Toni Natalie likes to bring me up – likes to criticize me publicly. This prompts me to try to return the favor.
Natalie, the second lead plaintiff in the Neil Glazer civil suit, has been featured on Frank Report frequently, sometimes unfavorably, sometimes favorably. The unfavorable stories were prompted by her falsely accusing me of something during the trial of Keith Raniere in June 2019. Prior to that, everything was rather favorable, for I considered her a friend and colleague in the effort to stop Raniere.
Natalie said in her book, The Program, Inside the Mind of Keith Raniere and the Rise and Fall of NXIVM., “I spoke with any reporter or journalist or TV producer who called. One of these was Frank Parlato, NXIVM publicist turned mortal enemy, who reached out after he launched his blog in 2015. He became a powerful ally.”
She also wrote, “On June 19, 2017, Frank Parlato, writing on the Frank Report blog, reported on the existence of a secret group within NXIVM: Dominus Obsequious Sororium, or DOS. This sorority, Parlato explained, was a select group of emaciated women who served as the slaves, sexual and otherwise, of Keith Raniere. As if that wasn’t lurid enough, there was an aspect of DOS that got everyone’s attention: ‘the hallmark of the plan,’ Parlato wrote, ‘was branding women.’ Each of the slaves had Keith’s initials branded on her skin with a cautery pen.
“I had to read it three times before it sunk in.”
*****
TONI NATALIE
THE DOS GENIE WAS OUT OF THE BOTTLE
“On June 5, 2017, Frank Parlato revealed the existence of DOS on the Frank Report. The news sent shock waves through the NXIVM community. Keith hemmed and hawed, denying that he had knowledge of the society at all. It was his most devoted concubines who started it and ran it, and what was he supposed to do about it? Some Nxians believed him. Crucially, many others did not. Within the top-down framework of NXIVM, it was simply not possible that Vanguard could have been unaware of DOS. It was far more likely that the whole sordid affair was his idea.”
*****
“Vice News did a profile of Frank Parlato, where he appears in all his eccentric glory. The DOS genie was out of the bottle.”
TONI NATALIE
Her co-writer on the book, Chet Hardin, wrote, “Toni has always said that there were three things that Keith Raniere never anticipated: the Internet, a mother’s love, [Catherine Oxenberg] and Frank Parlato. With his upstate media empire, Frank Parlato achieved more than any single outlet could have in the fight to bring Keith Raniere to justice. It is not hyperbole to say Keith wouldn’t have seen his day in court without the Frank Report.”
But since then, after she wrote kindly of me and I wrote favorably of her, she chose to attack me during the trial of Raniere, and I returned the criticism.
Toni has made it clear repeatedly she does not like me. While always busy promoting her book, she has taken to promoting a website that is focused on NXIVM – and that, from time to time, features me, but always unfavorably, I am told.
Natalie writes, comparatively, that on this website, one can “get accurate updates without the flying sock puppets from the F’c Report.”
The website is not one I will provide a link to since it is written anonymously, by people who are only brave enough to attack without putting their name on it. Natalie at least puts her name out there for most of what she writes – though I suspect she comments under different anonymous monikers when she wants to act the coward.
She also loves to fight. I am pretty sure if she had just walked away from Raniere and did not provoke him, repeatedly, whenever there was a lull in the relationship on Raniere’s part, he would have left her alone long ago.
Her fighting with him helped expose the rascal and, I mean it when I say, she kept a lot of people from joining NXIVM and was a pioneer in exposing him.
Toni Natalie gave the world this stunning photo of Keith Raniere, shown reading up on how to gamble [with other people’s lives?]
Toni has been out of NXIVM for more than 20 years.
Toni Natalie at an early NXIVM class in 1998, with Keith Raniere.
I suppose the main reason Toni does not like me is I questioned some of the claims she made in her book.
I also questioned a story she told about Barbara Bouchey – which I was told was true about Toni, herself, but not Barbara.
Barbara Bouchey and Toni Natalie,
Natalie’s stories about Kristin Keeffe killing her dog, or standing in front of her place of business, causing a scene, or gaslighting her brother should be investigated for the truth of the claims. Keeffe has said that Natalie lied about all those stories.
Natalie’s stories in her book about her ex-husband, Rusty DeCook, and her son, Michael, have been disputed by DeCook – and some of her old friends say Natalie also lied about those stories.
Natalie claims she gave up her son to spare him from Raniere, but her husband says that even after she left Raniere, she ignored her son. His claims prompted the publishers of her book to take out the claims in their blurb that Natalie was a brave, single mother.
Rhiannon
Natalie’s story about meeting Rhiannon, the 12-year-old girl Raniere allegedly raped, during Natalie’s first visit to Raniere, cannot be true because of the date Natalie claims for the meeting.
Her story about being hypnotized by Raniere at that first meeting and, thereafter, quitting smoking, is disputed by her husband who says she continued to smoke, including on the ride home.
Her story about dropping out of high school in 10th grade is made suspect by the existence of her senior photo in her high school yearbook two years after she claims she dropped out.
Toni Natalie says she dropped out of high school in the 10th grade in her book. But why is her senior picture in the high school yearbook?
Perhaps the most horrifying claim she made against Raniere [and Keeffe] is that these two caused the suicide of her brother.
In her book, she wrote, “on March 12, 2009, I had the misfortune of revisiting Vanguard’s warped views on suicide, when my brother John took his own life. Like my parents, he was suffering because of what Keith was doing to us. John was a wreck. He was seven years older and had regarded himself as the man of the house from a very young age. He felt responsible for me, responsible for my mother. He wanted to protect me from my tormentor, but there was only so much he could do.
“John communicated sporadically with Keith for years, always trying to negotiate my freedom—as he’d done when I left back in 1999. But this was not a fight among equals. NXIVM had unlimited resources, while ours were tapped out. Keith was surrounded by a coven of brainwashed witches who would fly hither and yon at his command. My brother was desperate, exhausted, financially ruined, and mentally broken. He was taking strong medications to treat angina and hypertension. He was drinking too much. And he was in regular contact with Keith all through the winter. There were emails, phone calls, even a personal visit from Vanguard’s fixer, Kristin Keeffe. The autopsy lists the cause of death as suicide by a lethal combination of metoprolol and diltiazem, John’s heart medications.
“I thought about my brother, so damaged, so empathic, and wondered what fucked-up messages Keith had communicated to him in months days leading up to his death….. How many more lives would Vanguard claim before he was stopped?”
This sounds horrifying for a woman who says she had to give up her son, went bankrupt for eight years, was in constant litigation for 20 years, and, on top of that, lost her brother to suicide – all because of Raniere.
Toni Natalie
According to people who knew him, John Natalie was not the type to kill himself. Two sources with knowledge of John’s communications with others told me that John, on occasion, proposed business opportunities to Raniere, which Raniere declined. This is not likely the act of someone determined to protect his sister from a monster.
While Natalie said John was in email communications with Raniere shortly before his death – which Toni claimed was proof of Raniere’s gaslighting influence, Bouchey said that she reviewed the email account of John Natalie and did not find any recent communications with Raniere or Keeffe.
*****
Did John Die of a Heart Condition?
One of the Natalie family friends told me that everyone knew John died of a heart attack. While failing to state the cause of death, his obituary reads, “Contributions may be made to the American Heart Association”.
Why would the family suggest contributions be made to the American Heart Association if John committed suicide? Wouldn’t it have been better to seek donations to suicide prevention or mental health?
I spoke with John’s girlfriend of 20 years – Lisa LoPresti – who was with John the day he died. I asked her if John committed suicide.
Lisa said, “Absolutely not. He didn’t commit suicide. I have his autopsy report. He died of Afib.”
[Afib stands for atrial fibrillation. It is a quivering or irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) that can lead to blood clots, stroke, heart failure, and other heart-related complications.]
Lisa continued, “He called his doctor when he didn’t feel good that morning. He died in the evening.”
Toni says he killed himself.
“It’s absolutely not true,” Lisa said. “John didn’t want to die. He thought he could ride it out. He was basically having a heart attack the whole day.”
Why did Toni say it was suicide?
Lisa seemed angry when she said, “John didn’t talk to his sister in over two years. She doesn’t know what happened.”
Toni Natalie with her brother John Natalie.
Natalie closes her book with a mention of John’s death. She writes, “After my brother died in 2009…. I got a tattoo of a favorite expression of John’s, a spin on Aeschylus. I think of that quote, and of my brother, as I leave the courtroom for the last time: ‘In war, truth is the first casualty… but not this time.’”
Toni Natalie has a tattoo on her back in memory of her brother, or so she says
Toni Natalie addressed Keith Raniere when she read her victim impact statement at his sentencing.
*****
Sentencing Statements
In her victim statement made at the sentencing of Raniere, on October 27, 2020, Natalie mentions her brother, but does not say he committed suicide. She said, directing her words to Raniere, “All I wanted to do was leave and be able to move on with our lives, but you don’t know how to let go of anyone, do you? It was either fight back or die. I chose to fight, but at a very high price to me and my family.
“Both my mother and father died weeks apart, thinking you were going to be putting me in jail. My brother John, you remember him, don’t you? He fought very hard to stop you. He was right, you are the boogeyman.”
A month earlier, on Sept. 30, 2020, at the sentencing of Clare Bronfman, Natalie was more explicit.
She said, “my brother, a brother who I lost on March 12, 2009, to an apparent suicide, according to the autopsy, my brother was in communications with Keith, as explained to me in heart-wrenching detail. John was desperate to stop the ongoing litigation that was destroying our family, pulling us apart. I don’t believe my brother woke up that day and decided to take his own life. I believe people who die, deal with this type of relentless pursuit, do things to ease the pain, you drink, you take drugs, you over medicate, you stop caring for yourself as you should.”
Here, Natalie presents a kind of hybrid – John did not commit suicide – for that requires intent – but the autopsy report lists him as a suicide.
This is something John’s girlfriend disputes.
Glazer Provides Evidence
Natalie’s attorney, Neil Glazer is sticking by Natalie concerning the suicide of her brother. However, in the lawsuit, though Natalie’s claims are spelled out against Raniere in detail – no mention of her brother is found.
Glazer however forwarded to me something Natalie likely forwarded to him – a “cut and paste” of a portion of her brother’s autopsy that purportedly states John committed suicide.
I must admit the “cut and paste” made me suspicious. I would think autopsies are not in word format that can be cut and pasted, but would be in a PDF or some format that does not permit cutting and pasting, for the simple reason that people could easily alter them.
Still here is what I got – in the body of an email from Glazer – which I could also cut and past – and which I have done here.
This is purportedly from the autopsy report from the Office of the Medical Examiner, Monroe County, New York – and, as Glazer wrote to me, “is a direct cut and paste of the medical examiner’s conclusion:”
Name: John A Natalie Date of Birth: 11/11/1952
Manner of Death: Suicide Age: 56 Years
Cause of Death: Combined effects of metoprolol and diltiazem
If a distinguished attorney like Neil Glazer sends this to me, stating his belief that the autopsy is real, and even though he did not send me the complete autopsy, if he himself has seen it, I have to wonder is this true?
The girlfriend and family friends say John did not commit suicide. Is it possible that Natalie doctored the autopsy?
Natalie’s statement that John was in frequent communications with Raniere – with whom John was trying to negotiate the end of the litigation and harassment etc. – does not tally with Lisa’s statement that John and Toni had not spoken in two years.
It also does not tally with his 2009 death since it is not immediately clear that there was any ongoing litigation with Raniere/NXIVM and Natalie during that period. However, there is no doubt that Raniere was interested in seeing Natalie go to prison. It was one of the tasks that Raniere and Keeffe assigned to me during my work there in 2007.
I investigated somewhat and found some suspicious bank financing concerning leases, but I advised Keeffe and Raniere that going after Natalie, an old girlfriend, was not worthwhile.
As for the suicide, Frank Report is willing to keep an open mind on this; it looms large in NXIVM lore – the death of John Natalie, a suicide because of Keith Raniere and Kristin Keeffe – so we ought to try to find out the truth.
The complete autopsy might settle it, but I would be suspicious of one that appears in a cut-and-paste version.
Adding to the dubiousness of the claim of suicide, are some of the other suspicious stories Natalie has told, some of which are alluded to above.
All told, we have published at least 100 stories about her, most of them favorable. I assume, since she is interested in me, I can return the favor and offer more stories in the near future.
Here is a select sampling from the past:
Pino Refutes Natalie’s Claim – Computer Trespass Case May Have Started With a Lie
July 26, 2019
July 28, 2019
July 30, 2019
More Questions Emerge About Toni Natalie
July 31, 2019
August 18, 2019
Toni Natalie: Not Who She Says She Is?
August 19, 2019
Toni Natalie’s Past Business History Needs Vetting for Readers
August 21, 2019
Did Keith Raniere Save Toni Natalie?
August 21, 2019
August 21, 2019
Heidi on Toni Natalie, Her Sister Gina and Keith Raniere
August 21, 2019
Does Anybody See a Pattern of Life Choices Made by Toni Natalie?
August 29, 2019
Toni Natalie Helped Me When Jim Odato Called
August 29, 2019
Was Toni Natalie Really Targeted for Kidnapping by Raniere and Emiliano Salinas?
September 2, 2019 11:48 pm
Did NXIVM Almost Survive and Thrive Because of Toni Natalie?
September 21, 2019
Toni Natalie’s Publishers Remove ‘Single Mother’ From Description of Her New Book
September 22, 2019
Was Toni Natalie Lying About Her Role as Single Mother?
September 24, 2019
In Defense of Toni Natalie – She Was Afraid of Keith Raniere
September 24, 2019
Toni Natalie Put Her Own Son on Keith’s Low Calorie Diet – Happily He Escaped From Both of Them
September 25, 2019
From Plastic Surgery to Dubious SSI Benefits – Bangkok Blasts Toni Natalie – and It Ain’t Pretty
September 26, 2019
Heidi: Another Take on Toni Natalie as a Mom
September 28, 2019
Did Toni Natalie Have a Good Marriage or a Bad Marriage When She Left Husband #3 for Keith Raniere
September 30, 2019
October 1, 2019
Ex-Husband Rusty DeCook Speaks From the Heart – About His Son – and Toni Natalie
October 3, 2019
Toni Natalie Is Really, Really, Really Pretty – Just Ask Her
October 4, 2019
Bangkok Dissects Toni Natalie’s Role as a Parent and Truth Teller – and It’s Ugly
October 5, 2019
Toni Natalie Might Consider Writing Porn
October 6, 2019
October 7, 2019
The Many Provable Lies of Toni Natalie – and Why She Can Never Be Trusted
October 9, 2019
October 19, 2019
October 27, 2019
Another Day, Another Lie – From Toni Natalie – This Time About Business Experience
October 28, 2019
Bangkok: Notice To All Attorneys Who Might Want to Sue –Toni Nata-LIE Lied and Here’s Proof!
December 1, 2019
Have We Seen the Last of Toni Natalie – Will She Show up for Raniere’s Sentencing?
November 7, 2019
Guest View: Just an Awful Shitshow – Starring Toni Natalie
November 9, 2019
Toni Natalie Lies About Her Own Brother’s Death!
November 12, 2019
Was Toni Natalie Really ‘Sued Into Oblivion’ by Keith Raniere?
November 15, 2019
A Tale of Two Rascals – Toni Natalie and Esperanza Gomez – Violent Genital Assualters
November 15, 2019
Toni Natalie Claims She Married a Man to ‘Prevent a Mob War’!
November 17, 2019
Toni Natalie’s Triad of Self-Diagnoses Might be Wrong
November 19, 2019
Did Toni Natalie Leave Raniere Over Being Raped, Losing Her Son, or a Black Wool Sweater?
November 22, 2019
November 25, 2019
October 30, 2019
Bangkok: Do Not Decrease Your Awesome Coverage of Toni Nata-LIE
November 30, 2019
Shivani: Beware of People Like Toni Natalie
December 3, 2019
Toni Natalie’s Role in the Fight Against Keith Raniere
October 11, 2020
Susan Dones: Toni Natalie Should Not Be Trusted to Tell the Truth: My Side of the Saga
October 12, 2019
October 13, 2019
No Evidence That Co-Writer Chet Hardin Conspired With Toni Natalie to Lie in Her Book
October 14, 2019
Toni Natalie’s ‘Keith Hypnotized Me Into Quitting Smoking’ Story Disputed by Ex-Husband Rusty
October 17, 2019
October 21, 2019
Bangkok: Decision to Include Toni Natalie in Nxivm Civil Lawsuit Fraught With Risk
January 29, 2020
Toni Natalie’s Role in the Fight Against Keith Raniere
October 11, 2020
Toni Natalie’s Last Statement to Raniere: ‘A Genius? What a Joke!’
Nov. 6, 2020
Bangkok: Frank Must Expose Truth About Toni Natalie’s Brother’s Death and Inform the Court
February 6, 2021
