The following is a story that was published in the Albany Times Union. It appeared online on July 11, 2023 and on the front page of the print edition on July 12.
NXIVM defectors seek leniency for blogger Frank Parlato
Figure in downfall of cult-like group faces his own day of reckoning this month in sentencing for federal tax crimes
By Robert Gavin
ALBANY — Frank Parlato Jr. played a major role in the story of NXIVM — first as a publicist for Keith Raniere’s secretive organization, then as a fierce critic whose blog first exposed the abusive “master/slave” group within Raniere’s inner circle, revelations that eventually led to the would-be guru’s conviction and imprisonment.
The story of NXIVM’s downfall could play a major role in determining Parlato’s fate at his July 20 sentencing for federal tax crimes.
Former members Kristin Keeffe, Susan Dones and Nicki Clyne are among those asking Senior U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara to show leniency to Parlato, 68, following his guilty plea to a single count of failure to file tax returns involving cash transactions of more than $10,000.
Prosecutors have described the long-running case as classic tax evasion related to nearly $400,000 in unreported income over several years.
“Frank Parlato helped many women recognize and leave the abuse they experienced at the hands of Keith Raniere and NXIVM,” Clyne said in a statement. The former “Battlestar Galactica” actress, who spent years in NXIVM and the master/slave group Dominus Obsequious Sororium, or DOS, remained loyal to Raniere for years after his conviction, but earlier this year left the tattered vestiges of the organization — with Parlato’s help.
“Even though I initially saw him as an adversary, his dogged dedication to exposing the truth eventually allowed me to see Raniere for who he is and get my life back,” Clyne said.
But Toni Natalie, a former girlfriend of Raniere prior to the founding of NXIVM who was subjected to the group’s penchant for retaliatory litigation, is far more critical of Parlato. She believes Parlato created his blog, The Frank Report, solely to create sympathy for him as he faced tax charges, which were first brought in 2015 following a four-year federal investigation.
Natalie said the blog became increasingly salacious and identified victims for web clicks.
“I am writing this letter to clarify the type of person I now know Mr. Parlato to be,” Natalie said. “Mr. Parlato (is) boldly boasting on his blog that he is only being sentenced for not filing a single paper with the IRS. The way I look at it is Al Capone was convicted of tax evasion, but we all know there was so much more.”
Prosecutors have asked the judge to sentence Parlato to between 18 and 24 months behind bars.
Parlato seeks a non-prison sentence. In court papers, he said after more than 11 years of investigation and allegations he engaged in multimillion-dollar fraud and concealment, prosecutors offered him a plea deal to a single failure-to-file charge related to cash he collected as rent from a food stand in 2010.
The case, brought under then-U.S. Attorney William Hochul — the husband of Gov. Kathy Hochul — had direct NXIVM links from its inception: The initial indictment alleged Parlato had victimized Seagram’s heiresses Clare Bronfman and her sister Sara Bronfman-Igtet, high-ranking NXIVM members and benefactors. But in 2018, a superseding indictment against Parlato dropped the Bronfman-related allegations.
That same year, Raniere as well as Clare Bronfman, NXIVM president Nancy Salzman, her daughter Lauren Salzman, actress Allison Mack and bookkeeper Kathy Russell were indicted by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn. Bronfman pleaded guilty in 2019 to conspiring to conceal and harbor illegal immigrants for financial gain and fraudulent use of identification. She is scheduled for release in June 2025. Except for Raniere — currently serving a 120-year sentence — the others also took plea deals: Mack was released from prison last week. Nancy Salzman is slated for release in July 2024. Lauren Salzman and Russell received probation.
Stephen Herbits, a longtime confidant of Seagram’s tycoon Edgar Bronfman Sr., also asked the judge to show leniency to Parlato. He said in his own letter that the Bronfman sisters attempted to make Parlato a legal target following a Los Angeles real estate deal. Herbits testified at Raniere’s 2019 trial that the sisters pressured him to try to convince various prosecutors — including Albany County District Attorney David Soares and then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer — to bring charges against Parlato and other purported NXIVM enemies.
“They wanted to get him indicted,” Herbits wrote in his letter. “They spent significant funds in venue shopping in Albany, Los Angeles and elsewhere to find a forum that would indict Mr. Parlato and some of the departees from NXIVM.”
Herbits wrote that while Edgar Bronfman Sr. initially asked him to assist his daughters in their NXIVM activities, he declined — but agreed to monitor their participation as it became more concerning to the elder Bronfman. Herbits said the sisters were abusing the legal system to bring baseless litigation and criminal allegations against NXIVM’s perceived enemies.
Parlato first wrote about DOS in June 2017. The group came to national attention later that fall in a New York Times report that expanded on The Frank Report’s stories and ultimately stirred federal prosecutors in Brooklyn to charge Raniere. Police and prosecutors in the Capital Region never brought charges against Raniere or other top NXIVM members despite extensive Times Union coverage of the cult-like group.
“(Parlato’s) work exposing the perfidy of NXIVM’s behavior was critical to the ultimate decision of the trial in that case. To many involved, Mr. Parlato became a hero,” Herbits told the judge. “I ask your honor, through this letter, and given the history of this case for what Mr. Parlato endured and the good he did in helping to bring true criminals to justice, that he be given the minimum sentence permissible.”
Keeffe, who has a son with Raniere, told the judge that when she left NXIVM in 2014, Parlato offered support and refuge.
“When I worked with Frank years before, he had no idea the abuses that were happening in secret to me and other women in NXIVM, nor did I tell him. I hid it,” Keeffe wrote. “However, he must have sensed something was off and one day he had said to me as an aside, ‘You know, if you ever want to leave these people, I usually keep a second home in Florida. You could go there, and I can help you start over.’”
Keeffe added: “Frank never once considered the potential peril to himself for helping us either. Since then and despite facing enormous hardship in his own life he has been a rock of support throughout the years. … I would be heartbroken if after all the good Frank has done, he was sentenced to prison.”
Dones, a former NXIVM leader in the Pacific Northwest, told the judge, “Had it not been for Frank’s continued efforts … NXIVM could very easily still be in the cult business today.”
Other Parlato’s defenders included Ruth MacMurray, an Irish woman who told the judge her teenage daughter became entangled in NXIVM beginning in 2010.
A woman in NXIVM, whom MacMurray did not identify, tried to turn her daughter against her and draw her into the group, she said. MacMurray said she found Parlato after looking up information on NXIVM.
“Frank Parlato came to our rescue. He got our daughter out by Halloween 2016,” the mother told the judge. “There was much healing to be done, but without Frank Parlato’s willingness to listen and help us, our daughter would not be with us today.”
