a slave in DOS. And this is before Sarah becomes part of DOS. This is two years before Sarah became part of DOS, which means that it was interesting to discover that DOS had been around for a while before it all fell apart. And it's interesting to remember that Keith is not openly involved in DOS, that it's a woman who is asking Sylvie to join a woman's only group. And that was the story of DOS until now, that it had nothing to do with Keith. Yeah. Interestingly, Keith's defense lawyer in his opening statements admits that Keith actually was at the head of DOS so that he is now claiming that Keith actually created DOS,

but the argument about why he created it is different. Now he's saying it was created to help women in their personal growth. So they're no longer making the claim that Keith is not part of it. And you know, interestingly, when the story about DOS originally broke, Keith posted a message on the website saying, I am not a part of this group. I am not a part of it.

It's not affiliated with NXIVM. It was created by women who are part of the group, but it doesn't belong to the group. That story has obviously changed now. And it was a major point that Keith was not involved in DOS. So this is a huge change in their messaging. Absolutely.

So just going back to Sylvia's experience, very soon after joining, Monica tells her you need to seduce Keith. And she sort of tries to stall for a bit. Monica prods her. She sends a message to Keith saying, you look really hot in your glasses. And Keith responds, that's not enough. And asks her to send a photo. She sends a photo of her face. He says, I want you to send something more vulnerable. And there's an exchange back and forth where she keeps sending more and more photos. He has her sending a topless photo.

And then eventually she says, I basically sent him a photo without my face of just my vagina. And eventually she has a sexual encounter with him? She does. Eventually she is instructed to go to Keith's house to have a photo taken. Keith has her undressed. She lies down on a bed and Keith performs oral sex on her. She says she felt disgusting. She says it lasted what felt like forever. But she said she felt like she couldn't say stop because this collateral was there. And I should say that not only was the initial collateral there, but her master, Monica, told her that she had to strengthen her collateral every month. So she continued to give over other

potentially damaging information in order to strengthen that bond. When did Sylvie get out of NXIVM and DOS? Interestingly, Sylvie stayed in NXIVM past the moment that Sarah and Nippy left, past the moment that the New York Times article came out. NXIVM was kind of collapsing and DOS was collapsing around her. And eventually she packed up and left where she was living in Albany and went back to the UK. And I guess it wasn't until she was in the UK that she started to really unpack everything that had happened. And she says she's still trying to, what she says, get her brain back. Amazing. Okay, so the next witness was a guy named Mark Vicente, who you and I tried really hard to get on the podcast. I mean, I think it was months of us

making phone calls and trying to connect. What's fascinating about Mark is that he was very high up in the organization. He is the filmmaker from L.A. who actually recruited Sarah on that spiritual film cruise that we heard about in the podcast. I remember thinking, wow, whatever Mark Vicente, from what the belief is up to, I want to do. I want to work with him. And then he leaves and actually helps get Sarah to leave. So there's a lot of similarities between the two of them. Now you finally get a chance to hear Mark Vicente's story. So what was most compelling?

Tell me about Mark on the stand. Right, well, it made a lot of sense that the prosecution brought him because he was so high up in the organization. He had moved to Albany. He was part of the inner circle of NXIVM. He sat on the executive board. And he actually says he was a friend of Keith Raniere's. He was one of Keith's few male friends. and at times they would speak every single day.

We heard they were best friends. And he gave up quite a life, right? I mean, he was a successful filmmaker in LA to move to Albany. I mean, that kind of leads me to my next question, which has to do with authenticity. You know, authenticity and creativity are an interesting match. And he became the NXIVM cinematographer, the kind of resident cinematographer. A lot of those videos that we see of Keith in conversation with other people,

like in Keith in conversation with Allison Mack, was shot by Mark Vicente. One might say if you believe that there's an essential creativity that's within the fabric of the universe or a type of micro uncertainty. So Mark Vicente, he's on the stand. He tells you a lot about how NXIVM works, but he also gets emotional. So at one point they ask him to read the mission statement,

the 12-point NXIVM mission statement. It's something that is read at the beginning of every NXIVM class. So he's read this hundreds, maybe thousands of times before. And they say, can you just read it in your head? And he sits there and reads it and the courtroom falls silent for about a minute. And then he suddenly

just breaks down crying. And he says, it's a fraud. It's a lie. All this and it's only been three days of testimony. There's six more weeks expected. It's going to be fascinating to hear what else comes out of this.

But I'm also really curious to know what Sarah thinks about all this. Yeah, well, we're going to talk to her right now. She's entering our Vancouver studio. Hello, hello. Hi, can you hear me? Hi, Josh. Hi. We're just getting set here.

I just spilled my coffee, Josh. Oh, no. Josh, you realize this is the only interview that I'm doing. I'm very honored. So, you're in New York. No, I'm actually back in Toronto. Cool. And yeah, the first three days of the trial, I want to tell you about it.

I've just been debriefing. Kathleen and I have had a conversation. I mean, before we get there, how's it being a new mom again? Um, it's like amazing and crazy and, uh, healing, very, very healing for me to be a new mom right now. It's like such a great way to, it's not why I became pregnant, but, um, aside, you know, the silver, silver lining and bonus is that I just get to be present and stare into the eyes of a beautiful new soul. And that's just a great way to put everything

in the past. So you're not in Brooklyn, you haven't been at the trial, but Nippy, your husband is. Tell me a little bit about those conversations. What are they like? What's he reporting back to you about what's going on right now? Well, he can't talk to me while he's in the courtroom because you can't have cell phones. But when he gets out, he calls me and gives me the lowdown. And, of course, I always want more information that he's willing to give. He's like, yeah, it was intense. I'm like, intense how? Did he look at Keith?

Did he look at you? What was it like? And he did tell me yesterday he gave Keith a good three-count stare. Was Keith looking back? Yep. Yeah, they looked at each other. I wonder what that's like for Keith to see these people that used to adore him or worship him or uphold him, and now they're just staring at him like he's a piece of scum that he is, in my opinion.

Piece of scum that he is, in my opinion. From you, in terms of what Nippy's been reporting, has there been anything that's particularly shocking or surprising? Well, there's definitely been surprises almost every day. Because when the investigation went underway, we were asked to not speak with each other, the people who'd left. So for me, reading Sylvie's testimony and Nippy reporting back, I mean, this is somebody that, I mean, she's the last person I would have thought to be in DOS. How come? She's just very sweet and not that sweet people can't be in DOS. It's just I wouldn't have put her in that group in my mind. Now that I know, you know, it makes sense.

wouldn't have put her in that group in my mind and now now that I know it may you know it makes sense and I mean I always thought her running was extreme and her weight was extreme and assumed that you know there was something going on there but I the things that I heard that Keith did to her was really hard for me to hear with her like it made my heart just break for her because she's just such a it seems very innocent to me. I'm really glad, really glad to hear that she didn't get branded and that the, you know, us leaving when we did somehow may have helped her not go through with that. Well, and I, you know, it was interesting for me to hear the ways that her story intersected, the moments that it intersected with your story, because I know your story so much better. And she said, you know, that there was a branding ceremony scheduled. And I know you have talked

about how you had heard other women were about to be branded right at the time that you were leaving and you were frantically calling people to warn them not to do it. And this is the first time I've heard the experience on the other end of that, that she said she was at this coaches summit. She was about to get branded. She heard that Sarah and Nippy were going to leave the group and the branding ceremony doesn't happen. That makes me so happy. Josh, I can't even tell you. Like, I don't know how many other sessions were stopped.

that the defense that Mark Agniflo, Keith Raniere's lawyer, has laid out in his opening arguments was to say, look, we're hearing from the prosecution these stories about coercion and manipulation, but these are adults, successful adults, well-educated adults that are part of this group, and the relationships between these women and Keith are consensual. What's your response to that? consensual. What's your response to that? It's tricky because I don't think somebody walking in and just hearing about all of these people and all the players and the relationships and the nuances of this community can be understood very easily. And it's going to be hard for the prosecution to get those things across to the jury. And when I hear Agnifilo say things like that, and his whole opening statement in general,

I found brilliant and yet infuriating because I could hear Keith's coaching in the background. With what specifically? Well, I mean, specifically things like weaving in Winston Churchill and to Kill a Mockingbird. So just to explain those two, because his lawyer is a great performer and a great orator. And so those two moments he quoted from To Kill a Mockingbird and said, in order to understand this story, you have to crawl inside the skin of my defendant, of Keith Raniere. You have to see this story through his eyes in order to understand what his behavior is. So that was the To Kill a Mockingbird quote. At the end of it was

the Winston Churchill part of it, which was he compared the situation he was in to the Battle of Dunkirk, where the British were retreating. And he very dramatically said, this is my island, I am defending, and I will, to my last breath, defend Keith Raniere and his good faith and the way he acted with good intent. And so, you know, it was a powerful performance. I'm sure he's a very, very good actor. And I know he's got a job to do. And I commend him for that. And I hope he wins an Emmy. However, I mean, I'm laughing because partly because I think it's it is ridiculous. And and also it's offensive all at the same time that he would bring those people in and somehow link him to those people. And that's something that Keith did a lot. He would reference great leaders and put himself in a very subtle, faux humble way on the same level as those leaders.

And specifically to answer your question about the relationships, these relationships were consensual. Maybe, or really, did any of these women, any of them sign up to move to Albany to put their dreams of acting or show jumping or hockey or whatever their dreams were, put them aside to become one of Keith's harem members, where they could only sleep with him and nobody else, which, by the way, was shocking in the opening statement. He admitted to that. That was the rule. Those are the rules. When you're with Keith, those are the rules. You can't be with anyone else. You can only be with him. No, first of all, the rule is ridiculous. Like, let's talk about that for a second. You know, the way that he's dismissing and normalizing things that are just not acceptable. That's what got me upset.

Right. And I think it sounds like the tactic that Mark McNuffalo is taking, the argument he's making is, look, these things might not be normal. I'm not saying it's a conventional way of behaving. It's conventional to have these kind of ground rules in a relationship, but it doesn't rise to the level of criminality if the participants in it agree to those ground rules. If the jury finds that reprehensible, that's a personal opinion, but not a legal one. Well, what I don't know if they've really punched yet is the concept that a lot of the things that women consented to, for example, me getting branded, was because my collateral was on the line. Right. And that's the other ridiculous point that I want to make here

is that he says, oh, well, it was never released. It was never released. Therefore, there's no bad intent. Actually, in my opinion, like think about this logically for a second. If they were never planning on releasing it, then Keith just wants to hold on to these pictures. Right. And then I think maybe the other question about that argument is, does the intent to release them or not matter? So could you make the same argument

about holding a gun to someone's head and say, I never intended to shoot them? I think our legal system would still find it a legal problem if you were to threaten someone in that way. But we'll have to see how he trots out their argument and what the full argument he's going to make is. I want to ask you, because the last time I spoke to you on the podcast, it was at a point when six of the NXIVM leaders had been arrested. We were waiting to see what happened. They were all heading towards a trial. But since then, five of those six, all the five women that were arrested have pleaded guilty. And I wanted to ask you, what did those guilty pleas mean to you? You know, a couple things. I think one, hearing Lauren's reading, I guess I should say,

her plea was a great sense of closure for me. At the time I'd just given birth, I found out that basically she was admitting that she lied to me and that she took things from me under the premise of the false assumption that I had this was a women's group when she knew full well that Keith was the leader. And, you know, this has been two years of me saying, hey, world, I'm standing up for this. This is not okay. This is what happened. And while most of society around me is very supportive, it's still important for me that my connection to this community, especially through Lauren and everyone around her has been saying the opposite, that Sarah's the liar, Sarah had

a tantrum, Sarah made it up, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's been really hard for me, that all these friends of mine that still exist inside the community think that of me as much as I can say I don't care what people think. We still do. I still do. And I want to be known for who I actually really am. And to have these lies spread about me has been countered now by Lauren saying, actually, I'm the one that did the bad thing. I lied to Sarah. I brought her in. And I'm sorry. So even though I haven't talked to her and she hasn't said sorry to me personally, it's probably the closest I'm going to get ever. I mean, who knows? Maybe we'll talk one day. But yeah, it was very meaningful to read that. But like I said, I don't, I'm not there. I can't hear her tone. I don't know how much she actually means or if she really gets it.

I don't know if she's like woken up and understands that she's been in a cult and she got duped. I hope she has. I hope all of them have. I really hope that spending a year away from Keith in their ear telling them what to do and head fucking them has and with you know food and sleep and being away from all that control has allowed them to heal and take a step back and recognize that what they were doing was definitely not good. But my sense just intuitively and from what I read is that Lauren is sorry. I don't know about the others. Definitely not Claire. I do not think Claire is apologetic or sincere in any way. And if she had her way, I would be in jail right now. I think she thinks that she's doing the right thing to protect Keith.

Knowing your experience in the group and what you've talked about, how you felt manipulated and indoctrinated in the group, do you feel like they were all caught up in that same way? like they were all caught up in that same way? I don't think anyone signed up to be part of a harem or to be a henchman or henchwoman for Keith. I don't think any one of us would have imagined this for our 20s and 30s. But they crossed the line when they started to do criminal acts. So I'm not going to answer that directly. Right. Do you feel sorry for them?

Yeah, I do. I don't want anyone to be hurting. I mean, I can't imagine any friend of mine that I cared about going to jail. That's awful. But I also think that they need to be held accountable for their actions. I don't know why I'm crying. It's awful. But I also think that they need to be held accountable for their actions. I don't know why I'm crying. That's a really awful thing, what Keith did to so many people. And the fact that they've ruined, he ruined their lives and they've ruined their own lives with these choices.

And I'm just so, it's such a weird mixture of emotions. It's not clearly one thing. Right. I feel vindicated. I feel sad for them. I feel sad for their families. Like Lauren's grandparents, so sweet. Or Allison's parents, who I became quite close with her mom.

That they're dealing with this? Like how horrendous to watch your daughter and find out that your daughter has been with this disgusting man. That must be awful. So I feel really sad for everybody involved. And at the same time, I'm glad that they are feeling and experiencing the effects of their actions. It's not okay to treat people like that. It's not okay to lie to them.

When Mark Vicente has now taken the stand, he's the second witness providing testimony in this case. At the beginning of his testimony, the prosecution asked him to read the 12-point mission statement in his head, actually, on the stand, and he started reading it, and he broke down crying just reading it in his head. And I wondered, could you understand why? I think for some people, they might have had a difficult ability to wrap their head around why this made him so upset.

Well, I haven't talked to him about it because I'm not allowed to speak. But, I mean, I've had moments like that when I'm just like, oh my. It's like an embarrassment and a level of shame that I've never experienced at any other point in my life. Because it's reading it or saying something like that I can imagine juxtaposed with our memory of how we used to say it. You know, with our zealous Cheshire cat grins on our face. You know, success is an internal state of clear, honest knowledge of what I am, my value in the world, and my responsibility for the way I react to all things. Like we felt fucking awesome reading that at some point. Like this was our mission statement. This was our credo.

It made sense in the construct of what we believed we were doing. And then when you step back and have the ahas and epiphanies and awarenesses that Mark and I and so many of us have had, which is we've removed the base assumption underneath our whole belief system that Keith is not a genius. He's not this incredible, intelligent, noble, humanitarian man that's changing the world. In fact, the opposite, it crumbles everything, including the mission statement. And now the mission statement is word salad. It's total hogwash. It doesn't make any sense. It's manipulative, you know, talking about keeping all the money, making as much money as possible within our success plan and what is the line i've tried to block this out josh um i pledge to

ethically control as much of the money wealth and resources of the world as possible within my success plan the ethical control of these things blah blah blah basically saying like we we're going to try to make as much money as we can and keep it within the community so that it's controlled ethically. That's the summary. And it's like, you know, that's only one of the 12 points. That in and of itself is hugely embarrassing. So I imagine that saying these things, knowing that we were duped and we were out there doing intensives in Hollywood with A-list stars

reading this bullshit mission statement with like full vigor and then now knowing that what it was based on it's horrifically embarrassing and shameful and I can only imagine that's what he's feeling but I'm not there. One of the things we realized as sitting in that courtroom and seeing the bankers' boxes or legal boxes full of documents and realizing just how exhaustive and how many resources have been poured into this investigation. I wonder for you if you have thought about how deeply involved you were, and has it ever played out in your mind that you may have dodged a bullet? Like, was there a scenario that you would have gone deeper down this road and have ended up in a position that some of these leaders who have

been arrested have ended up in? Yeah, I mean, I've played out all sorts of scenarios. I think that I definitely dodged a bullet and getting branded as horrific as it was. And I think it's something I'll be dealing with for the rest of my life in some ways. The trauma of that and the decision and, you know, getting myself out of NXIVM. But it also woke me up to what was going on. And I play out, had that happened, had I moved to Albany, which is something that was on the table as, you know, we were looking at real estate, we had a realtor, you know, and I never wanted to move to Albany,

but it was something that Nippy and I didn't agree on. I think I talked about that in the podcast. So if I think that if I'd made that move and then that had happened, I may have, you know, like when you make a decision, you have to like, kind of make it work. Maybe that, maybe that would have,

maybe that would have been a different path for me. But I think ultimately, like we talked about in the podcast, like I never really was all in, like you may have seen me all in being a leader and running a center in Vancouver, but really being all in and next year was moving to Albany and giving everything up, get letting go of your attachment to materialism, as they called it.

And I just wasn't willing to do it. I guess I was just too attached to my materialism. But it was close, as you say. I mean, you were at a point where that was a conversation that was there. I mean, if you wanted to do it. It was a conversation. I was dragging my feet. You were dragging your feet.

So it wasn't a route that was completely inconceivable. It was just one that you didn't love the idea of. I didn't love the idea. But also, I think Keith did try in retrospect his different ways to get to me. And I don't think I would have ever let that happen. And that's, I think, ultimately how you get in his inner circle like all the inner circle we're all with him sexually it appears until he has that kind of control over you he doesn't really have control over you it's been we're getting close to two years

since you left very close oh my god. I need to have a party. Coming out party. Getting out party. Getting out party, not coming out party. Both. Do you feel, you know, we started talking, I guess, a month after you left. So that's almost two years ago that we started having a conversation and you started to reflect on your experience inside the group. And I wonder, two years later, has your thinking about your time in NXIVM evolved since we last spoke in the podcast? and work on myself and trying to even speaking out about it with you in the podcast and the other press has allowed me to kind of get out in front of the the shame and regret and all that stuff and now I'm more like okay this is this chunk of my life I can't go back and change it what did I learn how can I bring that into the rest of my life and help other people not make the same mistakes

I have. Like I'm not, I guess I was trying to be more positive or I am more positive about it. Like I said, it's still pretty deep wound. The wound of betrayal is something that is, I think, takes a long time to heal. Well, you've talked in the past about potentially continuing to help people who have gone through these kinds of experiences. Is that something that you can imagine doing? Yeah, absolutely. Once I'm out of the diaper craziness, I'm going to reevaluate.

One option for me would be to get a degree in maybe psychology or become a psychotherapist with a specialization in cults, cultic studies, and helping people get out. Looking again just at the near future, as this trial unfolds in the next six weeks or so, what are you going to be looking for? What are you most curious about in the coming weeks? I'm curious to see who the witnesses are and to see how the prosecution is able to show the jury the nuances of cults

and how they work and how they get people. Does this trial, is it a milestone for you? Do you see sort of the end of this trial marking an end of an era for you? I guess it depends on what I decide to do moving forward. It's definitely, it's definitely a huge sense of closure and relief that he's being held accountable and I it's there's just so many moments that keep flashing back from my time in NXIVM like Keith doing forums about you know Nelson Mandela being in prison and like how you're still able to build character and like have a sense of happiness even if you're imprisoned and character is only character when it's tested and now he's living all that and the sweet poetic justice of that is ironic and also kind of humorous for me but um oh i forgot your question

josh what did you ask me sorry i had this vision of you loved your analogy yes yeah i did i got caught up in it i was asking to exactly that question about whether there's a sense of closure with this yeah closure yeah um there's definitely a sense of closure i have a feeling it's not going to be closed anytime soon i think this might go on for longer than people think so i don't it's not closed right, but it's coming to a head. And the fact that he's even has been in jail and that he is in court right now is a great sense of relief for me. Well, thank you so much for allowing us to be the only interview that you do during this trial. Thank you for doing what you're doing. Before you go, I want to tell you three small interesting things that I heard in the trial.

The black sash. How do you earn a black sash? I have no idea. I've never been told. You have to invent something that changes humanity. Oh no, I did know that. I forgot about that. Yes. You have to come up with an invention. Yep. Okay. Number two, how much money per month did Claire Bronfman spend on patents? How much money did she spend on patents, like trying to get patents passed? Yeah, or yeah, an attempt to file patents per month. $50,000. That's very close, Sarah.

$40,000. Oh, wow. That's amazing. What? $40,000 a month. What did, according to Mark Vicente, what did Keith Raniere, what was he able to change with just his mind? A light bulb. Bigger?

The weather. Yes. Yes. You knew that? I had heard that. You know what? You just reminded me. I told Lauren I had a dream about Keith.

And she's like, oh, he visited you in your dreams. And I was like, um, did he or did I just have a dream about Keith? I don't know. And he's like, no, it means he's like really connecting with you on a spiritual level. And I was like, oh, I want more of this pop quiz. Could you do a few more? I was trying, I was looking through my notes. The other, well, there was another thing. There's another human-made device that Keith has difficulty using because his energy field, according to Mark Vazende, his energy field. Like a computer

sometimes? Yes, a computer is the right answer. He's gone through many computers because his energy field, according to Mark Vazende, disrupted. That's my pop quiz. But you know, it's interesting. You learn little details sitting in on a trail. All right, Sarah.

Do we wrap it up for real? Yeah, we're actually being kicked out of the studio. But thank you. I really appreciate that you came down. Thanks, Josh. All right. Okay, take care. Bye.

Bye. Bye. That is it for the bonus episode of Uncover Escaping NXIVM. If you haven't listened to the full series, you can find it wherever you get your podcasts. It's season one of CBC Podcasts Uncover. Stay tuned for further updates. And also, I highly recommend listening to the other seasons of Uncover. I'm Josh Bloch. Thanks for listening.