End of the Line for Direct Appeals
There is not much left for Keith Alan Raniere now that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected his bid for a new trial. He is likely to finish out his career at USP Tucson.
The Second Circuit’s order virtually ends Raniere’s direct appeals. While he could petition for an en banc rehearing before the entire judicial body of the 2nd Circuit or seek Supreme Court review, his winning either of those are long shots. Like a million to one.
For one thing, his claims are fact-specific, and the Supreme Court does not reexamine factual findings. A separate § 2255 motion pending before Judge Garaufis is all he haa left and that is supremely likely to fail, given the appellate court’s rejection of the same arguments.
The Claims of Fabricated Evidence
HIs big problem – other than being one of the most dislike persons in America (which is a problem in our system) Raniere is accusing the FBI of cheating.
It is likely true. They cheated. But that doesn’t matter. The FBI cheats all the time.
Nobody cares. Raniere is serving a 120-year sentence for sex trafficking, racketeering, and related crimes. That’s where we want him. In the slammer. He wants to get out just because the FBI cheated to put him there. Nobody cares. He alleged in his appeal and again in his pending §2255 that prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York had “falsified, fabricated, and manipulated all the key evidence” and that his forensic experts concluded “the FBI must have been involved in this evidence tampering.”
Yeah? So what do you got? That and $8 will buy you a mocha grande at Starbucks.
The Second Circuit rejected Raniere’s claim without seeking an evidentiary hearing as to whether the FBI tampered with evidence. That was wise for what they don’t know, they can claim they never saw.
The panel came up with a grand excuse: They decided his evidence was not ‘newly discovered.’
This spells doom for his § 2255 motion, since it is highly unlikely (odds one in 425 million) the trial judge, Nicholas Garaufis, is going to make findings different from those the 2nd circuit found.
The Missing Memory Card
The court ruled that he had the camera, hard drive, and FBI-created forensic reports before trial; that whatever he did not get, his defense expert could have had access to at the FBI lab; and that his counsel cross-examined the government’s forensic examiner on metadata issues during trial.
What the court did not mention was that, based on the federal rules of evidence, Raniere should have received a clone of the camera’s memory card. He did not. How could he. The FBI fu–ed it all up when they botched the tampering with it.
The FBI seized it, lost custody of it (supposedly), and, when it reappeared, the FBI’s own reports showed it contained 32 new photo files that were not in the original forensic report. Nice try fellas.
Those files, tied in with files on the seized hard drive, formed the basis of the digital evidence underlying the child exploitation predicate act—alleging Raniere had produced and possessed explicit images of Camila when she was under eighteen.
The Second Circuit held that even if the FBI tampered with the evidence, any error was harmless given corroborating evidence, including testimony and communications, indicating an intimate relationship with Camila around the time the photos were taken. That’s cute because Raniere was not charged with underage sex. Raniere was not charged with statutory rape; the predicate act concerned the creation and possession of sexually explicit photographs of a minor. The proof of that is the metadata of certain photgraphs.
Two Reports, Thirty-Two New Files
The record shows that prosecutors provided FTK forensic reports in place of the actual card clone. According to defense reports, two versions existed: the first contained 32 fewer files than the second, which was substituted mid-trial.
The ruling that Raniere is not entitled to get the clone of the camera card is helpful to government cheaters everywhere. It creates a roadmap for concealment: What the defense fails to uncover before the verdict cannot be pursued afterward—an outcome that encourages the prosecutors to emply the strategic withholding of evidence.
No Bias Found, Praise for the Judge
The court also denied Raniere’s motion to recuse Judge Nicholas Garaufis, finding no indication of bias. It held that the judge’s decision to limit the cross-examination of Lauren Salzman just as she was about to unravel her plea agreement and help Raniere out -was a reasonable exercise of courtroom management, not evidence of “deep-seated favoritism or antagonism.”
No it was just protecting the government’s case.
The appeals court ended its order by praising Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis “for handling this seven-year litigation with skill, patience, and restraint.”
That’s a great way to cover for their colleague.
Keith Raniere when he was arrested in Mexico in 2018.
Institutional Considerations
Raniere is, after all, accusing the FBI of fabricating evidence. Federal judges tend to protect the appearance of fairness because the appearance (not necessarily the reality) defines public faith in the system.
To admit FBI corruption would be to admit that other convictions might be tainted.
Raniere’s case is about public perception, not FBI cheating. The cheating seems likely. But that’s not the point.
Raniere’s crimes were horrific, his name synonymous with abuse and control. Branding women. Master and slaves.
The idea that he might win on a “technicality” just because the FBlI needed a little insurance to ensure they would win, is no reason to let him go free. It would cause public outrage.
If the FBI falsified evidence in this case, where else might it have happened? The public needn’t know. Every conviction could be questioned then. The judiciary’s credibility depends on the FBI’s perceived integrity. No court cares if the FBI cheats. The judges only care if the FBI gets caught.
If the FBI altered evidence, the conviction is legally compromised. So no, the judges are not going to let the FBI get caught. They long ago green lit FBI cheating – from back in the day wen J. Edgar Hoover had something on every judg .
It is more comfortable for the judiciary to be willfully blind abut the FBI. It ensures bad guys like Raniere are convicted. And if a few innocents get in the way, that’s the cost of putting bad guys away.
Raniere’s guilt is certain. He’s a scoundrel But letting him out would offend our collective sense of fairness more than any FBI misconduct would. If the FBI can’t cheat to put a bad guy in prison what are they good for?
The Irony of Control
The courts prioritize outcome over due process—because outcomes sustain confidence, and confidence sustains the system. There’s irony in that—because that’s how Raniere ran NXIVM. He built a world around the illusion that he was the smartest, the most ethical, the man whose word was final. In NXIVM, he was the court of last resort.
He demanded absolute obedience to his own rules to protect his image and preserve his power, without concern for truth or justice. And if somebody cheated – to recruit, or get money from, or have sex with, or to shun or punish or put in prison, it was part of his higher ethics.
He has been defeated by a judicial system that does precisely the same as he did. Raniere was perhaps cheated, much as he cheated others.
And in the deeply philosophical words of those in the know, it’s called karma or better still judicial economy.
Viva Executive Success!
