US District Judge Richard J. Arcara sentenced Frank Parlato yesterday, and several media reported on it. Here is the Buffalo News’ and Albany Times Union reports.
Jul 31, 2023
A federal judge Monday sentenced Frank Parlato Jr. to five months of home detention on a single tax conviction, concluding a case that started nearly eight years ago with a 19-count indictment that could have put him in prison for 20 years.
Parlato pleaded guilty in 2022 to a felony count of failing to file a tax form, admitting he accepted cash payments totaling $19,970 from a food vendor at the One Niagara tourist center in Niagara Falls, but failed to notify the IRS, which must be alerted to receipts of cash in amounts greater than $10,000.
Prosecutors asked for a two-year prison sentence. Sentencing guidelines called for 24 to 30 months imprisonment.
U.S. District Judge Richard Arcara said he spent “an enormous amount of time” reviewing character letters and voluminous sentencing submissions. Arcara cited 78 letters of support for Parlato as one of the factors in his decision not to incarcerate him.
“They are powerful letters, no doubt about it,” Arcara said.
The letters of support filed in U.S. District Court came from people across the country who extolled Parlato’s past investigative work that helped expose Nxivm, a purported self-help organization near Albany whose leader was eventually sentenced to life in prison for sex trafficking and forced labor, among other charges.
The judge also sentenced Parlato to one year of supervised release and fined him $10,000.
The ordered restitution of $184,939 has already been paid, Parlato said.
In August 2022, Parlato consented to the government seizing more than $815,000 of contested funds from him.
Herbert Greenman, one of Parlato’s defense lawyers, told the judge the prosecution took a toll on Parlato, calling him “a little bit of a broken person right now.”
“This has been a long time coming,” Greenman said of Monday’s hearing, noting that Parlato has lost income while “living under the cloud of an indictment.”
In remarks to the judge during the sentencing hearing, Parlato said he regretted his tax crime.
Parlato, 68, also said he regretted not showing more “gentle mercy” at other times in his life, and he pledged to do so going forward.
“May I be merciful as I ask for mercy,” Parlato told the judge.
After the sentencing, Parlato said, “Part of justice is mercy, not to be squandered.”
The former real estate developer publishes the Niagara Falls Reporter, an opinion website about Niagara County affairs, and the Frank Report, a website that follows up on Nxivm and other cases around the nation.
Frank Parlato talks with former NXIVM insider Susan Dones in “The Lost Women of NXIVM,” a 2019 TV program that Parlato hosted. Dones is among the many figures in the cult-like group’s story who have asked a federal judge to show mercy on Parlato. (Aimee Buck/Investigation Discovery)
NXIVM blogger avoids prison at sentencing
NXIVM blogger Frank Parlato Jr. sentenced for tax crimes in Buffalo
Longtime critic of cult leader Keith Raniere’s organization received punishment of five months’ home confinement, restitution order and a $10,000 fine
ALBANY — Anti-NXIVM blogger Frank Parlato Jr. will not be headed to federal prison.
Instead, the 68-year-old Niagara Falls man, a one-time publicist for Keith Raniere’s cult-like organization who became one of its most outspoken opponents, will spend five months on home confinement for his August 2022 guilty plea to a single count of willful failure to file tax returns involving cash transactions of more than $10,000. Prosecutors described the long-running case as classic tax evasion related to nearly $400,000 in unreported income over several years.
Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Arcara imposed time served, five months of home confinement and one year of supervision by federal probation officers. Parlato must immediately pay $184,939 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service and a fine of $10,000.
In 2015, then-U.S. Attorney William Hochul, husband of Gov. Kathy Hochul, announced an indictment that charged Parlato with victimizing high-ranking NXIVM members Seagram’s heiresses Clare Bronfman and Sara Bronfman-Igtet. In 2018, a superseding indictment against Parlato dropped the Bronfman-related charges.
Prosecutors for now-U.S. Attorney Trini Ross asked the judge to sentence Parlato to between 18 and 24 months. Parlato sought a non-prison sentence.
In June 2017, Parlato’s blog, The Frank Report, first publicly revealed Raniere’s secret master/slave group known as Dominus Obsequious Sororium, or DOS, in which women were blackmailed, deprived of sleep, starved on 500-calorie diets or less, given assignments to seduce Raniere and in many cases physically branded on their pelvic areas with a symbol revealed later to be Raniere’s initials.
The New York Times expanded on The Frank Report’s stories. In March 2018, Raniere was indicted. In 2019, he was convicted at trial of sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy and racketeering charges. He is serving 120 years in federal prison.
Former NXIVM members Kristin Keeffe, Susan Dones and Nicki Clyne were among the scores of letter-writers who asked the judge to show leniency to Parlato, as did Stephen Herbits, a longtime confidant of Seagram’s tycoon Edgar Bronfman Sr., the late father of the Bronfman sisters.
Toni Natalie, a former girlfriend of Raniere prior to NXIVM who became one of its longtime victims, wanted the judge to impose a more stringent sentence.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Charles Kruly represented the prosecution. Parlato’s attorneys were Paul Cambria and Herbert Greenman.
