This is Part 14 of our series on Lauren Salzman, based primarily on her testimony in the trial of Keith Alan Raniere.
Lauren is an interesting case study for there is a debate on whether she is more of a victim or more of a perpetrator.
Most everyone says she is both but the debate is over where to draw the line.
Part 1: How Lauren Salzman Described Her Branding Session
Part 3: Lauren Salzman Describes Collateral She Got From Her Slaves, After Lying to Them About DOS
Part 5 Lauren Salzman and Her Slaves Got Bare-Ass Paddling
Part 6: Lauren Salzman Manages Her Slaves – With Cruelty and Insanity
Part 8: More Insanity: Lauren Salzman Touches Man at Volleyball; Keith Says ‘No Avatar Baby’
Part 9 Lauren Salzman Sent to Mind-F–k Gay Woman Who Did Not Want Keith as a Sperm Donor
Part 11 Lauren Salzman Explains Raniere’s Creepy Readiness Drills
Part 12 How Lauren Salzman Was Cheated Out of Motherhood by Keith Raniere and DOS
Part 13 Lauren Salzman Names Inner Circle and Keith’s Relationships With Them
Assistant Us Attorney Tanja Hajjar is examining Lauren Salzman. It is May 20, 2019.
In this post, Lauren talks about her brand, a proposed tattoo Keith wanted on top of the brands and the kind of photographs Keith wanted from the first line DOS women.
Q Was one requirement of DOS to get a brand?
A Yes.
Q Did you get branded?
A I did.
Q What was the brand of?
A Keith’s initials.
Q Did you know that at the time?
A I did, yes.
Q And what about the slaves under you, did they know?
A No. We were not allowed to tell them.
Q At any point, did you or the other first-line DOS masters express concern about the fact that the brand was of the defendant’s initials?
A Yes, I did and others did as well. Keith said that it shouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t make a difference that it doesn’t — that nobody would know, and that we were being like just making problems or focusing on being negative, you know, about things that weren’t really an issue. He didn’t want to change it. He wanted it to be this way, and insisted, it would not be a problem, even though a number of us did think it was a concern.
Q At some point, were you told about an additional tattoo that would be made to the brand?
A I was, yes.
Q Can you explain that?
A My understanding was that the tattoo was to be — so the brand is a scar. The — and that the tattoo would go over the scar so it would be — the initials would be retattooed over the scar, but then there would be additional parts of the tattoo. Like Keith had an idea that he wanted to have some kind of a nicer — pretty design, but that it would have in it a special symbol of the lineage. So everybody who was under me in line, each of the eight DOS masters were considered a lineage. So each one would have their own unique special symbol that everybody in that line would have. There would be a special symbol, I think between the master and slave. So the girls that I enrolled would have a special symbol that they shared just with me. And then each of them would have a special symbol that they shared just with the girls that they enrolled. Our number of enrollment was part of that and there may have been other things that I can’t recall possibly having to do with what area you were from or something. But I’m not a hundred percent sure about that.
Q Did you, in fact, get a tattoo over your brand?
A No.
Q Why not?
A Because Keith never decided on the design.
Q You testified, Ms. Salzman, about meetings that you had with the first-line masters in DOS?
A Yes.
Q Where were those meetings held?
A Initially, they were held at — at different people’s homes. Usually, the homes that were least likely to have people notice that we were having meetings there and where we could take our naked pictures and nobody would know that we were doing that. But then later, we bought a home. Rosa Laura bought it, that was the sorority house. It was on 9 Milltowne Drive in Halfmoon, and that was where we had all our meetings after that.
Rosa Laura Junco bought the house at 9 Milltowne Drive as the secret sorority house for the DOS first line slaves. There was to be a dungeon in the basement.
***
Q You mentioned naked photographs you were required to take at DOS meetings?
A Yes.
Q Did the defendant impose requirements about what the photographs should look like?
A Yes. Well, generally, I mean, we were supposed to be uniform, so like all looking the same. So one time, like, Daniella had a baseball cap and we got feedback that either we all had to wear hats or nobody had to wear hats. Nobody should wear hats. So we were to be uniform, fully frontally naked, the brand should show, and we should appear happy in the pictures. Like if we weren’t happy, we got feedback that we weren’t happy and we needed to retake the picture.
Sister slaves – Allison Mack and Dani Padilla. One time Dani had a hat on when they took their naked pictures. Keith made them take the picture over again.
Q When you got feedback, who gave you the feedback?
A Keith.
Q Were the photographs sent to the defendant?
A Yes.
Q Who sent the photographs to the defendant?
A Whoever took the pictures, I mean.
Q Did he respond?
A Sometimes. Not always.
Q When the defendant gave feedback on the photographs, would you sometimes have to retake the photographs?
A Yes. Whenever there was feedback given on the photographs, we incorporated the feedback and retook the picture with the feedback incorporated.
Q What does that mean, when you incorporated the feedback?
A We made a change that was suggested. If we didn’t look happy, we did a picture that was happier. If our legs weren’t spread enough, we had to spread our legs more. Whatever the feedback was, we did it.
Q Did the defendant request explicit sexual photographs from you and the other first-line DOS masters?
A Yes.
Q How often?
A Sometimes — I mean, from time to time, but it was enough that everyone knew that he preferred those types of pictures. And so generally our focus — a lot – generally we would tend to just take that picture at the onset like because it was viewed as preferable to him that we took a picture with our legs spread or up close vaginal pictures, that he liked that better and everybody in the group knew it enough that we would focus the pictures on that.
Q Did the defendant ever give you or the other first-line DOS masters feedback with regard to the grooming of pubic hair?
A Yes. He wanted to know — he looked at a picture specifically of my vagina and said — wanted to know why it looked groomed.
Q Were you aware based on your prior sexual relationship with the defendant of his preference in that regard?
A Yes.
Q How did you feel about the photographs?
A I had mixed feelings about the photographs. I mean, for me it was very uncomfortable. Like the elephant in the room for me was that he was having sex with a lot of these people and he wasn’t having sex with me anymore, and so I felt very insecure about that, and I would have to, like, consistently set that aside to be able to do what was being done. And I would tell myself that it wasn’t sexual because it was Keith’s, and the reason that we were doing this was just so that we would learn to become comfortable with our bodies and that, you know. It was just about vulnerability. But I knew he liked certain things, and he was asking for those things and he was asking for those things from people he was having sexual relationships with, and as he had –and when he had taken pictures of me when we were having a sexual relationship. So it was hard to keep that part of it out of it.
But I wanted to believe that that wasn’t part of it. And then at the same time, I went — some of my best friends in my whole life, and we’re, you know, taking naked pictures three times a week, eventually you get very comfortable with everybody, you know, and I tried to make jokes or make it fun or try to think of like fun themes that we could do, like, to take the pictures which made it easier for me to do it and to feel okay doing it. And it made it more comfortable between all of us. But it was really difficult, and I didn’t want to be doing it.
The eight women would get together, get naked, spread their legs and take up-close vagina shots to send to the man in the middle.
Q What was the effect on you of the requirement to look happy in the photographs?
A Well, it was just fortified that we should always — like if we weren’t happy with some of the things that we were doing — and this was true of anything, it wasn’t just this. That it was — that we had some issue and it was indicative of our issue, that we could choose to be joyful at any moment. And if we didn’t have — if we weren’t choosing issues as the highest priority, then we would just be joyful with anything that we were doing.
So the photographs specifically for the reasons I just described were especially difficult. So then I was there pretending that I was happy taking sexual pictures with the people he was preferring to have sex with instead of me, and that — it was — sometimes it was very difficult. Like I tried to make it fun, and sometimes it was fun and I could have fun doing it. But a lot of times, it was just very painful and hard to put on a happy face for that.
***
Yes, they had to put on a happy face. And here is Lauren – self-flagellating Lauren. Keith is having sex with the other DOS women – all of them but her. And she sticks with him. Loves him. She does not mind the naked pictures or spreading her legs. She minds that he is having sex with seven of the eight women she has to pose with three times a week and not with her.
Poor demented Lauren.
