Lauren Salzman may indeed be a victim. She worked for Keith Raniere as a slave for years.
Once in DOS, she worked even harder, recruiting slaves as quick as she could from those who worked under her and were dependent on their income from her. And slaves who were students and depended on her for teaching “wisdom” and getting therapy from her.
Some might call this abuse of power, along the lines of Keith Raniere.
We learned about how Lauren was branded in How Lauren Salzman Described Her Branding Session
And we learned how Lauren lied to Sarah Edmondson, recruiting her into DOS, knowing Keith expected Sarah, if he commanded, to give up her husband and child, and obey Lauren (and hence Keith) in the all the machinations and lies in their savage DOS scheme.
It was Lauren’s lying about Keith not being in DOS that formed the worst of the criminal case against her. She took a plea deal – of two felony counts – one of racketeering and the other of racketeering conspiracy – and signed a cooperation agreement.
We are studying this now to better understand the system. For she will be sentenced soon.
Some say she was a slave, and had no free will, no ability to think for herself or to reject evil. Others think this is nonsense. Lauren was an adult who got plenty of benefits in status and money for her obedient role.
On the other hand, she testified effectively in the trial against Raniere. Let us remember that, as undoubtedly, the sentencing judge will – that Lauren helped sink the monster.
Her late epiphany – after she was arrested – seemed to come only after she was facing decades in prison – in a looming joint trial with her odious lover Raniere. She had her epiphany or pretended to have it – and her testimony was among the most damning to Keith.
What should her sentence be? She did 20 years of evil for the monster. After he was arrested and the cult busted and after she was arrested and facing decades in prison, she turned on her Vanguard and helped the prosecution put him away.
Some say she was the most impressive, damning witness arrayed against him.
Here is part 3 of Lauren’s testimony as it relates to her invidious role in DOS. She is being examined by Assistant US Attorney Tanya Hajjar, as she explains how she recruited others and took collateral to hold over them, never telling any of her slaves that it was not her, but Raniere who controlled it and that she would have to release it upon his command.
A final point: It seems almost inconceivable that these seemingly intelligent women became slaves – even if they did not know about Raniere’s role. That they should agree to provide collateral and agree to lifetime obedience to Lauren seems hard to fathom.
Some say these are not rational women. They must be mentally imbalanced. Yet there was a lawyer and another with two others with high paying jobs. Two of them were married and lived affluently.
How could anyone, any intelligent woman, agree to nonsense such as being Lauren Salzman’s slave for life and assure it by giving collateral to her? All were Nxivm members, with a commitment to the company. Lauren was one of the top leaders. She could control income for some of them.
Maybe this is what Nxivm was – coercive, hypnotic. Maybe it really only attracted unstable people, who would agree to being branded and givoing collateral to ensure they would remain a faithful lifelong slave to someone.
Is there something deeply deficient in Nxivm women and in particular the women of DOS?
Or did Nxivm make them deficient?
DOS slave Lauren Salzman
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Tanya Hajjar Q You said that you also recruited Audrey?
A I did.
Q How soon after Sarah was recruited did you recruit Audrey?
A Like three weeks.
Q Where did you first approach Audrey?
A Audrey was in Albany taking a course and she came to me and told me that she felt like she was losing her belief in herself to be able to grow and get through her issues and could I help her. And so … this was how I decided to help her. I offered her this option [of joining DOS]….
Q Can you describe your rank in ESP [Nxivm] and your role in ESP as it related to Sarah and Audrey?
A Sarah and I were the same rank but I had more stripes, so I was a higher rank in the same sash level. But Sarah was a green, I was a green. Audrey was a coach, so she was two ranks below and I was her center head as well.
Q What does that mean?
A I was co-head of the San Francisco ESP center, so she was a coach in my center.
Q … What happened after you approached Audrey? What did she do?
A Audrey submitted naked pictures as her collateral and additional collateral as well.
Q Can you describe generally the additional collateral she provided?
A Initially she provided a letter accusing a past relationship — former relationship, a former romantic partner, of violence, domestic violence basically and it was untrue but wrote it in a way that would have gotten him or could have most likely gotten him fired from his job which was a very good job. And then additionally … we filmed a number of videos similar to Sarah’s videos where she told various stories that would discredit people who were important to her of alleged affairs that she had had with coworkers who were married saying that that’s how she achieved the level of position in the company she was working. Things that would have been embarrassing or humiliating to other former boyfriends and also that she worked in a humanitarian organization and that basically [she was] saying that she was posing as a humanitarian to try to scam people out of money.
Q And before —
A And then afterwards, too, Audrey provided a bunch of assets. She promised her car and she provided bank account information as well, investment accounts.
Q And before Audrey provided all this collateral did you lie about the defendant’s role in DOS?
A … yes.
Q Did you give Audrey the impression that this was a women’s group?
A: Yes
[Lauren then testified about how she enrolled the Garza sisters from Mexico]
Q How did that happen, can you explain that process?
A Jimena and Carola were in Mexico, so I did the same process with them that I did with the others just over Skype, so over video conference. Exactly the same way, I told them that there was something I wanted to tell them. I asked for collateral to keep the secret. They provided the collateral and then I shared the four elements of enrollment [lifetime vow of obedience to Lauren – master/slave concept; the collar, which was a necklace; and branding.] and they decided to join and submitted further collateral.
Q And what did they give you as collateral?
A One of them gave me a video speaking about a family member having an addiction problem that would have been very damaging, hurtful to the family, the whole family. Another one gave a video of an alleged affair that they had had on their spouse. And then later they gave additional collateral. I think one gave naked pictures, another one signed over part of their business to me if they were to default on their agreement. There were other things, I can’t recall what those were among them.
Q How did they give these items to you?
A Some they gave in person, some they gave over Telegram.
Q Did you send those further along, did you send those on?
A No, I held on to them.
Q Did you check the sufficiency of the collateral with anyone?
A No. I asked — … at least one of two or them [collateral] were in Spanish and so I asked Loreta [Garza] if she would evaluate it for the weight [if it was damaging enough] and like to see if it was sufficiently meaningful that it would secure the agreement. And it was Loreta’s sisters so I felt she would know, so I sent it [the collateral] to Loreta to check.
Jimena Garza with her husband, trust fund baby Omar Boone, who is one of the current leaders of Nxivm Mexico.
***
Q Who else did you recruit into DOS?
A Amanda and Charmel.
Q And who is Amanda, what was her background?
A Amanda’s an attorney in California. I don’t know as much about her background but…
Q Did she provide collateral to you?
A She provided collateral to me, yes. She was also a coach in my center in San Francisco as well.
Q What kind of collateral did she provide you?
A She provided an account of alleged abuse in her family and then additionally sexually explicit photographs, a video accusing her partner of abuse and that could have gotten … him fired from his job and as well as something… that could have gotten her disbarred.
Q Were you under particular pressure to recruit Amanda?
A Well, I had scheduled the branding ceremony for the first four that I had enrolled, so I wanted to give Amanda the opportunity to be part of that. So I enrolled Amanda in an expedited fashion to try to get her to be part of that and she wanted to and so her enrollment was similar to mine, it took place in like 2 or 3 days from enrollment to branding.
Q And for each of these DOS slaves that you recruited did you conceal the defendant’s role in DOS?
A Yes, all of them.
***
Q Ms. Salzman, did your slaves recruit their own slaves?
A They did, yes.
Q And … did their recruits provide collateral to them which was shown you?
A Yes. Given to me ultimately.
Q Did Audrey recruit a slave?
A She did, yes.
Q And did any DOS slaves express concerns about the collateral they submitted?
A Yes. Her — yes, in particular the slaves that she enrolled did.
Q Can you explain that further?
A She submitted something that she felt went against something that she believed in, so she wanted to get it back. And she specifically said …. ‘please don’t turn it in. I do want to have it back.’ … Amanda enrolled somebody, too, who submitted something and she afterwards was very upset that she had submitted it and really struggled with that.
Q Ms. Salzman, did you ever review a spreadsheet in connection with DOS enrollment?
A Yes.
Q Who prepared it?
A Rosa Laura kept track of the enrollment and at some point in time Loreta helped put it in Excel for us.
Q Where did you see it?
A … we shared a DropBox folder, so it was in an Excel Spreadsheet in the DropBox folder.
[Lauren is shown the Excel spreadsheet as an exhibit.]
A Yes. This is — it’s an Excel Spreadsheet that has a list of everybody who was enrolled at the time it was made.
A It’s a list of the first-line DOS masters and how many enrollments they had in each line below them that we used for readiness drills.
***
Q Okay. And does this spreadsheet reflect some of the participants in DOS?
A Yes.
Q And can you just explain what these columns are starting with first that column that says, “First”?
A Sure. First shows that it’s the first line, so it lists the first-line masters, Cami, Dani, Nicky, Loreta. And then on the subsequent pages are the rest of the first line. Rosa Laura, Monica, Allison, and myself.
Q And each of the names you read are the names of the first line DOS masters that we discussed before?
***
{Lauren is shown another line in the spreadsheet]
Q And does this reflect the slaves that are under you in DOS?
A Yes, it does.
Q And which column is that in?
A The slaves that are under me are the column listed — titled Second.
Q What about the numbers in red that are at the top of the column … what does that reflect?
A It reflects the number of people who are enrolled in that line at that time.
Q Can you explain that; so, what does the 8 signify?
A The eight of us first line and then 38 shows that we have collectively enrolled 38 people under us, and those 38 people in the next column had enrolled 43 people under them, and those 43 people had collectively enrolled 13 people under them in the column labeled Fourth.
Q So, at the time this spreadsheet was prepared what is the total number that the spreadsheet reflects?
A 102.
***
Q What does the yellow highlighting mean, the asterisk at the top that says two asterisks means second payment is not complete?
A It means they’re not fully collateralized.
Q What does that refer to, second payment?
A It refers to the collateral, that they haven’t given the second collateral. So, they gave the first collateral for secrecy but not fully collateralized in the vow.
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One hundred and two slaves – at the time of the spreadsheet.
Frank Report has not obtained a copy of the entire spreadsheet. But here is a copy of a page of it.
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It is reasonable to note that Frank Report broke the news of DOS and branding, with a story entitled Part 1: Branded Slaves and Master Raniere; Sources: Human branding part of Raniere-inspired women’s group, on June 5, 2017 [followed up by more posts].
Its publication helped stopped a number of slaves from being branded [according to them] and helped inform others that DOS, despite Lauren’s lies to them, was headed by Raniere.
This caused a number of them to quit immediately, they told Frank Report.
Yet, it was a simple blog. Anyone could start one. But it helped rescue dozens of women, according to the women themselves.
From over 100 women, DOS reduced within a month of my reporting to less than half.
By August, the Nxivm cult itself seemed to have reduced in size. Based on reliable reports, the attendance at Vanguard Week was down from nearly 500 at V-Week 2016 to 125 at V-Week 2017.
All of this occurred months before the New York Times came out with their blockbuster branding story that prompted the FBI to investigate the monster and his minions and ultimately arrest and convict him.
Which brings us back to Lauren. She was out there recruiting up until that day her Raniere-led world fell apart.
Does she deserve leniency or harsh punishment?
