Allison Rood of California is a comedian and actor. She is also a plaintiff in the NXIVM lawsuit.
Rood was a student at the Los Angeles NXIVM center for about three years, dropping out in 2017 when Frank Report broke the news that a sorority known as DOS, connected with NXIVM, was branding slaves and taking collateral.
Rood was not in DOS.
Alison Rood at a comedy workshop refers to NXIVM.
On July 13, 2017, a video published on YouTube showed Rood onstage at a Greg Dean Standup Comedy workshop.
She refers to her time with NXIVM.
In the video, Rood says, “I was in a personal growth program for three years, and I just found out that it’s a sex cult… a sex cult… I don’t know which is worse, the fact that I didn’t know I was in a sex cult, or for three years no one tried to fuck me… Terrible… but I’m glad I know now that, first of all, growth does not come from a sex cult; it comes from social media.”
NXIVM Harm
Rood’s complaint in the lawsuit is that she was “emotionally and financially harmed.”
She alleges she was told that NXIVM courses would “lead to a successful career and self-fulfillment.”
NXIVM emotionally and financially harmed Alison Rood, the lawsuit alleges.
Rood later found that the courses were based on “a pseudoscientific hodgepodge of psychotherapeutic methods which, when practiced by unlicensed and unqualified lay-people, subjected its participants to an unreasonable risk of serious psychological injury and emotional distress.”
Rood also alleges she “performed uncompensated labor, working for many hours without compensation for the benefit of the Defendants.”
Clare and Sara Bronfman supported Keith Raniere and enabled him to expand and grow his NXIVM empire.
The main defendants are sisters Sara and Clare Bronfman, who have an estimated $500 million.
Additional defendants are the imprisoned Keith Raniere, his top assistant Nancy Salzman, some of his harem – Allison Mack, Nicki Clyne, Lauren Salzman, Kathy Russell, and Karen Unterreiner, and two de-licensed physicians, Danielle Roberts and Brandon Porter. One did the branding, and the other did experiments dubbed “human fright, ” which he called “emotions study.”
Dr. Brandon Porter, Dr. Danielle Roberts, and Nicki Clyne
Along with other female plaintiffs, Rood claims, in connection with 18 U.S.C. § 1595 – which authorizes civil lawsuits based on criminal offenses: Her actions benefitted an enterprise that allegedly engaged in or attempted to engage in and profited from sex trafficking, forced labor, and peonage.
‘Vicente and Edmondson Defense’
I am informed that the defense plans to argue that Rood’s uncompensated labor was performed at the Los Angeles NXIVM center, which Mark Vicente, a plaintiff, owned.
And they will argue that most plaintiffs were recruited either by Vicente or Sarah Edmondson, who owned the Vancouver NXIVM Center. The alleged free labor benefitted Vicente or Edmondson, not the defendants.
Sarah Edmondson with Mark Vicente
Vicente and Edmondson owned the centers, collected money from students, and paid commissions to the parent company that owned NXIVM, which defendant Nancy Salzman held and Raniere controlled.
The defense, I am told, will argue that free labor at Los Angeles and Vancouver reduced plaintiffs Vicente and Edmondson’s overhead and added to their net profit. It did not impact the profits or benefit the defendants.
At a hearing before Judge Eric Komitee, Bronfman’s lawyers argued that every plaintiff is ‘blanket’ suing every defendant for almost everything without distinguishing who did what.
According to the lawsuit, Alison Rood was allegedly harmed by Nicki Clyne.
For instance, Rood’s harm was allegedly caused by defendant Nicki Clyne who was recruited by Edmondson and Vicente, who both earned money from Clyne’s tuition. Clyne, however, had nothing to do with Rood’s recruitment or her uncompensated labor, the defense claims.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Neil Glazer
It is unclear how Rood’s claims of doing uncompensated labor have a nexus to peonage, forced labor, or sex trafficking and how all the defendants fit in, as is alleged in the complaint.
The plaintiffs’ lead attorney, Neil Glazer, will undoubtedly explain his theory on how this is legally plausible.
At least we know Rood wasn’t sex trafficked. In three years, no one in NXIVM even asked her to fuck.
Alison Rood was only joking when she complained that her sex cult not only failed to provide her with offers for sex, they never even told her they were a sex cult. “Terrible,” she said.
