Frank Parlato
Suneel Chakravorty
This is Part 3.
Part #1: Analysis of Allegations of FBI Tampering in USA v Raniere
Analysis of FBI Tampering #2: Daniela and Her Relationship With Raniere and Computers
Camila by MK10ART.
Camila’s Story as Told by Her
Camila never testified at Keith Raniere’s trial. She told some of her story at his sentencing. She also made claims through her attorney, Neil Glazer, as part of a pending civil lawsuit.
Attorney Neil Glazer
Camila’s story is important. This analysis is about whether the FBI tampered with photos of Camila. For readers unfamiliar with who she is, this is her story.
For regular readers, this may be redundant. Some want to get right to the meat of new evidence if there is any. That will come soon enough.
Camila’s story is unlikely to win Raniere fans, but we must tell it. Chakravorty agrees we must do this. He wants to point out that this is Camila’s version of events. Raniere has not spoken about it
Chakravorty says chats and emails between Camila and Raniere may not be authentic. They are text documents containing chats.
Parlato views them as authentic. They came from search warrants of his email accounts.
We agreed to present them because they were evidence used at his trial.
Keith Raniere around 2005 with Nancy Salzman.
Camila is the younger sister of Mariana and Daniela. She met Raniere in 2003 when she was 13. Raniere nicknamed her Virgin Camila or VC.
Raniere was big on nicknames. He called Daniela “Bobo,” Mariana “Monkey,” and their brother, Adrian, “Fluffy.”
Camila said Raniere began their sexual relationship on September 18, 2005. This was their anniversary, she said.
Daniela’s anniversary was November 2 – the Day of the Dead. Pam Cafrtiz’s was February 14 – Valentine’s Day.
Camila was 15 and Raniere was 45 when she says they started having sex.
The age difference was not the only power imbalance. Raniere was the leader of a community in which Camila’s entire family were members. More than that, they had relocated from a different country to be part of this community.
Her sisters, Daniela and Mariana, were in sexual relationships with Raniere. They both knew about each other and had this awkward tension between them because they both wanted to be with the same man.
Raniere was the leader of almost everyone Camila knew. She was a 15-year-old girl living in a strange new place. A new climate. Compared to Mexico, the weather is cold.
Her parents were affluent. Her father, Hector, was a successful businessman. He had started a company selling mining tools, and it took off.
On top of that, Nancy Salzman and Raniere guided her. Her parents thought it was a blessing to have these two looking after their youngest child. These wise ones were educating her, helping her. What a great future Camila might have.
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Camila said she often met Raniere at 8 Hale Drive to have sex when she was underage. She had to sneak out of the house she was staying at.
She would make sure no one saw her and slip into 8 Hale Drive. They had sex in the loft bed.
8 Hale Drive
She said he instructed her to come in and take off her clothes.
Then climb the stairs to the second floor.
Go past the office and climb the ladder to the loft bed – nude.
Without exception, he took naked pictures of her, she said at his sentencing hearing.
The Adult Camila
120 Victory Way, Camila’s apartment.
Raniere and Camila continued their relationship as she came of legal age. For sex, the age of consent in New York is 17. She became legal on March 1, 2007. The age of consent for lascivious photos is 18. She became legal for photos on March 1, 2008.
In 2011, Raniere arranged for Camila, 21, to move into a rented townhouse near his home on Flintlock Lane. Now she would not have to sneak to 8 Hale Drive to meet him.
She said Raniere told her it was their home, and he was her husband. Camila said he would only come to have sex and leave. He never lived there.
It was a lonely life for her. Waiting around for him to come over and have sex. He’d come for an hour and go. This he would do several times a week.
Camila did not go to high school. She had only one year of junior high. She did attend NXIVM classes.
She occupied her time babysitting and for a time was a Rainbow Cultural Garden Staff Coordinator.
At one point, Camila told Raniere she did not want to continue their relationship. She was in her 20s, and the world was opening up for her. She was young and beautiful.
She thought he was one of the greatest men in the world. But she was lonely. She wanted someone who would spend more time with her. She wanted to be married and have a family.
At the time Camila moved to Victory Way, Daniela was alone in her room at 12 Wilton. She had been there for more than a year. Her sister Marianna had been living with Raniere for years.
There were texts when they were at Vanguard Week in 2014. Raniere instructed Camila to sneak to a cabin to meet him and ensure that her sister, Mariana, did not see her coming or going.
Many texts say Camila wanted sex from Raniere, and vice versa. Hundreds of explicit texts.
One day, she told him she wanted to leave. She said he threatened to throw her out of the apartment and ban her from the NXIVM community and send her back to Mexico.
In her lawsuit, Camila alleges he raped her twice when she tried to end the relationship. She was in her twenties then.
While in NXIVM, she never made accusations that Raniere raped her. They kept their relationship a secret.
In April 2015, Camila slashed her wrist in the bathtub. She said Raniere found her with blood running down her arm and in a state of shock. He sent photographs of her wound to Nancy Salzman. A licensed nurse, Salzman, opined that Camila did not need to go to the hospital.
Salzman said Camila did it to get attention.
Camila quoted Raniere as saying:
“Can you imagine what would happen to me and my reputation if you had killed yourself?”
Camila’s story continues.
She wanted to leave him. Her texts sometimes show this and at other times it shows the opposite.
Camila said escaping Raniere was her goal for years.
Raniere had theories about a vagina that another man’s penis never touched. It had purer DNA, all the better to bear a child by him. He wanted his DNA to survive and leave the world improved.
To do this, he needed a virgin to bear his child. And by virgin he meant someone who never had another penis touch her, other than his.
This is what she said he told her.
Camila thought Raniere might let her go if she had sex with someone else.
She had an affair with Robbie, the son of an NXIVM trainer. She told Raniere about it.
In emails and the document of WhatsApp chats, Raniere seems obsessed with this affair.
Raniere asked Camila whose semen she thought tasted better, his or Robbie’s. Raniere asked whose penis she thought was larger. He said he no longer considered her pure.
He once nicknamed her Virgin Cami. He discussed having children with her. Now, he told her to find a successor — a virgin.
“His DNA touched you, went inside you, and was assimilated,” Raniere wrote to her.
“I need a pure vessel involved. We can have our love, but purity, both energy-related and DNA-wise, is compromised.”
A Hard Drive Not Hard to Find
Without exception, every time they had sex, he took naked pictures of her, she said at his sentencing.
If this is true, Raniere took many photos of Camila between the time she was 15 and 18. Where are they? If he met her twice a week and took an average of ten pictures, that’s more than 1000 photos.
That the FBI found 22 images of Camila on a hard drive is not hard to believe.
FBI photo of the hard drive.
That he forgot they were on his hard drive is not hard to believe.
There it was, sitting in his office. On the shelf, right next to a silver docking station. A black Western Digital hard drive – with a blue light – loaded with the seeds of his destruction.
This is what the FBI said, and they convinced a jury it was true.
The FBI said the metadata shows a Canon camera took pictures of Camila on November 2 and November 24, 2005. Camila was 15.
The FBI found these photos on a hard drive seized at 8 Hale, where they say he took the photos.
Above is the FBI’s sketch of 8 Hale Drive. The loft is to the right.
The FBI did not find the photos immediately. They found them 11 months after they seized the hard drive. The FBI admitted it was an accidental discovery. They were not looking for child porn but for DOS crimes against adults after 2015.
Instead, they found photos from 2005.
They withstood a motion to suppress. Although it was outside the original search warrant, they applied and got a new search warrant.
Judge Nicholas Garaufis ruled the FBI’s accidental discovery of child porn was legal. He decided the evidence was a crime “in plain view.”
We have given the reader a background in the first three of this series. Coming next, we will narrate the events that led to his arrest and examine the search of 8 Hale Drive.
We will follow the hard drive and the camera. And the various people who handled it and testified.
What are the possibilities? It could be everything is exactly as the government tells it. It could be that Raniere exploited Camila when she was 15. That he took nude photos of her again and again. And he left them on a hard drive – a mere 22. Just enough to hang him.
It is also possible that he took them and they were not on the hard drive perched on his library shelf.
Let us examine the evidence. It is possible that all is right. Nothing to see here. But let’s follow the hard drive and the camera and a certain camera card that the FBI hid from the defense.
These are facts. Not conjecture.
We can believe or not believe Raniere abused Camila. We can believe the FBI did not need to tamper. Nor would they stoop so low.
But we have facts to examine. They may be explainable.
It is not enough to say Raniere took photos of Camila. For the sake of this argument, let’s say he did. Does that mean any evidence the FBI presents that proves it is not tampered with?
They say the FBI had a slam dunk case without Camila. We will also look at that.
We tend to think the hysterical comments have a motive behind them. This pursuit unsettles people. A rational person assured of the integrity of the FBI evidence would not decry this.
They would see what the facts are – facts they may not know – unless they know. And there is something in that that frightens them.
Chakravorty says the FBI tampered with the evidence. Parlato wants to make it clear that this is an examination of facts. Parlato will be happy if the evidence shatters Chakravorty’s view of Raniere.
Chakravorty and Parlato insist on examining the facts. We are not concerned with those who have not heard all the facts, second guessing the final result.
This is Part 3. We will publish Part 4 shortly.
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You can read Raniere’s Rule 33 Motion on FBI Tampering here.
You can read Dr. Kiper’s Expert Report here.
