This is our fourth transcript of tapped phone calls Keith Alan Raniere made from prison to his devotee Suneel Chakravorty.
Raniere has been incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center [MDC] since April 2018. It appears that many, or perhaps all, of his phone calls made from the prison phones have been monitored and recorded. It is not known whether any of the calls he made on the burner phones he was caught with at MDC were also recorded (He even had one that could make international calls).
Chakravorty is a member of Make Justice Blind [AKA the Nxivm-5] who seek to “prosecute the prosecutors” and have demanded that the prosecutors in Raniere’s case sign an affidavit swearing they did not commit acts of prosecutorial misconduct. He is also a member of The Forgotten Ones, the dancers who dance and twerk in front of the MDC on Friday nights.
Suneel Chakravorty
Here are the links to the previously published posts regarding Raniere’s tapped phone calls:
My comments are [in bold and brackets]
RECORDING: 57005177 [Raniere’s prisoner number]
DATE: April 24, 2020
TIME: 1:28 P.M.
PARTICIPANTS: Keith Raniere [RANIERE]
Suneel Chakravorty [CHAKRAVORTY]
CHAKRAVORTY: Hey Keith
RANIERE: Hey, that’s the third call.
CHAKRAVORTY: Oh, this is the third one? The first one I got but I was on another call and I tried to switch to you, and by the time I switched, you were gone.
RANIERE: Ah. Yeah, no it rolls over to answering and then there’s a pattern like that. I sort of think it blocks you from picking up.
CHAKRAVORTY: Oh. Sorry about that.
RANIERE: So, how are things?
CHAKRAVORTY: Things are… uh, things are good, I think. Um, on the podcast [Raniere wants a podcast to explain his innocence and how the prosecutors suborned perjury, tampered with evidence and intimidated witnesses], there we have a teaser out to one, one person that David was going to get feedback on today. The producer?
RANIERE: Yeah.
CHAKRAVORTY: And then if that’s good, [U/I] send to iHeart and start that process.
RANIERE: I, I have a terrible thing about the teaser.
CHAKRAVORTY: O.K.
RANIERE: I might have a better way even to do it.
CHAKRAVORTY: [Laughs] O.K.
RANIERE: Here’s what I imagined. And a lot of my ideas are either ridiculous, over the top, not usable. So, you’d run the idea by before, but it would be pretty easy to produce. Pretty much the same way. You know how you start with… you know, uh, the stuff you had said at one point. You guys were going to start with like newscasts and stuff? Are you still doing that sort of a collage of like newscast stuff?
CHAKRAVORTY: Yeah, we have some clips of that. Yeah.
RANIERE: O.K. So if you have that sort of a thing and either right after that or maybe having the woman’s voice in there, then have another collage of news-seeming type things. But now it’s all the things, like, um, you might have me saying “This is untrue and a fabrication.” And then it says, “The media has gone crazy” and then someone else says “Over 10 million dollars has been placed to, against him. The judge says all of the witnesses have lied. Because of all these different, uh, things about what happened. You know in the middle of key witness testimony, she was just dismissed. You know, all different newscasters saying like the crazy stuff, including some of the crazy conditions that I lived in here.
[I don’t think these are accurate statements Raniere wants his podcast to convey. Suneel might not know they are inaccurate. He believes his Vanguard. As for the “over 10 million dollars has been placed against him.” This is news. Who place the $10 million against him? The Illuminati? Conversely, Clare Bronfman put up $10 million for his and other Nxivm defendant’s defense. Raniere says he wants his podcast narrator to say “The judge says all of the witnesses have lied.” But the judge never said any witnesses lied. Raniere made a motion claiming two witnesses lied, but the judge disagreed and denied his motion for a new trial. Raniere says, “You know in the middle of key witness testimony, she was just dismissed.” This also is not quite true. The only witness that was dismissed was Lauren Salzman and it was during an emotional cross-examination after she had a breakdown. His attorney never tried to recall her.]
CHAKRAVORTY: Hmm.
RANIERE: So, it sounds like something awful from a third world country which is exactly what it’s like, and then, you know, maybe it even stops with the like sound of a gavel, or something like that. And then I say, “I’ve been convicted of crimes I didn’t commit and I’m innocent.” You know, something like that.
CHAKRAVORTY: That’s awesome. The second collage, do those exist or those are ones you create?
RANIERE: No, I think you’d have to create them, but use factual things. Including, for example, the judge in his, uh, response to Marc’s last motion said the witness has lied. [I did not see that.]
CHAKRAVORTY: Wow.
RANIERE: So, what does that mean? The judge did say that all the major witnesses in Mr. Raniere’s case lied.
[This is not true but simple Suneel doesn’t know it. He is enamored with the brilliance of his master.]
CHAKRAVORTY: Wow. I love it. I think it’s also…we just need to see some voiceover people do [U/I] that kind of stuff. I think it’s perfect.
RANIERE: Yeah. Well, ask David. You know, you guys have a better feel, so you bring about all this controversy about me, then you bring up what happened. Including, you know, here it is, there’s no power and no heat. Right? And it’s actually. I’m in the cell that the wind hits directly. There’s the heavy winds. Wind chill factor of 40 below zero. The two coldest times, the polar vortex or whatever. The two coldest days. We had no power and no heat. Uh, you know water was freezing in my room and in the toilets. You know.
[Raniere is describing an earlier period when the heat was off at MDC and he and the other prisoners suffered intensely. He wants that on his podcast.]
CHAKRAVORTY: Hmm.
RANIERE: There’s the, but even comments like that. And one comment would be, and I think it should be some of the controversial stuff you know. Richard Donoghue, head of the Eastern District of New York, lied to the press today saying there were forced abortions.
[Raniere is referring to an earlier time when the then-US Attorney Donoghue mentioned the literally dozens of abortions Raniere’s numerous lovers had. Now whether they were forced or not is a matter of some debate. When Keith ordered a woman to have an abortion, she did not have much of a choice unless she wanted to leave the group and usually penniless. As for the Mexicans who were illegally in the USA, when they got pregnant, they did not have much choice at all.]
CHAKRAVORTY: Wow.
RANIERE: Right?
CHAKRAVORTY: Yeah.
RANIERE: And another voice says, uh, the prosecution tampered with evidence. Take some of the stuff off the affidavit.
CHAKRAVORTY: Wow. O.K. I will convey, I will convey that… I was thinking about….
RANIERE: So that’s, uh, that’s just one of my crazy thoughts.
CHAKRAVORTY: It’s definitely, it’s definitely crazy, in a good way. So, I’ll ask for the… see I know, I know David doesn’t like the, the things that are like more “woe is me,” like you’re badly treated, but people should care but apparently people, you know… but I think everything else.
RANIERE: Well, it’s not, it’s not “woe is me”, it’s just the craziness of even what happened. Unfortunately, well fortunately David wasn’t here. But, uh, no, I mean, uh, people could know that within the prison of the United States, you know, this sort of thing could happen. It doesn’t mean you have to put those in. But the purpose of those things is not “woe is me”. The purpose of those things is to illustrate conditions that people wouldn’t believe. That are…
CHAKRAVORTY: Right.
RANIERE: And you can tell him that. That are… and you can tell him this. That are as fantastical as the story against me. And I use that word fantastical. You know what I mean? It’s much harder to deflate a story with the banal, boring truth. But if you take the crazy aspects of the truth. People wanna… “Oh, my God that’s even crazier, you mean all that stuff is not true?.” “This is what’s true! Oh, my God”. You know what I mean?
CHAKRAVORTY: Yeah. Yeah.
RANIERE: So, creating that effect might help. Maybe not.
CHAKRAVORTY: O.K. Cool.
RANIERE: So, uh, I had another potential podcast thing I tried to [U/I]. Do you have anything on your side?
CHAKRAVORTY: Um, on the podcast? Uh, not, uh, no.
RANIERE: Judges? Anything?
CHAKRAVORTY: Oh, uh, judges, we’re speaking with Ashley [McMahan, an attorney] today at 5:00, Marty [U/I], who was a formerly wrongfully-convicted lawyer tomorrow, ah, [U/I] just responded to me by email that she has some personal and professional tragedies right now and she’ll write soon more….so I’ll….
[Raniere is referring to judges, preferably attorneys, who would judge a contest with several $35,000 prizes for anyone who can identify procedural errors in his trial that Raniere could use to overturn his sentence. The contest details are expected to be announced soon.]
RANIERE: She what? What did she say? Some personal tragic…
CHAKRAVORTY: She’s been dealing with that and sorry for not responding and she’ll write soon, she’ll write more soon. And then, we’ll see. After that.
RANIERE: Alright, alright, so it sounds like she’s still open [to being a judge].
CHAKRAVORTY: Sounds like she’s still open and she said that she would need income, [she wants to be paid to judge the contest] though, so we can maybe figure that out with her.
RANIERE: Ah, O.K. Alright.
CHAKRAVORTY: And we’re going to try to meet with Nicole sooner than, what we initially scheduled for a follow-up.
RANIERE: Good.
CHAKRAVORTY: So that’s all… that’s all I’m…
RANIERE: Well, we got, we have to have an urgency.
CHAKRAVORTY: Yes, absolutely.
RANIERE: So. Alright, um, should I do a little podcast?
CHAKRAVORTY: Absolutely. I’ll give you the countdown. 3-2-1. Go.
[Suneel is recording Raniere for use in the podcast.]
RANIERE: This next part talks about fear and the “like me” disease. There’s a system that’s currently in and actually compromises…comprises most of our justice system. And that is the system of judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys.
Often we’ve seen on T.V., you know, two attorneys are going at it in court, you know, one against the other, and then, afterwards, they go out and, you know, play tennis or have, you know, 18 rounds of golf or whatever it is together, 18 holes, and, uh, you know, they’re friends. And that is actually a wonderful demonstration that in a game, in a contest, you can be really opponents, going after each other the best you can within that contest and yet still be friends. And this is very, very important.
But that can be perverted, that can be abused. When you’re playing a game with someone, or in some sort of professional contest, and the person does something that is immoral. The person does something that demonstrates not their character within the game as being aggressive or strategic or whatever but literally their morality about the game.
For example, if you’re playing some sort of a game, say you’re having a chess match with someone and you see that they cheat and there’s actually a lot on the line. Maybe even, you either put up money, or there’s, I don’t know, it’s a big tournament and this person has illustrated to you that they’re willing to sacrifice the honor of the game, just to win.
That, by moral necessity, should change the way you treat them in the outside world. So, if there are two attorneys in a court of law and one attorney does something that is immoral that doesn’t mean that outside of the court of law they’re automatically friends and it’s as if nothing had happened.
Because if you’re in a contest with someone and you’re both acting morally and you’re both uphold…, and you’re both upholding principles, that upholds the humanity and the connection between you. I mean, for example, if I have, you know, an opponent that’s doing incredible things and really decimating me, you know, and strategically maybe duping me and doing all these things, but it’s all within the way the game works, all within the rules, then I admire them more.
And afterwards, it’s fantastic, I’ll just be in awe of them. But by the same thing, the same token, if that opponent is doing things that are immoral, that are just really base, then after the game I… I don’t really want to associate with them anymore.
But in the system of defense attorneys, prosecutors and judges, you know they go to conferences together. They often have parties together, Christmas parties together and things like that. And there is a “like me” disease. And it’s interesting with, between prosecutors and defense attorneys, often defense attorneys were prosecutors and they have a type of horse-trading that goes on.
In other words, if the defense attorney, if they have a client that’s guilty and going to plea, they help that client, they make the whole thing go easier that makes the prosecution like them more, so that when they need another favor down the road, they can get that favor.
This is because they start trading favors, and when you listen to them speak, when you listen… even defense attorneys speak, sometimes your mouth just drops open.
When you start looking at, they’re talking about favors, they’re talking about horse-trading, they’re talking about having the prosecution like them, or upsetting the prosecution or things like that and the truth of the matter is the prosecution should not have emotions about the case. And there should be no fear of upsetting the prosecution.
Likewise, with the judge. Unfortunately, in our society now, judges, judges are seldom criticized, you seldom see them criticized in the media, people seldom talk about their errors and things like that.
Former US Attorney Preet Bharara
They are held in a position that is above even the President’s type of power. It has very little check and balance, except for the appeals process. But it’s interesting. There’s a person, Preet Bharara, who was head of the Southern District at one point. He even said that there are corrupt judges. Some judges are corrupt. And some of the consultants we have had, had, said things along the lines that, it doesn’t matter, we don’t have to be able get to any judge.
The thing that people do that is dishonest is they get the case in front of a judge that they have positioned within each of the circuits. So, there are some judges that are corrupt, within the circuits, including in the appeals courts, and they just make sure that cases go in front of those judges. Those judges that are moveable or those judges that are even in some cases buyable and things like that and judges are never questioned.
Now if a judge is, I mean, if you look the way a judge is elected you know they’re elected, they look at their backgrounds and things like that but there’s not rigorous psychological testing done, moral testing, things along those lines.
And especially… let’s suppose you have a judge who’s a very nice person, but very immature.
When that judge gets on the bench 20 years later, they could become a little tyrant. And some judges are. My judge in particular shows a lot of emotion on the stand. And some people might say, “Well, I don’t know. That’s maybe good.”
But think about it. A judge should be completely stoic. If there’s a piece of evidence that comes up, and the judge, like in my case, with my judge shows the disgust, it almost looks like the judge is about to retch, what does that say to the jury? And that’s not in the transcript, that’s not anything that anyone measures at this point.
It should be that every single court case is videoed, it doesn’t cost a lot right now and judges need to be evaluated.
Because a judge is put in their seat, and it’s a lifetime appointment [for federal judges], and they can really go astray.
And some judges really have. So, we need to question judges and we need to stop the social nature between prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges and turn that into more of a moral interaction.
[Raniere stops and there is silence for a moment]
CHAKRAVORTY: Hello?
RANIERE: Hello? So, I was a little bit on a soapbox there, but then I realized we were running out of time. So, we have less than a minute. So I hope… I could go on about that subject; that’s the social club of defense attorneys, prosecutors and judges. I might have called them prostitutes by accident [Laughs]. Prostitutes! Well, yes, they are. So. Thirty seconds. Anything else? Did you get… did you get through to Marc [Agnifilo, Raniere’s lawyer]?
CHAKRAVORTY: Uh, nothing… yes. So I got through to Marc. He’s going to send me a motion he said today. He asked about the sentencing memo. I told him your [U/I] situation…
RANIERE: Right. We have 10 seconds. You may want to somehow become his client, so you’ll have attorney-client privilege. But I mentioned that in an email to him just a few minutes ago.
CHAKRAVORTY: Roger that.
RANIERE: Alright. Goodbye.
[END OF CALL]
