Uncover - The downfall of NXIVM's Keith Raniere: A conversation with Josh Bloch

Episode Date: September 23, 2020

In a U.S. federal courtroom Tuesday, Keith Raniere was sentenced to 120 years—having been convicted of a slew of crimes related to his alleged sex cult NXIVM. During the trial and sentencing, victims told of how the self-professed empowerment "vanguard" had turned some of his followers into sex slaves and branded them with his initials. Front Burner's Jayme Poisson discusses with Uncover: NXIVM host Josh Bloch.

My name is Ian Urbina. I've reported on some pretty mind-blowing stories, but nothing like what happens at sea. If they got within 800 meters, that is when we would fire warning shots. Murder, slavery, human trafficking, and staggering environmental crimes. Men have told me that they've been beaten

with stingray tails, with chains. If you really want to understand crime, start where the law of the land ends, the outlaw Ocean. Available now on CBC Listen and everywhere you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey listeners, it's Josh Bloch here. Since we launched the podcast in 2018, I haven't stopped following the case around NXIVM and Keith Raniere.

And now, Keith Raniere. And now, Keith Raniere has been sentenced to 120 years in prison. I unpack that with Jamie Poisson. She's the host of the CBC Daily News podcast, FrontBurner. FrontBurner breaks down one important story every weekday morning. It's definitely part of my daily routine. And you can subscribe to that podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Here's our conversation. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. So three years ago, if you were one of the women who had been victimized by Keith Raniere, the man seemed untouchable. Raniere was a leader of the cult-like and nominally self-help group

NXIVM. Now that's all changed. In a U.S. federal courtroom on Tuesday, Keith Raniere was sentenced to 120 years, having been convicted of a slew of crimes, including turning some of his followers into sex slaves and branding them with his initials. Joining me to explain how Ranieri's house of cards finally fell down is Josh Block. He's a familiar voice on this show, and he's also the host of Uncover Escaping NXIVM. This is Frontburner. taping NXIVM. This is Frontburner. Hi, Josh. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast again so soon. Hey, Jamie. It's good to be back on the show. I didn't think I'd be back this soon. Look, I know you've spent years looking at this organization, 120 years Ranieri got. Did you expect this to happen? You know, I was thinking back to when I first ran into Sarah Edmondson,

who was my childhood friend who I ran into in 2017. Sarah Edmondson. We met when we were two. We went to the same daycare. Last summer, I ran into her on Hornby Island in British Columbia. I hadn't seen her in about 15 years. And we had one of those disjointed conversations you have as you run after small children. I told her, I work at the CBC.

And she replied, I just left a cult. And at that time, you know, NXIVM was in full operation. They had centers across North America. They were looking to expand into Europe. People were signing up for these self-help workshops. And today, you know, the sentencing is the remarkable end of this dramatic unraveling of the organization that's happened so quickly. So more recently, I perhaps am less surprised. But when I think back to starting to look into this organization, it is quite remarkable. And remind us what Ranieri was being sentenced for today.

Right. So last year in the same courthouse, Keith Ranieri had a six-week trial and he was facing seven counts, which he was found guilty on all of them. And they range from sex trafficking to child pornography to racketeering, which is this charge that's usually reserved for mafia and criminal organizations. But the prosecution made this case that there was a pattern of illegal activity happening in NXIVM and that Keith Raniere was essentially a crime boss that was using NXIVM for his personal gain, for his financial gain to procure sexual partners. And a big chunk of their investigation focused on DOS, on the secret women's group inside the organization, that women joined thinking they were joining a women's empowerment group, and they handed over collateral in the form of nude photos and explicit videos.

And once they were handed over, they talked about how they were essentially blackmailed. Some of them were, many of them were branded on their body with the initials of Keith Raniere. Do you think the person who's being branded should be completely nude and sort of held to the table like a sort of almost like a sacrifice. I don't know if that's a feeling of submission, you know? Some of them were instructed to have sexual encounters with Keith Raniere. And they felt that if they did not comply with those demands, they would have their collateral released and that their lives would be destroyed. I mean, that's where the kind of sex trafficking charges come from.

And so the judge, having found Ranieri guilty of the sex trafficking and of essentially being the head of this criminal organization, what did he have to say today when he sentenced him to 120 years? to say today when he sentenced him to 120 years? Well, I mean, he first of all, in addition to sentencing him, also slapped him with a significant fine. I believe it was $1.75 million. He also instructed Keith Raniere to have zero contact with any NXIVM associates, which is very important for people who have left the group that want to see NXIVM completely collapse. And he was very clear that he was unimpressed with Keith Raniere's lack of remorse in this case. And certainly that has played into the significant just how long this prison sentence is. Right. And I want to get to his lack of remorse in a moment. But first, if we could spend a little bit of time talking about the survivors here, there are 15 victim impact

statements that were read on Tuesday, some pretty intense statements about how Ranieri left many women traumatized. And can we start with the first woman to give a victim impact statement, a woman named Camilla? Who is she? Right. Yeah, she was just identified as Camilla in the courtroom. And her testimony is so heartbreaking. She was 15 years old, she says, when Keith Bernieri first began a sexual relationship with her. And that relationship went on for 12 years. And she says that she just had her childhood and her youth robbed from her. She said, quote, he used my innocence to do whatever he wanted with me, not just sexually, but also psychologically.

He manipulated me into what he wanted for his own reasons and for his own pleasure. And, you know, it is very remarkable to hear her case because it's her case that is the basis for the child pornography charges that Keith Raniere faces. I mean, the FBI found nude photos of her when she was 15 on his hard drive. So very heartbreaking to hear. And obviously, I presume very dramatic for her to provide this testimony directly to him. Right, right. I saw the New York Times was reporting that she was advised not to participate in the trial. And then this was the first time that she actually decided to speak out on Tuesday. I know her whole family is entangled in this as well, right? And her sister also spoke on Tuesday.

And her sister had been ordered to be confined to a room for almost two years because she apparently kissed another man. Yeah, that's right. I mean, the story of this family is so bizarre and so tragic. And this came out in the trial as well, that Keith Raniere had sexual relationships with three people in that family. And this woman committed what they call an ethical breach, which was that, you know, if you're in a relationship with Keith Raniere, you're supposed to be entirely devoted for him. You may not be with other people. And she had admitted that she had a crush on another boy and she was confined to a room for almost two years. And they actually, NXIVM took away her passport. She's a Mexican national, so she really couldn't leave and was stuck there. And that was, her story was very powerfully

recounted by her in the trial last year. Right. Right. And I understand the whole family has been torn apart by this. Ranieri apparently had a sexual relationship with all three of the daughters in this family. And the oldest daughter and the father are still supporters of Ranieri. This is such a tragic story. 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 if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. I want to talk about another one of the survivors here. Millions of people have heard your podcast and are familiar with Sarah Edmondson, a former high-ranking leader in this group. She's a Canadian. She ran the Vancouver chapter. She is branded with Keith's initials. And what did she have to say today? So she provided a victim impact statement actually by video.

She said, you're not my coach or a guru or a leader. You're a parasite, a grifter, and a liar. And I hope those words impacted him. It's interesting. She used a lot of the NXIVM language. I mean, those ideas, obviously, they have colloquial use, but have a particular significance within NXIVM. But she really used that language to attack Keithisy that he claimed to be this, you know, enlightened leader and this enlightened guru and someone that she was committed to and followed for so long and presumably wants to lay it on the line and let him know that he's not what he espoused to be. He lied to us, to many of us, and there's a mixture of happiness and sadness, and I hope that everyone can heal and move on with their lives. You mentioned earlier how Ranieri has maintained his innocence throughout this trial, and he has supporters who were in the courtroom on Tuesday, I understand. And what do they all have to say

about this? Yeah, I mean, it's so interesting that despite everything that's come out about this group, I mean, in the early days, fine, you can understand why some people took a long time to leave or wrap their head around what was happening in the organization. But now there's been so much media coverage, so many documentaries, these very extensive investigation by the FBI. And yet there were more than a dozen people that are supporters of Keith Raniere that were at that courtroom today who believe that he is innocent, who believe that he has not received a fair trial, and they stand by him. And it seems like nothing would shake them. I mean, I wonder, I'm curious to know, because one of the claims they make is that Keith Raniere's hard drive was tampered with after it was confiscated. And they claim to have some kind of evidence, forensic evidence that that these photos, nude photos were planted on the hard drive. And yet today you have Camilla coming forward in her victim impact statement saying that was me. It happened like there's no question that it happened. And I can't help but wonder if that's not going to shake some people out of their loyalty away from Keith. I understand he's also recently started recording his own podcast from prison.

This call is from Keith Ranieri, an inmate at a federal prison. Hey, Keith. Good morning. Did I wake you? I know. I was up already. Good morning. Did I wake you? I know. I was up already. Oh, good. Again, I'm just going to freewheel a little to see how this goes, to express a few things. Can you tell me more about that? Yeah, yeah. It was, you know, earlier this week I got tagged in a tweet by, I assume it was one of his loyal followers,

that said, you know, Keith Raniere is actually releasing his own podcast. He wants to tell his side of the story. Check it out. And I sure enough, I hit the link. I mean, it's a podcast sort of in air quotes. It is essentially like a monologue from a prison phone where he is telling his side of the story. And it is that same story saying, look, you might think I'm a saint. You might think I'm the devil, but like everyone should be interested in this case because it is a case of the failure of the criminal justice system. The prosecution lied to the court. The prosecution tampered with evidence. The prosecution suborned perjury. And there are more and more points. And he still claims to be innocent of all the charges that he has been found guilty of. Right. I know he has said that he plans to appeal the conviction. I want to back up a little bit.

A lot had to happen to even get to this trial, right? Can you take me through some of the major dominoes that fell before this trial even began? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to see because there's a lot of stuff going on. And the piece that I knew about initially was that, as I said, I had run into Sarah Edmondson. She had just left the group. She was part of that secret women's group, DOS, and she had been branded on her body with Keith Raniere's initials.

And she went to The New York Times and it was on the heels of that story. In fact, the FBI said explicitly that they launched an investigation into NXIVM because of that New York Times article. Now, even to get to that New York Times article, as you know, if people have been watching the HBO series, The Vow, and they have incredible access to this period of time, especially of the kind of unraveling of the organization, but there was a lot of stuff going on. Other high level people like the person who recruited Sarah Edmondson, Mark Vicente, also left the organization. And so you had all these people trying to drum up attention,

trying to strategize what they could do. And there was a lot of fear at that time, because if you came forward, people who had come forward in the past had paid a huge price, like NXIVM would go after detractors and defectors very aggressively. And even their previous attempts to go to the FBI and say, like, there's something not right here didn't lead anywhere. I mean, the FBI didn't do anything until that article came out. And then the FBI launches an investigation. Keith Raniere leaves the country.

He goes to Mexico. investigation. Keith Raniere leaves the country. He goes to Mexico. And a few months later, he's arrested in Mexico, along with five other co-accused, five other leaders in the organization. Right. And these co-accused include Claire Bronfman, the heiress to the Seagram's liquor fortune, right? And Alison Mack, who's an actress in the television show Smallville. Yes. And Claire has been sentenced. She was sentenced last month, but Alison Mack and the other co-accused have not yet been sentenced. I mean, their sentencing will be coming up soon. Essentially, as you just went through, all of these people ended up pleading guilty and Ranieri went to trial alone it was just him and we talked about Camilla's story and the story of Camilla

and her family but can you take me through some of the other big revelations that came out at the trial it strikes me when I was listening to your podcast and seeing the original initial reporting on this, like the New York Times piece, it was crazy, right? The stuff that was coming out, Sarah's story, how she was blackmailed for the collateral that she handed over and then physically branded. But things got much darker, it felt like, as the trial went on. One of the things that we discovered was just the extent to which people were kind of operating in the silos in the organization. So even for people like Sarah, who had been part of it for 12 years, I mean, there was stuff coming out in the trial that she did not know about. And Keith Raniere

and the inner circle had done a very good job of managing information, managing who do what, who was running what part of the organization in some innocuous things and some really egregious things. And I think some of the most shocking stuff for people was just how many people Keith Raniere was in a sexual relationship with. I mean, he had a harem of 10 to 15 women. And we discovered that he was forcing many of them to have abortions on his direction. We discovered a lot of manipulation and coercion. We discovered that this kind of front-facing side of Keith Raniere, you know, sometimes he was even claimed to be like a celibate and a renunciate. They renounced all material goods. It was, you know, behind the scenes, something very, very different was going on. Yeah, it was. It was really difficult today

to read some of these victim impact statements. One of the women, India Oxenberg, you know, she said flat out, like, he raped her. I want to ask you, hearing so much about this abusive behavior, how is it that you think Ranieri was able to draw so many people into his web, into his orbit? Yeah, it's a great question. And it's one that we kind of grappled with a lot as we were investigating the organization and trying to figure out who he is, because he's really dorky. If you've watched the HBO documentary, you kind of see a whole, they have incredible access to who he is. And he plays volleyball and he has this like terrible haircut and he instructs, you know, his followers to come watch him play volleyball, you know, late at night,

twice a week. And he's kind of awkward. So what is it about him that made people come to him? And I think there's a few things we discovered. One was that he had this really remarkable ability to build rapport with people, to connect with people. And people felt like when he talked to you, he got you. He made you feel like you were the only person in the room. And he really was able to very quickly understand what made you tick. The other thing that made the organization powerful was the people that he surrounded himself with. And it was really having this group of charismatic women around him, predominantly women, that propped him up. So there was a lot of building up, a lot of veneration of him, and that became infectious. And then the last thing I would say that was so smart or effective with this organization was their ability to

attract powerful people and successful people. So you had Alison Mack, you had actors that had some degree of fame, you had the Bronfman sisters that are these billionaire heiresses. You had the sons of a former president of Mexico. And so when Sarah Edmondson and when other people were going around and trying to recruit members to NXIVM and convince people to take the course, they could point to them and say, look, who's a part of this? These are not just schmoes that are part of this organization. These are very successful, powerful people that are coming here because they believe in Keith Raniere.

And probably the biggest coup, I mean, the biggest win for them was the Dalai Lama coming to Albany. And you have, in 2009, you have Keith Raniere and Nancy Salzman sitting on stage with the Dalai Lama. And essentially the Dalai Lama, I mean, the perception is the Dalai Lama is endorsing this organization. It kind of provided such an incredible legitimacy to this organization. And that, again, is just a huge win for it. It's so interesting to hear you talk about all of these well-known figures that essentially gave this a veneer of legitimacy. I know that you've been covering this nonstop, and I imagine you haven't necessarily had a chance to talk with the survivors, with Sarah, with other survivors here. How do you think, though, that they would react to this, this 120

year sentence, which is, you know, for all intents and purposes, a life sentence? Final question for today. Yeah, I mean, I think for many people, there's just a huge amount of relief, partly because, you know, and I spoke to many people who felt they were afraid of NXIVM, even though they might have left decades ago. They felt that their lives had been destroyed by Keith Raniere and NXIVM. They've been dragged through courts. They had been forced into bankruptcy. And to know that he's finally behind bars, that this chapter in their life is closed and that they can move on, I think is a huge amount of relief for many people. But there's also people who, and we heard it in these victim impact statements today, who have experienced a huge amount of trauma. long experience for anyone that is part of a coercive, a high control organization like NXIVM, that it's very difficult, you know, after you make that initial step out of the organization,

after you break free and leave, you then have to grapple with having been a part of it, having been complicit in that organization, even if you didn't know what was going on, but that you had devoted your life to it and you had propped up this man. And that can be really difficult. It can be really difficult to extricate yourself. Again, I imagine that seeing him behind bars provides some closure, but I think for many people, it will take a long time to fully reckon with their role in this organization. Josh Pluck, thank you for all your reporting on this and for coming back onto the podcast. It is such a pleasure. Thank you. That's it for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner and talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.