Clare Bronfman filed a motion to reopen her dismissed lawsuit against the BOP. She alleges the BOP reneged on their deal to remove her Public Safety Factor designation as a sex offender and for other alleged retaliatory acts.
The Seagram’s heiress, financier of NXIVM and white collar convict, was sentenced to 81 months of federal prison, with a release date of August 18, 2025 – two years and seven months from today.
Bronfman motioned to reopen case 3:22-cv-00838, which on November 16 seemed settled.
The original lawsuit was over whether the BOP erroneously labeled Bronfman a sex offender. On November 16, the BOP and Bronfman agreed to a joint stipulation of dismissal filed with the U.S. District Court of Connecticut.
In return for Bronfman dropping her lawsuit, the BOP would drop the “false and defamatory” sex offender label from Bronfman’s Public Safety Factor or “PSF” on her file.
Her attorneys claim this would pave the way for the BOp to house Bronfman in a minimum-security prison camp at Danbury instead of the low-security prison where she is currently assigned.
It would also make Bronfman eligible for early release under the FIRST STEP Act.
Clare’s attorneys, Ronald Sullivan of DC, Duncan Levin of Brooklyn, and Michael L. Chambers Jr, of C.T., brokered the settlement with BOP and held, “the completely reasonable belief… that BOP had realized its error and would cease treating her like a sex offender.”
Her attorneys wrote that:
“Though BOP did remove the sex offender label from her file, Ms. Bronfman continues to be treated as though she has been convicted of a sex offender… Further, on information and belief, Ms. Bronfman was told that her “offense status” as a sex offender is prohibiting her re-classification into a camp, where she would have been housed but for the erroneous sex offender PSF, which was the subject of the original filing in this matter. The case worker also told her that the warden would not give her any credits because (on advice of counsel) she has declined to participate in a therapy program called the FIT Program, which would require her to falsely admit to sex offenses she did not commit. Not only is BOP acting against the Joint Stipulation, but they are also retaliating against Ms. Bronfman for having brought her previous habeas petition….
Only two days would pass, they said, before indications of retaliation by the BOP emerged. The BOP canceled Bronfman’s telephone calls with her attorneys, which occurred every week or almost two years.
An email to her lawyers from a BOP official stated, “I wanted to advise you that we will need to discontinue the weekly legal calls. If you want to do legal visits, then that is fine. However, we would not be doing both.”
Lead counsel Ronald Sullivan’s office is in Washington, D.C.; other counsel are in Chicago, New York, and Massachusetts. The cancellation of the weekly phone call meant lawyers would have to travel hundreds of miles to have a private conversation with their client.
On November 21, 2022, BOP officials determined 26 of Bronfman’s friends, one family member, and one of her lawyers, Pamela Nichols, a partner in the Albany office of O’Connell & Aronowitz, her longtime Albany attorneys, would not be allowed to contact Bronfman via email, phone, mail or visit in-person.
The BOP canceled Bronfman’s subscription to the LISA Foundation, which publishes a weekly newsletter for people incarcerated in the federal prison system.
Bronfman expected to receive credit for early release and be treated like other inmates without a sex offender PSF, but she complains she remains at low-security FCI Danbury, and has not moved to the minimum security camp, which “are work- and program-oriented.”
Bronfman claims her case worker told her that the warden would not grant her any CARES Act/FIRST STEP Act time credits because she declined to participate in the FIT Program, a therapy program that requires offenders to admit their sex offenses.
Bronfman’s lawyers had advised her not to take the FIT program because it would require her to admit to “facts” regarding sexual abuse that were untrue. Her case worker allegedly told her she is classified as “FSA-refusal” because she did not take the FIT program for therapy for sex offenses.
Ronald Sullivan represents Clare Bronfman.
Made aware of these BOP actions, her lawyers said in a court filing they planned to visit Bronfman at Danbury.
Lead counsel Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. drove more than 150 miles to see her for a scheduled legal visit.
When he and his co-counsel arrived, the guards told them the meeting would be in the “prison library,” which was unheated, with a temperature of 33 degrees. The guards further told Sullivan and co-counsel they would have to remove their overcoats for the meeting with Bronfman and could place their coats in a locker which was only inches in height.
Attorney Sullivan pointed out to guards that he could not safely hold a scheduled three-hour meeting in an unheated room without coats and if he could, the coats would not fit into the pint-sized lockers. He observed the guards wore coats.
Sullivan asked that the lawyers wear overcoats or be provided with a heated room for the meeting. The guards declined
Sullivan had to remove his coat, go into an unheated library, and “risk frost bite,” or drive 150 miles back home without seeing his client. He chose to drive home.
What the lawyers seek now is for:
[T[he issuance of a writ of habeas corpus directing [the BOP]to remove any references to sex offenses from Ms. Bronfman’s record, to cease any requirement that she participate in the FIT program, to restore Ms. Bronfman’s telephone and email list, to provide Ms. Bronfman and her attorneys with a space suitable for legal visits to allow Ms. Bronfman to both meet with and speak with her attorneys on the telephone, and to grant her time credit for early release absent any ability to show why she should not receive it, and all
additional and further relief that this Court may deem just and proper.
