This is Part #2 of our analysis of the Allegations of FBI Tampering.
See: Part #1: Analysis of Allegations of FBI Tampering in USA v Raniere
The authors are Frank Parlato and Suneel Chakravorty.
Frank Parlato
Suneel Chakravorty
Part #2
Sisters
Among Keith Raniere’s relationships with women, there are two that this analysis will examine. They are Raniere’s relationship with Camila and her sister, Daniela. Camila did not testify at trial. Daniela did.
Both Camila and Daniela were his sexual partners. He also had a sexual relationship with their older sister, Marianna. All three sisters were born in Mexico.
They came to Clifton Park, as did their parents, [with the exception of Camila who was only 13 and her brother who was around 15 or so] to be near Raniere and part of the NXIVM community. The father, Hector, was a successful businessman in Mexico. He traveled back and forth to Mexico and got a house close to Raniere in Clifton Park.
The house was at 12 Wilton Court. It was a townhouse like the one Raniere lived in at 3 Flintlock and had as his office at 8 Hale.
Raniere began a relationship with Marianna in 2003. He was 43. She was 20. Marianna moved into Flintlock with Raniere shortly after their relationship began. Raniere lived with three other women at the time.
Marianna
Fourteen years later, Marianna gave birth to Raniere’s son. The child is now five. Going forward, Marianna will have little to do with the narrative.
From available evidence, the parents did not know at the time that Raniere had a relationship with all three of their daughters.
According to Daniela, both parents seemed enamored with Raniere and his NXIVM courses.
At the time of this writing, the father, Hector, continues to support Raniere. The mother, Adrienne, denounced Raniere in 2020. They are grandparents of Raniere’s son.
Hector, father of Marianna, Daniela and Camila, with Keith Raniere and his grandson in Mexico shortly before Raniere’s arrest.
Daniela
Daniela is the middle sister. She said she began a relationship with Raniere about a week after she turned 18 in 2003. He was 43. She said her and Raniere’s “anniversary” – the day they first had sex was – the Day of the Dead – November 2, 2003.
Daniela said she thought this date was “comical.”
A coincidence of 365-to-one is that the metadata date of the first naked photos of Camila is the Day of the Dead – November 2, 2005.
Raniere and his experts alleged someone altered the metadata. Raniere accused Daniela of being an accomplice with the FBI. He said this in recorded prison phone calls after his conviction to one of the authors – Chakravorty.
Daniela knew about Raniere’s relationship with Marianna. She testified that she had a conversation with Marianna about it.
Daniela testified:
So I don’t remember exactly when it was, but I remember we had a conversation once we — I was having sex with Keith. She was having sex with Keith. I think she had been having sex with Keith for a longer period of time. So we had this conversation shortly after I had the first sexual encounter with Keith.
And you know, this was Marianna, my best friend in the entire world. So and it was — it was — it was weird. It was sort of horrifying that we were having sex with the same man, and he told — she told me that she was in love with him. And I believed — I believed her. I believed that. Or at least that that’s what she thought, I believe that.
And I–I told her that–how I felt. I told her that, you know, I — I also wanted to be with Keith and that I thought he was a great man and that to do like things together.
Daniela at Flintlock
In 2003, Daniela worked with Raniere at 3 Flintlock. She was a regular visitor. She testified she had oral sex with Raniere as a common occurrence at 3 Flintlock.
8 Hale
The company purchased 8 Hale in January 2004. Daniela testified she began to spend time there. She was working on Raniere’s projects. She filmed him for a hoped-for documentary. She wanted to capture the man she thought was great for posterity on film.
She organized Raniere’s books and digitized his music collection.
Daniela carried his books from 3 Flintlock to 8 Hale. She inventoried them. On March 23, 2005, Daniela sent Raniere an email cataloging his library of books, DVDs, and CDS. It is 70 pages long.
Daniela said she was responsible for his computers and did the backup of files on hard drives. She compiled reports summarizing books on various topics for Raniere’s benefit.
Daniela testified she had sex with Raniere at 8 Hale.
The couch at 3 Flintlock.
It is important to note a distinction. At trial there was much testimony about the metadata in Camila’s contraband photos. As part of the evidence to support the accurate dating of the photos, additional photos were introduced as evidence.
The FBI found photos of 11 females plus Camila in the same master folder.
The FBI testified that certain metadata was the best evidence and reliable. It showed the dates the camera created the photos as 2005.
The reliable metadata, they testified is the EXIF Data. There are 167 naked photos of 12 females in one master folder in the hard drive.
The earliest EXIF date is October 17, 2005. The latest EXIF date is December 30, 2005.
Daniela testified Raniere took nude photos of her on the couch at 3 Flintlock. She said he took her pictures in 2005. Daniela did not recall the precise date Raniere took her photos. She remembered it was in 2005.
The EXIF date shows Daniela posed for nine photos on October 19, 2005. These were found on the hard drive in the same folder where Camila’s underage photos were found. The folder was named ‘Studies.”
The EXIF date shows Camila posed for 14 naked photos on November 2, 2005. Camila again posed on November 24, 2005, for eight more photos.
According to testimony, Daniela posed on the couch at 3 Flintlock.
According to the testimony of FBI Special Agent Michael Weniger and other court filings, Camila posed on a bed. Based on his testimony and court filings, Camila posed at the loft bed at 8 Hale.
The FBI found the hard drive and the camera about 15 feet from that bed – more than 12 years after Raniere allegedly photographed her.
We have not seen any photos from the hard drive. From the testimony and court filings, it appears all but one of the 12 women posed for photos at 8 Hale. It appears Daniela was the only woman who posed at 3 Flintlock.
Daniela was born on October 26, 1985. She was 20 when Raniere took nude photos of her.
If the metadata is accurate, Camila was 15 when she posed for her photos. The age of consent for lascivious photos is 18. This is a federal law.
It means little that Daniela appears to be the only one of a dozen females who posed for photographs at 3 Flintlock [while the others were photographed at 8 Hale.
If the FBI is right, Raniere chose to photograph a dozen women within three months. Daniela spent more time at 3 Flintlock in 2003 and 2004 and more time at 8 Hale in 2005. She testified that Raniere often carried a camera around with him.
Though he stored the camera at 8 Hale, he might have had it at 3 Flintlock and photographed her there on October 19, 2005.
The camera was under the desk and hard drive on a shelf in the office at 8 Hale when the FBI seized them.
The loft bed at 8 Hale.
Daniela’s Computer Skills
The allegations of FBI tampering concern computers, a camera, a hard drive and the metadata on the hard drive and a camera card.
Raniere himself had some skills at computers.
It is appropriate to explore the skillset of the woman who helped convict Raniere. Daniela’s testimony corroborated the metadata in a number of ways that pointed to 2005 as the date of the photographs of her sister.
Raniere alleged that the FBI tampered with evidence. He accused Daniela of being an accomplice in this tampering.
During the trial the prosecution was transparent in presenting Daniela as a skilled computer hacker. Their narrative was Raniere made her hack computers.
Daniela’s tasks for Raniere, she testified, included spying on individuals through hacking. The entire list of people she hacked is not known. Some were successful hacks and some unsuccessful.
At the trial, Government Exhibit 1515 is an email from Kristin Keeffe to Daniela. It has two specific emails that appear to be targets of Daniela’s keylogging efforts.
According to her testimony, Daniela began hacking for NXIVM when she volunteered to hack the email of Kristin Snyder. Snyder was a presumptive suicide who was last seen leaving an NXIVM class in Alaska in 2003.
Some Nxians thought she might be alive and faked her death. Daniela testified at length about how she worked on her hacking.
O’Hara
Joe O’Hara
Joe O’Hara was a consultant for NXIVM. He had a falling out with Raniere in 2005.
According to Daniela’s testimony:
Daniela prepared an email to send to O’Hara. She masked the email to bypass spam filters. She coded it to self-destroy if O’Hara did not open the file. There would be no evidence of her attempting to invade his privacy. She used software that logs keystrokes – a key-logger – and other surveillance software. She embedded it in a file attached to an email.
She got free software from the internet, then changed the code to do what she wanted. She coded it so that the infected file bypassed the anti-virus software. If O’Hara clicked on the file, the spyware entered his computer. It would then record everything he typed. The spyware also takes screenshots, saves them, then uploads them to a remote server.
O’Hara never opened Daniela’s email.
If she had access to a computer, she testified, she would not need someone to open the email. Daniela could plug in a USB. If the anti-virus tried to stop it, she could disable the anti-virus.
James Loperfido did accounting work for both NXIVM and for O’Hara.
Kathy Russell, who was a bookkeeper for NXIVM and later a co-defendant of Raniere, made an appointment with Loperfido at the NXIVM offices.
NXIVM had offices on New Karner Road in Colonie, New York, a suburb of Albany.
Daniela waited in another room at the offices. Russell diverted Loperfido. Daniela sneaked in and used a USB to install spyware. The malware later logged all his keystrokes, took a screenshot every minute or 30 seconds, and saved it. The spyware captured Loperfido’s user name and password. She gained access to his email.
Information she discovered helped NXIVM in litigation against O’Hara, according to several sources.
Edgar Bronfman
Edgar Bronfman
Edgar Bronfman was the father of Clare and Sara Bronfman. The sisters were two of NXIVM’s wealthiest students. Edgar was the billionaire chairman of Seagrams. He was also president of the World Jewish Congress. Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Edgar Bronfman Sr. received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton in 1999.
Edgar had taken NXIVM classes. Nancy Salzman was coaching him. At first, he was enamored. Then he became a critic.
In a 2003 Forbes article, Edgar Bronfman said NXIVM was a cult.
Daniela testified Raniere suggested she hack Edgar Bronfman’s computer. She designed spyware and embedded it into an image. She gave Clare Bronfman a USB with the image to email her father. Sometime later, Daniela started receiving information. She got Edgar Bronfman’s username and password. Daniela read Bronfman’s email correspondence for years.
Daniela Testified She Found Nudes on Raniere’s Computer
Daniela testified she searched through Raniere’s computers at his request. She said she never examined the contents of his computers without his permission. Raniere told her something was wrong. It might be a virus. She scanned his computers. She said she found a set of files in a “hidden folder” under what she called a “separate file structure.” She saw pictures of naked women she knew had relationships with Raniere.
She testified she did not inspect all the files in the “hidden folder.” It is not known if she made a copy of these photos to a USB.
She noticed Monica Duran was one of the women in the hidden files. Daniela noticed this because she said she did not know Monica was in a relationship with Raniere.
Monica Duran was also one of the 12 women in the Studies folder where the Camila photos were found.
Daniela said she did not check if her own nude photos were in the “hidden file.”
Daniela said Raniere asked her to find out if there was a virus. Searching through his computers, she found a hidden folder with nude photos of various women. She testified she told Raniere he should not have naked pictures on his computer. If she could find the hidden file, others might find it.
She asked him to delete her nude photos if he still had them. Daniela testified she did not know if he deleted them or not.
Falling Out
For three years, Daniela was one of as many as 20 women who had a relationship with Raniere.
In late 2006, Daniela told Raniere she had romantic feelings toward an NXIVM employee. She kissed Ben Myers, she testified. This violated Raniere’s condition of monogamy for his women. Daniela testified that Raniere ended their sexual relationship. For the next three years, Daniela did not see Raniere in person. He forbade it, she said. She continued working at 8 Hale. She would confirm he was not at Hale before she would go there. She spent many hours alone at Hale, she testified.
There, she read his books, listened to his music, and managed his computers. She digitized more than a thousand musical albums for Raniere, she said. She stored them on his computers and backed them up on hard drives.
The FBI seized a hard drive. They later found 22 photos of Camila. There were also songs on that hard drive that Daniela likely digitized and backed up. The metadata shows there were three computers that did backups of files to the hard drive.
One computer – the Dell Dimension 8300 – had the Camila photos, according to the metadata. The FBI did not find that computer.
One can see two computer monitors in the 2012 videos and the 2018 photos of 8 Hale. The FBI seized two computers at 8 Hale. One of them, an Apple, may have backed up files on the hard drive. These files were not the nude photos of Camila or anyone.
The metadata says that the Camila photos stored on the hard drive came from a Dell Dimension 8300.
The FBI never found the computer.
Anniversary
Though she had not seen him in two years, Daniela wrote to Raniere on their anniversary, November 2, 2008.
Happy anniversary….? Although i know it does not count when it has been broken, i still think it is pretty comical our anniversary fell right on the day of the dead. It’s gonna be pretty sad for the one of us left standing when the first to go, well, goes. It’s already pretty sad… and not so comical, eh?…. I love you-danie
We have mentioned before that November 2 is the Day of the Dead. It is Daniela’s anniversary.
It is also the date when Raniere allegedly took illegal photos of Camila. It could be a coincidence. But Raniere is disputing the metadata in a Rule 33 motion for a new trial. He says that someone altered the EXIF dates.
Daniela called it comical. And if no one altered the metadata, it is more than comical. It is ironic to a remarkable degree.
Hacked Her Sister
Daniela hacked her sister, Mariana’s Facebook account. Daniela testified that Raniere suspected Marianna was rekindling a relationship with an ex-boyfriend.
Daniela speculated it could have been between 2007 and 2009, after the falling out. According to evidence presented at trial, it was in 2008.
Daniela said Raniere gave her access to Flintlock to infect Marianna’s computers. Unlike Bronfman and Loperfido, Daniela said she would not spy on her sister. She was willing to hack her account but unwilling to read her messages.
She hacked her sister’s account and emailed the username and password to Raniere.
“I’m not going to read my sister’s private life,” she told him.
For three years, there was a distancing between Raniere and Daniela. There were many emails between them. Some emails paint a picture of a man obsessed with Daniela’s perspective about the man she kissed. Daniela testified she stopped seeing Ben Myers within a few months of the first kiss. She said she never had sex with Ben. Long after she stopped seeing him, Raniere continued to explore her feelings for Ben by email. In an unrelenting manner, he explored her relationship with Ben in a depth that to some might seem excruciating.
Conflict and the Room
Toward the end of 2009, the conflict between Raniere and Daniela worsened, she said. Daniela said the dispute was because she wanted the freedom to date other men. He had many partners. She was not willing to be only with him. She was 24. He was 49.
Raniere gives another version. He accused Daniela of stealing and lying. He said she was “very prideful.”
In consultation with her family – who were ardent Nxians – Raniere gave Daniela three choices. The parents agreed to back up Raniere.
Daniela said she did not tell her parents that she had had a sexual relationship with Raniere. She did not tell them that the fight was over her unwillingness to be faithful to only him.
She said the choices Raniere offered were three. She could leave the NXIVM community and her family and return to Mexico. Daniela had no legal status in the United States. Or she could “make amends.”
The third choice was to go into a room at her parents’ home. Remain in that unlocked bedroom and think about it. She could come out when she had a plan to make amends.
Daniela was 24.
Her father, Hector said, “I gave my room to Daniela (the main bedroom)… I began to sleep downstairs, on the sofa.”
View of the room Daniela stayed in.
The adjoining bathroom.
Daniela testified she stayed in the room for 23 months. Most of the time without human contact.
Family members left meals outside her door. Raniere described it as a “battle of wills.”
Raniere said she “threw a massive tantrum.”
Daniela testified she had no computer or electronic devices. She had paper and a pen to write to Raniere.
Daniela wrote letters to Raniere proposing ways to “heal” her “ethical breach.”
Among the things she was to make amends for was shoplifting.
It is unclear whether she felt coerced into creating things to make amends for or if it was true.
At one point, she wrote, “Pay back what taken.” Then lists stores: Havers, Walmart, Arlene’s, and Marhsall’s.
At one point, Daniela’s mother entered the adjoining room. She stayed alone in that room for months as a penance to help heal this “ethical breach” for her daughter.
News of the death of a friend prompted the mother to leave the USA and return to Mexico. Daniela remained in her room.
Daniela testified, “Sometimes I would beg: ‘Please let me know. I don’t know why, just—just let me out.’ Nobody cared. My family didn’t. Nobody cared. So, it was also—it was also knowing that nobody wanted me. I’m in a world where nobody cares that I’m losing my life…. It was clearly never gonna end.”
Lauren Salzman was one of Raniere’s longtime girlfriends. She was a high-ranking Nxian and became a cooperating witness at the trial.
She testified she told Daniela that her parents and Raniere would have her deported.
Salzman said she told Daniela they would not give her ID.
Raniere knew of the circumstances, according to email evidence. He wrote to Salzman in November of 2010. This was six months after Daniela entered the room.
“You do not want to buy into [Daniela’s] tantrum or externalizations. Likewise you do not want to tell her what to do or how to be. You might try asking her the difference between being in the room for a day… or as long as she has. From a present time perspective, there is no difference except suffering and entitlement….”
Lauren Salzman testified at Raniere’s trial.
Daniela said cameras were installed outside her bedroom to ensure she didn’t leave. Daniela did on occasion sneak out of the room, she said. For 23 months, her family provided food for her. Three times a day, they would prepare it and leave it outside her door.
The backyard at 12 Wilton.
Daniela told Parlato that she would spend endless hours alone with nothing to do. She would look out the window to the yard below and watch the rabbits and squirrels for hours on end.
Then one day in February 2012, she walked out. She tried to confront Raniere. He was at volleyball with other Nxians. Raniere declined to see her.
Soon after, her father drove her to the Mexican border. She testified her father left her to walk across with a small sum of money and no identification papers. She had been illegally in the USA for years.
Her father wrote in a court filing:
I personally took her to the border, with Kristen Keeffe, to San Antonio. After asking her for total honesty, again very lightly, she confessed that she had stolen money from my wallet and her mother’s video game. She also mentioned that she hacked my Facebook account.
In order to provide her security, I coordinated with an employee of my company (who I trust) to pick her up at the border, I paid all Daniela’s travel expenses so that she could arrive in Mérida, a place she chose, and I gave her money to be installed.
Daniela and her father both said the sum of money the father gave her was less than $200. He did not give her identification papers. This caused Daniela considerable difficulty in Mexico. The father conditioned the release of her ID on her completing a book report for Raniere.
Daniela would not see Raniere again until she met him in court seven years later — as a witness against him in 2019.
She wrote emails to him from Mexico as late as 2015.
One of the last emails she wrote him is important. She says she never hacked his computers or accounts.
Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 3:53 PM
Hello, I just spoke to you and it was nice!
Hey listen, I’ve never hacked into your computer or accounts or anything. Not while I lived in the states, not since I have been in Mexico — not ever! I did hack my father’s facebook account while I was in the room (from the PSP) — I wanted to look at pictures of everybody, maybe you can understand it was not so evil a driving force. But I really never should have because now it comes into question what else I might have hacked from people close to me — but the answer is nothing else.
I don’t do computers anymore so I couldn’t really help you in finding out what is going on. I fell out of the loop from everything while I was abscent from my life, but computering seems to be the field that left me behind the most.
Let me know if you need more details, ok?
I hope you are alright. If you ever need anything else, whether related to the above topic or something else entirely, please just ask. You have a home wherever I am.
Big hug.
-d
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The analysis will continue with part #3 shortly.
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You can read Raniere’s Rule 33 Motion on FBI Tampering here.
You can read Dr. Kiper’s Expert Report here.
