Investigative journalist and publisher Frank Parlato filed a malicious prosecution lawsuit Tuesday accusing Sara and Clare Bronfman, heirs to the Seagram liquor fortune and former leaders of NXIVM, of providing false information about him to federal law enforcement, which led to federal charges that prosecutors later dropped.
The suit, filed in State Supreme Court in Erie County, accuses the sisters of making false claims that Parlato defrauded them of $1 million, which is how much Parlato said the Bronfmans paid him as part of a California real estate development project.
“Defendants acted to perpetuate and carry out the malicious prosecution” of Parlato “directly and personally,” according to the suit, and also “with the assistance of employees, subordinates, investigators, lawyers, and other non-parties who acted at their direction and commands.”
Keith Raniere mugshot
Raniere’s Involvement
The lawsuit also alleges Keith Alan Raniere, the co-founder of NXIVM, acted as the Bronfmans’ “agent, with actual and apparent authority.” Raniere, convicted of sex trafficking, racketeering, forced labor, and other charges in 2019, was sentenced in 2020 to 120 years in prison. Raniere is federal inmate 57005-177 who resides at USP Tucson, a high-security United States prison in Tucson, Arizona.
Parlato said the Bronfmans engaged him “to take control of a failing real estate development project in Los Angeles” in late 2007 and early 2008 and was “wrongfully terminated” in March of that year.
Sara and Clare Bronfman
Details of the Project and Parlato’s Termination
The real estate project involved developing “at least twenty six (26) properties in Los Angeles County, including Beverly Hills. Plaintiff received an immediate advance draw of $1 million dollars against Plaintiff’s ‘CEO” compensation.” As part of the terms of engagement, Defendants Clare Bronfman and Sara Bronfman, together with their agent, Keith Raniere, negotiated the terms of Plaintiff’s employment: Plaintiff would receive one-third of the net profits of the Project for Plaintiff’s efforts to develop the real estate project. Although Parlato “fully performed,” including recovering $26 million in assets for the Bronfmans, “he was wrongfully terminated, without cause, by the Defendants in March of 2008,” the lawsuit alleges.
Legal Battle Against Original Developers
In 2008, while still working for the Bronfmans, Parlato brought suit on behalf of himself and the Bronfmans in Los Angeles Superior Court against the original developers who “mismanaged and stole from Clare and Sara Bronfman.” “Those developers, Yuri, Mikhail, and Natale Plyam (“the Plyams”), were…previously handpicked for the development of Project by Keith Raniere – a fact further demonstrating his incompetence and exceedingly poor judgment,” the lawsuit alleges.
Parlato alleges the Bronfmans waited until their and Parlato’s lawsuit against the original developers on the project was resolved “before taking the most active and aggressive steps in their malicious prosecution” of him.
Bronfmans’ Alleged Efforts to Secure Prosecution
The Bronfmans contacted “various law enforcement agencies in California and New York to attempt to secure Plaintiff’s criminal prosecution by providing false or partially false information,” the lawsuit alleges.
The Bronfmans and Raniere “concocted, schemed, and conspired among themselves, and others, to cause Plaintiff’s criminal indictment, wherever and however they could,” the lawsuit alleges. They finally got a taker – the US Attorney for the Western District of NY.
Frank Parlato
Bronfman Testifies Before Grand Jury
In June 2011, with the Los Angeles County Superior Court trial concluded, Clare Bronfman testified before a federal grand jury sitting in the Western District of New York against Plaintiff. Bronfman testified that she and her sister entered into a contract with Parlato, in which they advanced him $1 million relative to the Los Angeles project’s development.
Bronfman told an exactly opposite story in the Los Angeles trial and in a civil lawsuit where she said she did not enter into a contract with Parlato – both versions were helpful to her claims at the time.
Accusations of Misleading Law Enforcement
The lawsuit alleges Bronfman and her sister “misled investigators and prosecutors,” acting “to instate the criminal prosecution of Plaintiff without probable cause.” The lawsuit alleges the Bronfmans “importuned and misled federal investigators and prosecutors in the Western District of New York…. and misled federal law enforcement about material facts concerning Plaintiff… in the same manner in which they had misled law enforcement about other vendors, contractors, and critics of NXIVM.”
Federal Charges Dropped After Years of Legal Battle
In 2015, after a four year investigation, the US Attorney for the Western District of NY filed an indictment charging Parlato with stealing $1 million from the Bronfmans. Three years later, federal prosecutors dropped those charges in 2018.
The NY Times, the NY Post, People, the Daily Mail, the Sun, and many other media outlets credited Parlato with breaking the news about Raniere’s leadership of DOS, a secret sorority featuring blackmail and branding slaves, that led to his and Bronfman’s arrest.
Bronfman Sentenced for Her Role in NXIVM
Judge Nicholas Garaufis sentenced Bronfman to 81 months in prison for her role in NXIVM. The judge pointed out at sentencing that Bronfman used her wealth to influence law enforcement and the courts to punish enemies. Prosecutors say Bronfman spent over $100 million on NXIVM’s legal battles and vendettas.
Parlato was sentenced in July 2023 to one-year probation, with five months on home detention without an ankle monitor, and issued a $10,000 fine after he pleaded guilty in 2022 to a felony count of failing to file a tax form in 2010. The tax form was an IRS 8300 form that requires reporting of cash over $10,000. Parlato failed to report that he collected $19,970 in cash from a tenant. Prosecutors acknowledged Parlato reported the income and paid taxes on the $19,990 collected in cash, but failed to alert the IRS that his tenant paid the rent in cash. Prosecutors did not charge Parlato with tax evasion.
Clare Bronfman is serving her sentence in a halfway house in NYC. She will be released from custody in 11 months – on June 29, 2025. She served most of her sentence at a maximum security facility in Philadelphia. After her release, she will serve a five year term of probation.
Raniere’s term of imprisonment ends in 96 years – on June 27, 2120. After which, he will serve a five year probation term if he survives. Raniere would be 164 years old.
The man they targeted, who in return targeted them, Frank Parlato, completed his one year probation term yesterday.
