Uncover - S1 "Escaping NXIVM" E4: The Suppressives

Episode Date: September 15, 2018

What happens when you leave NXIVM? Those who have left or spoken out reveal the price they paid. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/uncover/uncover-season-1-escaping-nxivm-transcripts-listen-1.4675949

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. Previously on Escaping NXIVM. It wouldn't be like, you know, hey, Keith wants to have sex with you. It's, come to Albany.

Were you afraid of him? At that time, yeah. I trusted the people around me that he was who he said he was, and I went to bat for him. Mark Vicente got me in and got me out. Keith created this faux women's empowerment program within the structure of NXIVM to maintain loyalty and to feed his

sex addiction. That's when I was like, oh my God, what am I in? Certain things started to click. Things started to click. In an instant, everything made sense. And things started to spiral. Sarah Edmondson knows what can happen when you leave NXIVM. Because I'd heard other, you know, there'd been

other rumors in the past about like, you know, what happened with Barbara Boucher or like Tony Natale's dog, and it's like oh my god. I was a mess, Josh. I mean, I couldn't sleep. I ended up getting, having

a friend of mine who's a handyman come over and put deadbolts, like those locks you get up for hotels, not deadbolts, but those like extra locks that go over the, on my outside door and on my bedroom door. I couldn't sleep. I was so anxious. I mean, I pictured him like sending people to like assassinate me. like, sending people to, like, assassinate me. I'm Josh Bloch, and this is Escaping NXIVM. From CBC Podcasts Uncover.

Chapter 4. The Suppressives. Check, check, check. Boom, boom, boom. When I started looking into Sarah's story, I was surprised to discover that Sarah was not the first person to try and get out of NXIVM. Sarah knew what happened to others who stood up to Keith. Good morning.

Give me your coat, and if you wouldn't mind taking your shoes off. Their stories served as a cautionary tale. This is your war room. This is my war room, yes. We've driven out to Rochester, New York, to visit with Toni Natale. Toni was Keith's girlfriend for eight years. She was the woman who met Keith when he was running Consumers Byline. Keith doesn't draw bad people to him. He draws really good people. Tony was Keith's girlfriend for eight years. She was the woman who met Keith when he was running Consumers Byline.

Keith doesn't draw bad people to him. He draws really good people. You've interviewed these people. They're amazing. They're amazing. Nobody comes to ESP or NXIVM saying, oh, let me learn how to fuck people's lives up. That's not what they do. They come because he presents so well this beautiful way of helping people

make things better for other people. I think we're innately good in nature and we want to do the right thing. People do things in a natural sense for betterment. For betterment. It takes a while for them to realize that they've just been conned so harshly. I'm struck right away by how much Toni looks like Sarah. She's got high cheekbones, slight build, and almond-shaped eyes. I feel like I'm in a Charles Dickens novel, visiting some future version of Sarah. One that's been chased by Keith for years.

Can you just describe what this whole setup is? It is a whiteboard. Here in her storage room, between the washing machine and the free weights, is a long desk with file folders, banker's boxes, and a whiteboard the length of a car. I started off with moving paper, writing things down, and then I moved on to a whiteboard, and then I moved on to printing them, putting them in folders. So it's questions that I needed to get answered and things that I felt were lies. Every inch is covered in names, dates, questions, and notes. It's one of her battle plans in her protracted breakup with Keith Raniere. I'm still in litigation right now, so I'm a little tired.

This breakup started in 1999, and it turned into a war with NXIVM. Today, Tony Natale lives alone with a large mutt named Ramona. Almost 20 years on, she still doesn't feel safe. I live where I can see around me. Tony's little greenhouse backs onto a ravine. She told me she chose it for its almost 360-degree view. There's been a series of incidents over the years since she left Keith. Her house has been broken into.

Her dog was poisoned and died. A private investigator was monitoring her home and business. She believes Keith was behind these things, though that's never been proven. There's a creek on the other side, so they have to cross through the creek. The only dangerous aspect is straight back are woods that go into a canal. It's okay. Say hi. Say hi to everybody. Okay, it's good, great. Okay, all right. So somebody comes through the canal and back up to the woods. But she's pretty aware of what's going on in the backyard.

You know, accidents happen. I'm really careful of everything I do and everywhere I go because I just feel it's important to me. where I go because I just feel it's important to me. After leaving Keith, the health food business they were running collapsed. It was in her name, so she was saddled with the debt.

This is when her legal troubles began. Tony filed for bankruptcy in 1999. Keith and Nancy Salzman intervened in her claim. And it took six years to settle. Years later, Tony was accused of breaking into the NXIVM computer system. NXIVM sued her.

Then the police laid criminal charges. It took two and a half years to settle these cases. And when you don't care really about the outcome, but you just care about using the system as a stalking device, you don't care. When money isn't an issue and the outcome is an issue, it's a weapon. And that's what they do. They use the legal system as a weapon. Tony became one of the first people to speak to the media about Keith and NXIVM. I have not filed a complaint against NXIVM or Keith or Brofman's or anyone

for the years of continuous assault. I just keep waiting for it to stop. Your life has been on hold. I call it, I'm waiting. I'm not like a waiter, I'm waiting, yeah. My life is on hold. As we chat, Tony fiddles with a silver bracelet on her wrist. See my bracelet?

It's engraved with two words. It says orange jumpsuit. Orange jumpsuit. The thing that takes my fear away is I see Keith in an orange jumpsuit. So orange jumpsuit has become a little bit of a motto. I want to see him held accountable in the system that he has used to abuse many people for years. Sarah says when she was in NXIVM, she knew all about Tony, even though they had never met.

They say there was a woman that was in the company and she was a suppressive. A suppressive in NXIVM is someone who behaves unethically, lies, steals, and cheats to get what they want. There's a NXIVM course all about the danger of suppressives. Sarah says Tony was often used as the example. He had to write those modules about suppressive behavior because of Tony. She spends all her life for us trying to take down NXIVM.

Isn't that terrible? Now we have to educate ourselves as to what suppressive people look like so that we don't get fooled again. Sarah feared if she left, the course would become about her. Leaving NXIVM would mean that she would become entirely

cut off from people inside the group. Across the country from Tony and Natali, I follow Susan Doans up a rickety ladder into her attic. She's got her own battle scars. She's got her own battle scars. Yeah, so here they are, right here. There's four banker boxes full. Susan wants to show me the banker's boxes full of documents from her fight with NXIVM. This one says legal docs.

Susan's bungalow is in Puyallup, a middle-class neighborhood in Washington state, just south of Tacoma. She works as a massage therapist, though her no-bullshit personality fits more with her career in the Navy, where she was enlisted for a decade. Oh, these are exhibits from the case. Do you have to hang on to all these banker boxes? Well, we don't have to. Susan took the very first 16-day workshop NXIVM ever offered back in 2000. How was the mission expressed to you? Well, it was, you know, helping humans to be more integrated within themselves so that they could be better human beings.

You know, and then the more better people are on the planet, then the better world we could have, kind of thing. She opened a NXIVM center in Tacoma with her partner Kim. It was the first center outside Albany. I wanted to create a wellness center that not only worked on the body, but worked on the mind and the spirit. Susan was actually the woman who ran Sarah's first five-day workshop. In some ways, Susan's story is similar to Sarah's.

Like Sarah, her center was thousands of kilometers from NXIVM headquarters. I mean, I had to go back and forth to Albany every month for meetings. Like Sarah, she believed in the ESP curriculum. I thought the way they packaged it was excellent. And also like Sarah, she never had any kind of sexual relationship with Keith. I found him creepy. But unlike Sarah, Susan was never able to make any money through NXIVM. We lived pretty meager lives.

I mean, most of our money was spent on our center, flying back and forth to Albany. Or it was, you know, taking courses or putting money into our center. And I think if I hadn't been so far in debt, I would have walked away a lot earlier. Even though I had a strong foundation of myself, I was always in a constant state of fear. Nine years in, Susan became disillusioned with the company. She was frustrated.

She thought the business model was broken and that there was no way for her to climb out of debt and make a living. So she called her friend, Barbara Boucher. When I said I've had it, I'm just going to close my center down. Barbara was a NXIVM executive. She had been Keith's girlfriend for eight years, his so-called Dagny, who ended up in his harem. Susan says Barbara was also fed up with Keith. That was the first time she ever told me, although I had suspected, that she had had a sexual relationship with Keith for years.

And she told me the whole setup of how he pretended like he was her boyfriend. And then when she found out he wasn't her boyfriend, that he was sleeping with multiple women, then they would send in what I call the wolf pack. You know, all these women that sleep with Keith to work with her on her issues, and then they would bring in Nancy to EM her. So Susan got together with Barbara. Barbara says, in fact, there was widespread dissatisfaction inside NXIVM.

She wanted to bring together a group of people to try and fix it. There were eight that came forward. The NXIVM 9. I made the ninth. They became known as the NXIVM 9. The NXIVM 9 came together at my home. I mean, in my nine years of being there, I never observed anybody sit Keith down and hold him accountable. Ever.

Let alone a group of people. You just didn't do that. There were a lot of secrets in NXIVM. People operated in silos. So right off the bat, it was rare for members to come together like this and exchange notes. Their main complaints were that the company wasn't functioning professionally. It was disorganized and there was favoritism. were that the company wasn't functioning professionally.

It was disorganized and there was favoritism. Oh, and Keith was sleeping with most of the executive board and many of his students. Keith agreed to a three-day meeting to hear them out. When you're about to leave, nine women decide to come together and present Keith with a series of issues they have with the way the company's being run. Tell me about that.

Here's the other thing you need to understand. Did other people confront the leadership? Has anybody told you they confronted? No. Because they didn't. Just me. Anybody that knows me knows that I'm a tough girl. I'm assertive.

I'm a dog on a bone assertive I'm a dog on a bum and I have a strong will and if I believe in something I will stand up for it and I will fight and I'm not afraid of confrontation the process that you are doing you have accused, at times, people of ganging up collaboratively, ganging up on you. It is yet what you sort of manifest here. This is from the third day of that meeting. The NXIVM9 videotaped it all, and every night they would gather at Barbara's house to review it.

They knew Keith could be convincing, and they wanted to be prepared. It was also at times difficult to figure out what the hell he was talking about. I don't care to be right or wrong, integrated or not integrated. Whether you think I am or not, I'll provide proof.

Yes, provide proof. No. It's right with respect to conduct. Blame destroys. Lack of blame. His face was beet red. His veins were popping out of his neck. He was sweating.

He had bags under his eyes. He was nervous. He was tense. He kept holding his pulse like he was trying to calm his pulse down. He was not articulate. He was losing track of what he was saying. He wasn't making sense. It was like scattered garbage, you know what I'm saying?

Non sequiturs. Because he wasn't used to being on a hot seat. Seven minutes of this meeting made its way online. If Keith was trying to build a corporate culture where no one would question him, Barbara seems to be exactly the wrong person to have on board. But what I'm trying to say, though, Keith, is that we believe that there are certain

problems, the pink or white elephants, whatever we want to call them in the room. And yet we as a company don't ever address those elephants. And I don't necessarily agree with you, but maybe not address it the way you think it should be addressed. The effects are our company is falling apart. You don't have the experience of leadership. You don't have the experience of preserving people's lives with what you say and the truth of the matter is, if it affects you...

In a way, neither do you. Yes, I do. No, you don't, because the only company before this was Consumers Byline, and that, in my understanding, fell apart within a few years. This part of the meeting sounds like

a calm exchange. It's not, well... In NXIVM, it's a sign of weakness to show emotion when you're discussing an issue. But Barbara says, don't be fooled. Everyone knew the stakes were high. Here's the thing. I've been shot at because of my beliefs.

I've had to make choices. Should I have bodyguards? Should I have them armed or not? I've had people killed because of my beliefs and because of their beliefs and because of things that I've said. And I'm mindful of that. And I'm leading an organization that's doing something very good.

I've had people killed because of my beliefs. There's been a lot of discussion about what Keith meant by this. Was it a threat, or was it a confession? Or perhaps Keith is trying to say people in the organization have been killed because of what they stand for. That's what Keith's lawyers argued when the tape came up in court.

Susan found it very disconcerting. The hair on the back of my head stood up. You know, when people talk about that, that kind of, I got scared. And I'm like, oh my God, he's just admitted to having people killed. Whatever it meant, Susan says it did not bring the parties closer to a reconciliation. I just said, I'm done, you know, and I just lost it. Like you were in tears? Yeah.

I just felt so let down. I mean, I felt let down by them. I felt let down by myself and that I just, I saw so many red flags, but I just didn't stand up for myself sooner, you know. But it was one of those moments where you just open yourself up and you just mourn. Because you'd put so much into it. It was kind of like a death for me. I guess it's like when you find out somebody that you really, really, really love dies.

Barbara was on the same page. All nine of us got it. We got it. And it was in that moment when we finally got it, we all decided we were going to resign. The NXIVM-9 all signed a letter of resignation. It included a breakdown of money they believed they were owed. And it said if they didn't get it, they were going to the press. They didn't give them their money and, you know, shun them and blacklist them and all that stuff that happened after that, right?

and all that stuff that happened after that, right? After the NXIVM 9 left, the amount of negative publicity about NXIVM exploded. The New York Post, Vanity Fair, even Maclean's magazine started writing about this strange organization. And someone leaked the I've had people killed because of my beliefs video. You know, there's a bunch of options for organizations when they face a PR crisis.

They could hire a PR company. They could do media interviews. That's not the NXIVM approach. When Sarah was figuring out how to get out of NXIVM, she thought about the very particular way the NXIVM 9 was dealt with. It started with internal damage control right after they left.

And it turns out, when the going gets tough in NXIVM, the leadership screens the Oscar-nominated film, The Contender. Understand, those of you who work to bring Lane Hanson down, that she asked to have her name withdrawn from consideration. I'm sure you've heard. It's a great movie. It's so weird that, like, so you're coming to have have this meeting and then you all just watch a movie for two hours. Principles only mean something if you stick by them when they're inconvenient. If I ever did answer the questions, even to exonerate myself,

that would mean that it was okay for them to have been asked in the first place. that would mean that it was okay for them to have been asked in the first place. The Contender is about a politician who, out of principle, refuses to address false rumors about her personal life spread by her political opponents. It's like the movie that they play every time they don't want to speak openly about something because it's more honorable to not speak about the thing and then get in bed with the people who are accusing you of something dishonorable. So in this case, Keith has cast himself as the principled politician, and Barbara and Susan are the opponents, spreading nasty rumors about him.

Sarah tells me she bought this idea that these rumors weren't even worth addressing. She was told Susan was difficult and Barbara was crazy. They were suppressives, trying to harm the company. It basically negates any responsibility they have in owning or refuting these charges. And so it was basically silencing

us. A group of two by the executive board get a letter, and Keith convened an emergency meeting in Clifton Park. One of the coaches at the meeting recorded it. The audio quality is not great. Keith seems to be asking the group what their next move should be. Just imagine being in a life struggle with someone. You're wrestling and back and forth, back and forth. Keith says, just imagine being in a life struggle with someone.

You're wrestling back and forth, and your opponent's on the ground. Do you kill your opponent, he asks. Or do you let him up again? Or if you hesitate, they're going to stab you. Or if you hesitate, they're going to stab you. Do you hesitate? It appears the decision was to not hesitate. Now, if NXIVM was just a community of a few hundred personal growth diehards

who excommunicated people every once in a while, that would be one story. But for a small group, they had access to lots of money to go after people like Susan and Barbara in the courts, in no small part because of the Bronfman sisters, Sarah and Claire. The Bronfmans are very, very wealthy. The kind of wealthy that lets them own a big chunk of an island in Fiji and a private jet to get there. According to federal prosecutors in Keith Raniere's case,

Claire Bronfman has paid for numerous lawyers to build suits against NXIVM critics. Sarah Edmondson was worried she could be next. I mean, every time I saw Claire, she would usually have some sort of,

like, this was always the vibe. It was like, we're going to win. We're having good news soon. Everything's about to change. As if there was this war against people who were trying to take us down. And we were always just on the verge of major vindication with these people.

I've heard from several former members of NXIVM that they were afraid of the way Claire went after adversaries. It's something the FBI has investigated as well. The FBI says Claire maintained a list of critics and their supposed crimes against Keith. They say she orchestrated abusive litigation meant to intimidate and attack perceived enemies and critics of Ranieri. We've tried to ask Claire Bronfman and her lawyers about this directly, but we've not heard back.

In a statement, her lawyer says the government is overreaching in its case. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is.

I don't even know Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. What were the charges against you? Oh gosh, that I destroyed their business, that I tried to extort money from them, and that I was teaching their courses afterwards, that I refused to give them their materials back. After nine years in NXIVM and trying to run a center in Tacoma,

Susan Doans was broke. She filed for bankruptcy. NXIVM intervened. And is this part of the bankruptcy filing, or is this separate to the bankruptcy? It's called an adversary case, where a creditor comes in and files an adversary complaint against you. Susan could not afford to hire a lawyer, so she took the work on herself. She tells me the bankruptcy case became a full-time job for her. At the trial, Susan and her partner Kim were facing off against three high-powered lawyers. Their main attorney's from LA, you know, a $750 attorney from LA. It's so funny because they do

the intimidation factor. You know, they walk in with a hand cart full of banker boxes. And I'm thinking like, what the, what could they have in all those banker boxes that they could possibly use against us? You know, it's a two-day trial. And I'm thinking, like, some of those would have to be empty. You know? NXIVM lawyers filed motion after motion. They argued Susan and Kim were on a campaign of hate against the company,

that she damaged NXIVM by talking to the press and leaking that video of the NXIVM 9 meeting. They wanted her to pay damages. Ms. Stones, so you may take the witness stand. On the stand, because they're representing themselves, Susan's partner is the one to ask her questions. Kim asks Susan, do you believe NXIVM will go to any lengths to destroy you? I believe that they will. I don't think that this is the last legal round. I left, I defected. And my understanding is that if you do that

and you have information that could possibly substantiate illegal activity, that they'll go to the ends of the earth to destroy you. The audio quality is not great, but you can hear Susan's frustration at this point. After I left, it's like, when I left, I felt so stupid. And so when I left, it was like, I wanted to figure that out. Like, how could this have happened to me?

And so I started doing a lot, a lot of research. And then Susan says, I believe I was lied to when I was in NXIVM. I just believed them when they said, oh, this person is a thief, this person is this, this person is that. And they would make all kinds of allegations and then lose the case. In his closing arguments, Bob Crockett, one of the NXIVM lawyers, provided a different view.

In his closing arguments, Bob Crockett, one of the NXIVM lawyers, provided a different view. They blame Keith Raniere and NXIVM for their income problems. They blame Keith Raniere and NXIVM for their credit card issues. These are capable women, one with a master's degree in psychology, a former Navy veteran. I mean, these are capable women who have the ability to control their own destinies and instead they want to act in a... they've gone from being caring, loving, nice people to being rather mean-spirited and they make allegations that NXIVM uses litigation to crush people and dissidents.

That's untrue. NXIVM doesn't bring actions to crush dissidents. It just doesn't happen. I just want to stick up for my client today, and that is it's not an evil, manipulative organization. They make money. It's not a cult. It just makes money. It's got a successful leader at its helm who's a capable man.

It's now time for her to honor her agreements. Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you. All right. Thank you. After 11 months and almost 300 filings, the judge dismissed most of NXIVM's complaints. He raked NXIVM over the coals, saying the litigation tactics were disproportionate and lacking in merit. He called NXIVM's treatment of Susan's partner Kim deplorable.

This decision echoes wording in Tony Natale's six-year bankruptcy case, where the judge wrote that this matter smacks of a jilted fellow's attempt at revenge or retaliation. And then, when it comes to cautionary tales, there's what happened to Barbara Boucher. I have law firms that have said to me they have never in their entire history of the law ever seen a more egregious, malicious lawsuit attack against an individual in their entire lifetimes. I meet Barbara in her hotel room in Manhattan. She sits proud and upright in a blue velvet chair, and looks a bit like a queen on her throne. Barbara was the highest-ranking defector when she left NXIVM. She was Keith's girlfriend.

She had been on the executive board, so she knew a lot about the company. Within 18 hours of my quitting, the legal stalking of me began. 18 hours later, knock on my door, and they served me with legal documents threatening civil and criminal action, accusing me of extortion and coercion and blackmail. And that they reported me to the authorities, and that they were going to take legal action against me. And my whole world came crashing down around me. Between the Bronfmans and NXIVM, Barbara had seven lawsuits filed against her.

Just like in Susan's case, NXIVM pointed to Barbara speaking out. They accused her of being involved in a malicious grassroots effort to destroy the company by going to local, national, and international media. Then they also said that I misappropriated their money and that they suspected that I might have stolen their money. I think it's safe to say that nobody has been sued more than me, victimized more than me, paid more than me, had their reputation permanently destroyed,

their life savings conned out of them. Barbara won't tell me where she lives. She's worked hard to conceal her whereabouts because she's still afraid of NXIVM coming after her. She's got a mailing address in one state and a car registered in another, and presumably neither of those is the state where she actually lives. I've lived for years with nightly panic attacks,

waking up two, three times a night in a complete state of fright and fear, anxiety, trauma, my cortisol levels, my nervous system was shot, you know, becoming post-traumatic stress off the Richter scale, feeling afraid for my life. It's more than the legal battles that keeps Barbara up at night. for my life. It's more than the legal battles that keeps Barbara up at night. She says she learned that Keith might have had other plans to go after her. I don't have a lot of time,

so I wanted to just see Keith. We can catch up on other things. Can we get this right away? In 2014, Kristen Keefe, I wanted to just see Keith. We can catch up on other things. Okay, great. In 2014, Kristen Keefe, one of the original so-called spiritual wives, defected from NXIVM. She's the mother of Keith's son, Galen. Kristen had been in charge of NXIVM's legal battles with Tony, Susan, and Barbara.

When she left, Kristen went into hiding, and she called Barbara. Barbara recorded one of their conversations. He's asking us to sacrifice our lives to do this work we hate. Going after his ex-girlfriends. And what the fuck is he doing?

He's doing nothing. Some of the stories Kristen told her are so bizarre, they make your head spin. She said Claire Bronfman hired a company to dig up dirt on adversaries, including journalists and federal judges. She says Keith worked closely with Claire, and the two of them lied in their court filings. There's the fraudulent allegations made in the civil complaint,

which I know for certain were fraudulent, because I saw that as... And then there's this. Okay, so now I have the final thing, which has to do with the plot, the Mexican plot. The Mexican plot. I remember Tony calling me, you know, we didn't talk a lot, but once in a while, every three or four months, we'd have a little chat. I remember this one time calling saying, you getting phone calls from this Mexican journalist? And I said, we had gotten some, but I hadn't actually connected with the person. She goes, well, she wants me to come down to Mexico.

I mean, and she was like, I'm not fucking going to Mexico. You know, what are they, crazy? Here's the thing. crazy here's here's the thing you and tony and susan was probably getting calls too if you recall to go down to mexico for an anti-cult conference correct um yeah yeah that was an anti-cult conference they brought a judge in me Mexico to issue an indictment against you and Tony and Susan and Kim. You were going to be lured into Mexico. And when you got into Mexico, they were going to put you in fucking prison. Oh, were they really?

How serious were they? They were serious as a fucking heart attack. I saw the judge's decision. He helped write it. He worked on this for years. Fucking years. This was like a three plus year plot. Wow.

Wow. Wow. I've heard a lot of outlandish stories about this group, and sometimes it's hard to know which ones are true. But Barbara tells me that NXIVM did file a criminal charge against her in Mexico for extortion, and that just this summer, U.S. border guards detained her at the airport because of it. I have a ton of questions for Kristen about what she told Barbara on that phone call, but she's in hiding.

I don't know where she is. I asked someone who does if she'd speak with us, and she said no. One of Keith's lawyers told me this story of a Mexico plot is a red herring. For Sarah, she had heard these stories as rumors or fragments, but she was certain that leaving could be very dangerous. How could she avoid this fate? They tend to target only people who one way or another have presented themselves to NXIVM as an enemy. Or NXIVM has reason to think that they will say unkind things

about NXIVM. They won't sit there and just pick someone out of the blue to sue. But if one way or another you cross them or antagonize them and they are pretty thin-skinned, you are likely to find yourself sued. This is Peter Skolnick. I'm an attorney in New York and New Jersey with quite a bit of experience litigating against cults. And he offered legal advice to Sarah. If NXIVM were to draw up a Nixon-like enemies list, I was pretty high on it. I have to this day worn that as something of a badge of honor. They don't like me much. If someone came to you from NXIVM and said, I want to leave and I don't want to have happen to me what happened to Susan or Tony or Barbara, what would be your advice to them?

What would you say to them? Barbara, what would be your advice to them? What would you say to them? If they left and chose not to simply fade into the woodwork and completely keep their mouths shut, it was very likely that the kind of thing that had happened to these women would happen to them. And they should at least, you know, prepare themselves mentally and emotionally for that. Because given the way NXIVM deals with escapees, there's nothing you can really do to protect yourself against them coming after you other than giving them no reason to come after you. Sarah wasn't just in NXIVM.

She had to get out of DOS. Unlike Susan, Barbara, and Tony, she had handed over collateral. She wasn't even sure how Nippy would respond when he found out about DOS and the branding. So now the world's crumbled, Nippy still doesn't even know. Nope, Nippy doesn't know. Sitting in Sarah and Nippy's condo in Vancouver by the water as their son plays with blocks on the coffee table, I do wonder how do you keep such a secret from your spouse? And how would that spouse feel when they found out? I think, well, it was the first time I actually showed you. I showed you the brand because I was in at your parents' place, right?

And I punched a lot of things at that time. Yeah, he was really angry, and I was a wreck. I mean, keep in mind that this had been unraveling for a couple of weeks, even before I told Nip, and I hadn't been sleeping. I was just a basket case. It also occurs to me that Sarah is lucky in a strange way, that Nippy is deep into NXIVM. He understands what convinced her to keep it secret from him. The drills, the collateral,

the penance, are all things familiar to people in NXIVM. Plus, it was also like, we're sleeping in different beds because we can't sleep at night, you know? I'm also having drills, SOP, and DOS drills that wake me up every night. Wake me up. So I'm kind of like, you know. And not even just to respond, I've spent sometimes an hour dealing

with the thing. And I just started, I started boiling. I was like, I wanted heads. I was like, Oh, I felt dirty. It just felt gross to me. And I was like, I got to get out of this right now. I just felt sick. My wife got branded and I'm this, all bets are off for me. So I'm like, I'm getting out. It's June, 2017. Sarah and Nippy are supposed to be in Albany for a big NXIVM conference. And we're like, okay, what do we do? How do we get out of this? This is when I'm scared.

You know, I'm scared at this point because I know, like, getting out's not going to be easy. We're going to have to deal with the Bronfman legality things if this thing, worst case scenario. I know that playbook. I've seen it in action. And I know it's bullshit. So leaving was an easy decision. It was just how.

Do I want to cowboy up, go up there with a baseball bat and take it to his head? And so what was the plan that you guys came up with? The plan was that we were going to go to Albany anyway, and we had our tickets and everything, and my grandfather had just been admitted to hospital. And whenever anyone saw me, they were like, you look awful, what's going on? I'm like, right, my grandfather is sick.

So my grandfather goes to hospital with stomach cancer. I realize I've been on a call for 12 years. It was like, I was I've been on a call for 12 years. It was like, I was just, it was a wreck. And we said, yeah, we decided to do business as usual. They have to pretend everything is normal. But they do their best to come up with a plan. They want to leave NXIVM as soon as possible without stirring the pot.

To do what Peter Skolnick suggests, and go quietly to avoid any backlash. They head to the apartment they were renting for their visits to Albany, while the NXIVM leaders are gathered for their big annual summit nearby. And then I went back to the house and packed up the house. Sarah and Nippy frantically pack up their place. Packed up, like, this is the stuff I'm taking with me, this stuff put in New York City, the rest just give away or sell. I told the leasing agent I we need to get out early.

Nippy dropped Sarah and their son at the train station, and they head to Toronto. And that 10-hour train ride was like one of the most stressful travel days of my life. As far as they could tell, no one in NXIVM had figured out what was going on. That two of their leaders had jumped ship. And Sarah and Nippy had no idea what would happen when they did. It was all very, very stressful. I'm just like... My heart's... I don't think I've ever been in as much fight or flight.

Next time on Escaping NXIVM. Okay, so I want to ask you, tell me about what's happening right now with the Vancouver police. Claire came to Vancouver and spent three hours with the Vancouver police and basically told them a bunch of stuff that I did. I haven't talked to the police yet in person, so I don't know specifically. I know some of the allegations through my lawyer who spoke to the police,

but I haven't heard from the police myself. the police, but I haven't heard from the police myself. Escaping NXIVM is produced and written by Kathleen Goldhar, Anita Elash, me, Josh Block, and Mika Anderson, who is also our audio producer. Heather Evans is our senior producer, and Arif Noorani is the executive producer. Get the series for free wherever you get your podcasts. We're at cbc.ca slash uncover. If you want to discuss this story with others and get the latest updates, become part of our online community by joining the Uncover Escaping NXIVM Facebook group or following us on Twitter at Uncover CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.