This is Part 3 of Allison Mack’s role in the sex trafficking of Nicole. As readers know, Nicole was the only slave in the gruesome Nxivm cult to have been proven to have been sex trafficked.
Nicole was Allison’s slave in Nxivm’s subgroup DOS.
Part 1 Allison Mack’s True Role in the Sex Trafficking of Nicole describes how Allison ordered Nicole to make contact via email with Keith Raniere, the leader of Nxivm. Allison did not let Nicole know that Raniere was also the secret leader of DOS.
When Nicole successfully made contact with Raniere, he offers her advice by email – chief of which is that somehow freedom comes from not doing what you want to do.
Part 2 Allison Mack Begins to Set up Nicole for ‘Sex Trafficking’ Via a First Walk With Raniere tells how Nicole meets Raniere and goes for a walk with him. She is a little concerned when he calls it “a date” – for she has no attraction to the much older man. She is 31, he is 56 at the time [April 2016].
One of the things Nicole clears up in her testimony is why she, a 31-year-old actress, an intelligent and attractive adult woman, is agreeing to be a slave and taking orders from Mack. The reason is is that she, Allison has her “collateral” which is, in essence, blackmail material – to ensure Nicole’s obedience.
This naturally prompts the question – why was she so stupid as to do that?
One can argue it was stupid – but it was done under false pretenses too. Nicole was not told that Raniere was the leader of the DOS group and would view the collateral that included naked pictures and false confessions.
Nicole, an aspiring actress, thought that Allison would help her with her career and all she needed was a little discipline and training – as Allison promised – with a badass women’s empowerment group – women helping women.
Nicole – perhaps in part motivated by ambition and in part because she was going through an unhappy period in her life – bought into the rather extreme concept that in order to join this secret sorority, you had to give something damaging about yourself – to another woman – to ensure you kept the sorority secret. And that you had to do what you were ordered to do – for your own good.
Nicole joined not knowing that Raniere was the secret leader of a woman’s empowerment group. And once she was in – she testified – she was terribly afraid that the collateral would be released if she did not do as she was told.
***
Assistant US Attorney Moira Kim Penza is examining Nicole. It is June 7, 2019 – almost in the middle of the trial against Keith Alan Raniere. She is testifying to events that occurred more than three years earlier, when she just became acquainted with Raniere – just after she took a strange first walk with him.
Penza:
Q After that, did you end up going on additional walks with the defendant?
Nicole:
A Yes.
Q How would those …. first walks … [get] arranged?
A Through Allison.
Q And can you explain that?
A So, a lot of these times these walks would be at like three or four in the morning, and so I would be asleep and he would either call or text Allison and she would tell me to go outside.
Q … you’d be sleeping in her bed?
A Yes.
Q … did you note that there was a particular alert for the defendant on her phone?
A Yeah…. there was a particular sound that she had [on] her phone… for when Keith texted her. So I, like, knew when that was coming.
Q At some point did you end up having a physical response when you would hear that?
A Yeah, …. I was so in fight or flight. So immediately when that sound would go off, I’d go into fight or flight.
Q What time of day would these walks …. happen?
A … two, three, four, five in the morning….
Q On one of these early walks, did the Defendant talk to you about Allison?
A Yes. He said that I had gotten the first walk with him because of Allison, because she spoke really highly of me and because … he thought very highly of her.
***
Q So, at that point, was the Defendant acknowledging to you that he was part of DOS?
A No.
Q Did you know he was part of DOS at that point?
A No.
Q At some point in these early walks, did you start to feel like he was talking about DOS?
A Yes. And it drove me nuts because he’d be talking to me about ‘commitment’ and these things, and I’m like [thinking to myself] “you’re talking about what I’m struggling with, yet you’re not supposed to know what I’m struggling with. I’m not allowed to talk to you about what I’m struggling, and, yet, you’re, like, telling me about commitment and trusting people and all these things.” And it was, like, so confusing in my head because I’m like “do you know or isn’t this just a coincidence or, like, what is going on?”
But it just seemed too weird for him not to know, yet I had no reason to believe that he was part of this women’s organization. I had, like, other women … trying to guess who was Allison’s mentor.
Q Did you actually make guesses as to who you thought was her —
A I did, yes.
Q Who did you guess?
A I thought it was Esther [Chiappone – a high rank member of NXIVM community and one of the leaders of Jness.]
***
Q Now, did the Defendant [Raniere] ever talk to you about trusting Allison?
A Yes.
Q Can you tell us a little bit about that?
A Well, he would talk to me about trusting Allison, but trust in general and how you had to trust and how, … you [get] closer to enlightenment or this idea of freedom if you trusted in someone completely and utterly.
And I was like, “Well, I don’t know because how does that really make sense?” Like, how can someone else know what’s best for you, right? They can, like, tell you things that maybe you could improve on, but how could anyone really know what’s best for you?
And, also, Allison’s only four years older than me, so it’s not like it’s this wise woman that’s, like, telling me the ways of the world, you know? It’s someone who’s four years older than me. So, I was like, “I don’t feel like she can know what’s best for me better than me.”
And he was like, “Well, the fact that she’s imperfect… is even more important in helping you towards freedom because if you can trust fully in a person who is flawed, then … you can find real freedom.” And I was sort of like, “I’m not sure that makes sense to me but, okay.”
“If you can trust fully in a person who is flawed, then … you can find real freedom.” – Keith Raniere
***
Q During these early walks with the Defendant, did he ever ask you any personal questions?
A Yeah. …. he would ask me some questions and I was supposed to go back, go to work [in NYC], think about them, and then come back to Albany and have answers. So, they were, like, “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” “What are you afraid of?” Just, like, super personal questions.
***
Q Did he also ask you about what would be the hardest thing to tell him?
A Yeah, like, what would be the hardest thing to tell him, what I was the most afraid of. Yeah. Questions like that.
Q During these early walks, did you ever discuss the conversations you had had with the Defendant with Allison?
A Yes.
Q Did you ever talk to her about whether the Defendant was in DOS?
A …. I might have asked her because, again, like, it just seems too odd that everything he was telling me seemed to be about DOS. So, I would just tell her that, like, it seems like he knows what we’re talking about.
Q And what would she say?
A … she … told me [DOS] … didn’t have anything to do with NXIVM. Like, “no,” she would just say “no.”
Q At some point, did Allison give you another assignment?
A Yes. …. One morning before a walk, she told me to go outside and tell Keith that I would do anything that he asked me to do.
Q …. were you already on your way to having a walk [with Raniere]?
A Yeah, …. that morning, right before the walk, [Allison said] “I have … another assignment for you. When you go out there, you’re going to tell Keith that you’ll do whatever he wants you to do.”
Q At that point, what choice did you feel you had in completing that assignment?
A No choice. It was an assignment.
Q Did Allison say anything else to you before you started the walk?
A She said, “Now go be a good slave.”
Q So, what did you do?
A I went outside, and he was waiting outside, like, out the backdoor of Allison’s house. And we started walking, and I was, like, too nervous to say it. So, we walked a little ways and then I just, like, kind of blurted it out like, “I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”
Q How did you feel saying that?
A Not good…. I was just saying it because I had to. I didn’t want to say it.
Q … what did the Defendant say after you said that?
A I think he said, “I don’t think you mean that.”
Q Then what happened?
A I said, “I don’t. Yeah.”
Q And then what?
A I don’t remember whether it was right away or at the end of the walk, but he said that he would have me come back out and say it when I really meant it.
Q At some point during that walk, did he ask you another question?
A Yes.
Q What did he ask you?
A He asked me what the worst thing … he could ask me to do.
Q How did you feel when he asked you that?
A Really scared.
Q Did you start thinking about things?
A Yes. I think in the situation that you’re in, when you feel like you have no choice, when someone says, “What’s the worst thing that you can do,” it’s incredibly scary. And I remember, like, looking up at the roof of a house that we were walking past and thinking, like, “Oh, my God, like, he could ask me to jump off that roof.” And then in my head, just being, like, he could ask — my head started going over, like, all sorts of things, like, worst case scenario.
So I told him, I said, “You know, I thought that it would be … something sexual that would be the worst thing that you could ask me to do, but that’s actually not true. The worst thing that you could ask me to do would be to ask me to hurt someone in my family or hurt myself or hurt someone else.”
Q And did you explain that?
A Yeah. Like, if he asked me to, like, again, jump off a bridge and commit suicide, like — I mean, I know it sounds completely crazy, but, like, you know, or to hurt someone. Like, when your brain is thinking like that, like worst case scenario, you’re like what if someone asked you to kill someone? What if someone asked you — so I was, like, what if he asked me to never speak to my family again? I was slightly freaking out.
Q How did the Defendant respond when you said that to him?
A He said, “Do you really think that I would ask you to do those things?” And then I sort of like calmed down a little bit….
***
Q Looking back, do you have a view on how that exchange with the Defendant affected you?
A Yeah. I mean, at the time I was feeling like there are just these vibes that I was getting, like something, like, something sexual is going on, like, in this community or situation, and I didn’t feel good about it. But, like, in that walk and him asking me that question, it all of a sudden makes something sexual not that bad because by comparison, it’s not. Like, something sexual happening would only hurt me, no one else gets hurt, so, in the circumstances, it’s not that bad.
And I can just kind of see, like, the thought process of where that was what I was most afraid of, and all of a sudden by the end of that walk that [something sexual] wasn’t what I was most afraid of.
Q … at some point in the walk or at the end of the walk [what did] the Defendant [say]… ?
***
A …. we talked about, like, bravery and commitment…. Because I remember just, like, that was on my mind, that I needed to be brave and I needed to be committed…
Q So, after that walk, did you go back to Allison’s house?
A Yes.
Q And did you tell her about what had happened?
A Yes.
Q And what did she say?
A “Okay. So, you’ll go back out tomorrow.”
Q And did you end up doing that?
A Yes.
Q So, did that walk get arranged the same way as the others?
A Yes.
Q So, were you in Allison’s bed?
A Yes.
Q And what happened?
A I was sleeping in Allison’s bed. I believe it was a call that morning. He called Allison and Allison told me to go outside.
Q … would you exit the backdoor of Allison’s house?
A Yeah, I would always go out the backdoor and across the grass, and there was, like, a grove road out there.
Q And, so, did you do that?
A Yes.
Q And what happened? How were you feeling?
A Scared, very scared.
Q And, so, then what happened next?
A He said “hi,” and we started walking, and I was like okay, you can do this, you can do this, and I said, “I will do anything you ask me to do.”
Q And what did he say?
A “ Do you mean it?” And I said, “Yes.”
Q And then what happened?
A He took my hand and took me across the street, like, directly across from Allison’s house into another house….. directly across from, like, Allison’s backdoor…
***
Q So, did the Defendant touch you at that point?
A Yeah. He took my hand and took me into the house.
Q What was that house like?
A There wasn’t much in it. There was, like, a table, two chairs, and a plant.
Q And what happened?
A He asked me to trust him. Like, no matter what was about to happen to trust him. And, like, would I? Would I trust him no matter what was about to happen? And I said “yes”. I mean, I already said I would do anything he asked, so I said, “Yes.”
Q And what did he ask you to do?
A Then he asked me to take off my clothes. And I did.
Q Were you fully naked?
A Yes.
Q And then what did the Defendant do?
A Like, he was sitting down and I was standing up, and he was just, like, commenting on my body, like, my belly button piercing. I don’t have it pierced anymore, but, like, what did I take it out. Like that.
Q I’m sorry to ask such a personal question, did he make any comments about your pubic hair?
A Yes.
Q Can you explain?
A He said that he was surprised because, like, I hadn’t just shaved or waxed.
Q And he said he was surprised?
A He was surprised because it didn’t seem like my nature…. and I responded, like, “Yeah, I’ve been celibate for three months. Sorry, it’s not the first thing on my mind.”… He said that that was okay, that’s what he liked [unshaved pubic hair].
Q At that point in time, did you have any thoughts?
A Yeah. It was, like, all these little things started clicking in my head because I was staying with Allison, so I obviously had seen her getting in and out of the shower. And I don’t know, something about that comment, the way he said it, like, “No, it’s okay, that’s what I like,” that clicked in my head, and I was, like, “oh, he has a sexual relationship with Allison,” like, I was right about that. And then it was just like, “oh, yeah, like, I know that’s what’s about to happen.” At the time, that’s what I thought.
Q Just to connect up the dots, when you had seen Allison naked, had you seen her pubic hair?
A Yes.
Q And it was ungroomed?
A Yes.
[Stay tuned for Part 4 – where we learn what happens to Nicole – right after Raniere told her to get naked and commented that he liked her pubic hair un-groomed.]
