See Part #1 for introduction: NXIVM: The Moira Penza Interview Part 1: Reading NY Times Story, Reaching Out to Edmondson and Collateral.
Hear the interview on the podcast A Little Bit Culty.
Moira Kim Penza:
{After reading the New York Times article in October 2017] There was part of me that immediately thought there could be a sexual component to this. And that was corroborated, that gut feeling, very quickly… I met with people who had been assaulted by Keith Raniere and as part of DOS. I think that was something that happened really quickly. And… I do give enormous credit to the Albany Times Union and what they had been able to uncover… back in 2012. [The Secrets of NXIVM series, a four-part series published in Feb. 2012, where many details of NXIVM and Keith Raniere were revealed for the first time, including the allegations that Raniere had numerous underage female victims.]
A lot of the predicate [racketeering] acts… of this criminal organization that I charged… had been identified before. It was… very troubling… that it hadn’t been stopped earlier, but then there was more uncovered and I really do think it was a matter of really building trust with people and really understanding where people were coming from… I always come back to the [FBI] agents, but I think their rapport… the fact that we all came to this with a healthy skepticism. But immediately we were confronted with real facts that showed that there were crimes here that needed to be prosecuted.
Anthony Ames
…. I was there in 2009 when a lot of these women complained [The NXIVM 9, led by Barbara Bouchey and Susan Dones, were nine women who left NXIVM complaining that Raniere was sleeping with many of his students] and I went in and asked everyone ‘What’s going on here?’ because I was thinking of getting out [of NXIVM] or just leaving… and I got lied to …To see that the Times Union was actually on the scent and wasn’t able to get the proper investigation or Keith arrested. I felt like, if these things [in the Times Union] were true, then, there was a criminal justice system in place that would hold [NXIVM/Raniere] accountable either locally, or wherever.
Sarah Edmondson
That’s actually what Lauren [Salzman] said [at the time, 2012]. She said, ‘if these things were true [in the Times Union], we’d be in prison. I was like ‘Oh, okay.’
Ames
Obviously, that’s the question, and, subsequently, since we started our podcasts, we’ve asked a lot of these people why they think these abuses of power go on… And protection from certain government agencies, through loopholes. I’m just wondering, what you think happened there [with NXIVM], Why was [Raniere] able to exist and “get away with it?” What do you think went on?
Edmondson
Are you allowed to answer that?
Penza
Frankly, I can’t fully comprehend why law enforcement didn’t act earlier. Of course, this is a very complex case. And I came at it in a world in which I had a very dedicated team. I was at the Eastern District of New York, which has a lot of resources, which has a historical practice of prosecuting these really big racketeering cases. So I had all of that on my side. But I do think it’s a real question that still remains out there as to why nothing was done earlier [by law enforcement in the Albany area: i.e., Albany DA, State Police or the feds in the Northern District of NY]. And Judge [Nicholas] Garaufis raised that [point] during Lauren’s sentencing and I think that was just a powerful moment because I think all of us, as proud as we are of the resolution that we got in this case and the fact that Keith Raniere is unable to hurt anyone else, there’s still a real sadness and it really is a tragedy [that it hadn’t been prosecuted earlier.]
That so many people, including Sarah, including the other women in DOS, they [would] never [have] had to go through that had this been stopped earlier. And so I think that’s really one of the things that I think remains a mystery.
Seagram’s heiresses Sarah and Clare Bronfman helped fund NXIVM
However, if I were to hypothesize, I think a big factor was the amount of funding and financing that was behind [NXIVM — i.e. Bronfmans]. And so when you look at the campaign that was initiated, just against you, after the DOS story was broken inside the organization, where you had someone [Clare Bronfman] who’s actually able to get on a plane and try and get authorities to act against you, Sarah, and where that has happened in the past successfully, where they have been able to go after critics, where other people have been able to, you know, have essentially prosecutions handed to them in a box, I think that that is something that that is very powerful. [Clare Bronfman went to Vancouver to file a criminal complaint against Edmondson]…
There was just a ton of fear in terms of the people who were victimized, right, understandably so. I think, once DOS happened, and once that really blew up and once there were people speaking out, that enabled other people to be part of a group. And there was still an enormous amount of fear, right? Every single witness interview I did, I was, you know, talking people down, explaining the fact that they were protected now, that it was very unlikely that there was going to be any physical violence, that it would be very hard [for Raniere/Bronfman] to retaliate at this point in time, but I think, until then, people would have been outliers.
And, first of all, it’s hard to build a case if you don’t have cooperative witnesses, right? That’s pretty fundamental. And then, on top of that, you know, people didn’t want to say these things happened to me because they didn’t believe anyone was going to support them and they thought their own lives would be ruined instead. And that’s the pattern they have seen already.
Edmondson
We also had a theory that maybe there had been some bribery… this is totally unsubstantiated, just our own theory, that maybe Clare Bronfman had paid off certain [government] officials to kind of leave them alone.
And, just as an example of if… I think we’d already gone to the New York Times but the article wasn’t out yet. And there was months went by… waiting for that article five months… and we knew that there was a coach summit at Apropos at that dingy little clubhouse that used to be an Italian restaurant, and we knew that they were over capacity, because they were always over capacity…
Ames
And they weren’t supposed to be cooking food there.
Edmondson
[While waiting for the Times story to come out] We were just trying to distract as much as we could. And I called the local authorities just to say I want you to know that there’s an event happening and they’ll double capacity in a fire hazard and I really think that you should go knock on the door and let them know and they [local zoning enforcement officials] wouldn’t do it unless I was willing to give my name. And I was like “What crazy law was that based on? Like, you can’t just go knock on their door and see that they’re over capacity without me, like, I’m not willing to give my name. These people are crazy. They’re gonna come after me.”
Of course later, [I was] much more willing to give my name about these things, but, at the time, we didn’t know that the New York Times was going to come out, the impact it would have, or whatever, but our theory was that Clare has just paid off people and just to sort of give them some space to do whatever they want it essentially.
[The only publication during those long months from June to October 2017 that wrote about NXIVM was the Frank Report. I wrote about Bronfman filing a criminal complaint against Edmondson and about Apropos. Most of the NXIVM and DOS members learned about DOS from the Frank Report, as the New York Times indicated in their story.]
Penza
…. Certainly at trial. I think there were some pretty shocking allegations and things that we proved at trial, about attempts by Clare Bronfman at various points in time to curry favor with certain politicians. We had evidence of the fact that there were illegal campaign payments [to Hillary Clinton] at certain points in time with essentially Clare Bronfman financing other people’s payments over campaign contribution limits. So now I believe more things are possible than I did before. But I don’t have any way of knowing that…
I also have the gut sense without this being substantiated, but just that there was a view [by law enforcement in the Albany area] that “Okay, this is a weird group over here. I’m just gonna let them kind of do their thing and not really get involved.” That’s really the sense that I have. And it’s so disheartening to me, looking back at all the atrocities that were taking place… but I really think that is what a lot of people thought was, you know, “These are just a bunch of weirdos and just let them do their thing.”
Ames
That’s part of the con.
Penza
Right.
Ames
… Sarah and I had multiple people who were on the fence asking questions, and they were coming back to us with what they [NXIVM leaders] were saying about Sarah and I, and one person who left said flat out Clare Bronfman went on a walk with him and said, “What dirt do you have on them?”
Penza
That doesn’t surprise me… you know better than anyone,
