Keith Raniere told his power of attorney, Suneel Chakravorty, that he was going to “war” with the government. He made his cry of “war” during phone calls with Chakravorty on April 30th of this year.
Raniere lives in Tucson, Arizona, at the United States Penitentiary. He is federal prisoner # 57005-177. His release date is June 27, 2120 – 98 years from Monday. He will be 160 years and 10 months old when he is released. Unless he can win his war or otherwise get out sooner.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons describes Chakravorty [above] as Raniere’s “ardent supporter.” Chakravorty describes himself as the manager and paralegal for Raniere’s legal team.
USP Tucson looks inviting, Yet Keith Raniere is waging war with the government to leave this place.
Keith Raniere is assigned to C1 Unit at USP Tucson.
He resides safely behind these fences at USP Tucson. No one has ever successfully broken into this facility since the government built it in 2007.
He said he was going to “war,” adding it will be “no holds barred” on a recorded prison phone line.
The BOP quoted Raniere’s “war cry” as part of their defense against a federal lawsuit.
His lawsuit’s goal is to force prison officials to let him speak to Chakravorty. Raniere claims the BOP stopped their communications because of court filings he made.
On April 29, Raniere filed a request for a stay with the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He claims the FBI tampered with digital photographs of Camila, a victim. He released a report by Dr. J. Richard Kiper, the FBI’s former trainer of FBI forensic examiners. Dr. Kiper claims that someone altered metadata and he suspects it was the FBI.
The alleged tampering centered on 168 digital photographs taken of 12 females. These include 22 photos of Camila, a child victim of sexual exploitation. Assistant US Attorney Kevin Trowell filed a response.
Raniere’s assertion of government’ malfeasance’ is frivolous, and the government will address that assertion on the merits at such time as Raniere makes the motion in the appropriate forum, and the government is directed to respond to it…
But, as noted in the government’s brief on appeal, Camila appeared at Raniere’s sentencing and herself confirmed that “in September 2005, ‘when she was still fifteen, [Raniere] took naked pictures of [her].’
After Raniere filed Kiper’s report, Special Investigative Services went to work. Lt. Anthony Gallion led the investigation.
Gallion wrote in his an affidavit;
In early May 2022, my staff in the SIS Department were monitoring telephone calls between Raniere and Suneel Chakravorty. They spoke to each other about being ‘at war’ with the federal government that would be ‘no holds barred.’
Even more concerning than this language or ‘war’ is the fact that Raniere asked about the quality of the recordings and stated that he has many recordings.
Lt. Gallion consulted with the Counter Terrorism Unit of the BOP. The CTU provided reports of Raniere’s history with Chakravorty. At the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center, the BOP banned their calls in 2020.
The offense was not discussing war. They discussed donuts and coffee – to offer it to prison staff. But the staff didn’t bite.
They brought “scantily dressed” women outside the prison. A handful danced on the street for a month as prisoners watched, drooling from their cell windows.
The CTU felt that dancing and donuts breached prison security and Brooklyn’s safety.
Lt. Gallion reported his findings to Warden Danon Colbert.
On May 3rd, Raniere’s attorney Joseph Tully filed the Rule 33 Motion for a new trial. It included Dr. Kiper’s report and two other digital forensic experts’ corroboration.
That same day, Warden Colbert barred Raniere from calling Chakravorty.
Lt. Gallion said his investigation had nothing to do with Raniere’s Rule 33.
Lt Gallion wrote:
“I am not and was not aware of Raniere’s litigation regarding his conviction and sentence imposed in New York. All recommendations and determinations made, as reflected above, were made for the safety, security, and good order of the institution and not in any way to hinder Raniere’s legal efforts.”
The “War” comment attracted the attention of the Albany Times Union. The headline was “Feds say Raniere, confidant spoke of ‘war’ with government.”
A defiant Chakravorty pressed the tampering claim. He did not address the context of Raniere’s comment.
He told the TU, “Obviously, we are conducting a legal war. It is a battle waged with the pen and the court filing, and the government knows it,” Chakravorty said. “I defy the government to release the transcripts of all our calls. Then you could see it in context, but they won’t do that because it would probably prove to the world that tampering occurred.”
Frank Report cannot reveal sources, or they may dry up. But below is a transcript of two calls made on April 30, 2022, where Raniere spoke of war with no holds barred.
Keith Raniere
Call #1
KEITH:
This is unprecedented. This is historic. And if they claim it isn’t, that’s even worse. And let them come up with things to show where they tampered more than this. And understand, even if the government didn’t do all the tampering, the amount of tampering, and that they allowed it, and knew about it and lied to protect it, it’s completely unacceptable.
We need the public. If we want justice, the public has to be outraged, and the “frivolous” comment — the “frivolous” comment or motion — it has to give outrage. We need to ask for that person’s [AUSA Trowel] resignation, and not that he resigns and gets transferred to some other government position or even promoted, as often happens, that he’s out of government and ideally not promoted somewhere else, but we need to ask for his resignation, and we need everyone that shows their name to these things, including the regional guy who is doing the internal process here. If they are going to take that covering corruption tact, they need to resign. They need to be asked to resign, and that they resign, actually. Does that make sense?
SUNEEL:
It does, yes.
KEITH:
We’re in a war here, and we’re fighting for justice. You know, one of the things that I said in the tape, which I don’t know if you heard, but Lady Justice has had her blindfold ripped off by a thug who’s holding a knife to her throat.
SUNEEL:
Mhm.
KEITH:
They have to stop it, and they have to understand also the logic. Considering, at 97% alleged conviction rate or 90 some-odd percent, or whatever. That means that the whole thing — everyone sees on TV, people going to trial, the adversarial system, or whatever. That is a little fringe ornament that happens in a small percentage of cases. So what does happen? The grand jury, which is nonadversarial, not constitutional, as the final arbiter, is what is the arbiter.
If it’s a 97% conviction rate and the prosecution brags about this, it’s a percentage of shame. What it means is that only 3% prevail at trial, and most of them don’t even go to trial. So how are they convicted? And how do we have such a high conviction rate compared to any other civilized country, any other country? We have more people incarcerated. There’s that thing on the Internet from Newsroom where he’s answering the question of ‘why is America the best?’
SUNEEL:
Mhm.
KEITH:
It isn’t, it isn’t. And he talks about, and this was before I was ever incarcerated. I don’t know how much more than some of all the other countries or something like that. Same thing with our defense budget, but we have this shameful system that and [Raniere attorney Joseph] Daugherty had looked up some statistics since the 70s.
It was like a 70% conviction rate. And over the past 50 years, it’s risen to this horrible thing. And it’s not just going to turn around and get a little better. It’s because of the culture, and it’s because people are allowed to call things like this frivolous in the government, and they can never be frivolous. Due process violation, it can never be frivolous. We have to be as close to perfect. If we want to live up to the other countries that we claim to be like and as civilized as like, we have to live up to that standard.
***
Call #2
KEITH:
So you have many recordings of me. You can use them for the media and if the PR people and the attorneys find that it’s appropriate taking excerpts or whatever to bring across these points if necessary.
SUNEEL:
Absolutely.
KEITH:
There are two other things I wanted to talk about, you know, when we the people, we the good people, including good people in government, have to take back the government, have to reverse this culture, and it has to be done in this very direct way.
No little changes, no little rule changes, no little oversight committees are going to do it because the culture and that there’s enough corruption that those things themselves will be corrupted.
It has to be direct public exposure. We ask for this person’s resignation. If this person won’t resign, we go to their supervisor, whoever is above them, and ask for their resignation and a date certain when we will know and not. No, ‘oh, you know, going to think about it for a month.’
We have to meet, and then when they have to meet, and then other people have to meet and meet and meet.
No, no. We need to know, and it needs to be quick. And if not, their resignation is asked for, and we go above that.
Each person is personally on the hook. So this person, even if they never heard of the Eastern District, the person who’s above them, even if we go to the president because we want our justice system back. No compromises.
I can see. I was trying to think of what sort of an argument could they say? These certainly aren’t frivolous changes [of tampering]. These are monstrous changes that take a whole lot of time that just happened to line up with the government.
So if the government didn’t do it, gosh, they’re the fortunate recipient. But the janitor saying that’ we didn’t do this’ or, ‘oh, we don’t know how this happened,’ or whatever. That’s like saying the dog ate my homework. The janitor did it in the middle of the night; unbeknownst to the FBI? Some janitor came in with computer expertise and the equipment. Understand, to do some of these changes [on the digital images] , there is no other motivation but to frame someone.
Why in the world would you change a camera card like that? Why in the world would you even cut out that, you know — if Photoshop was used, why would you change the date so that it looks like it wasn’t used? Unless you’re trying to perpetrate some sort of a fraud.
[Raniere alleges the tamperers forgot to erase an Adobe photoshop filter on a photo. See Kiper report.]
Why would you do all these things? And if you try to argue, ‘well, there doesn’t have to be changes. It goes into Photoshop.’ Well, then all the pictures should have had photoshop on them.
But really, we want our government back. And this is the war. We’re facing the beast. And right now, the voice of the beast was the person that wrote that response [AUSA Trowel.]
Also, [AUSA] Tanya Hajjar, who, when we asked for discovery, insisted she gave it all. You know she didn’t, right?
SUNEEL:
Of course.
[Raniere claims the government never gave the defense a forensic copy of the camera card though he says they are legally required to provide it.]
KEITH:
She needs to be called out and asked to resign. Everyone that touches this corruptly, they need to be called out and asked to resign. And if not, it goes to their supervisor, and it has to be immediate. But they have to be told to resign, or whatever, or the supervisor is, and the public has to know it.
This is the way we have to deal with the government. And hopefully, it doesn’t — the corruption doesn’t rise all the way up to the President. Hopefully, someone with authority makes these things happen. But literally, to say something like this is frivolous is deeply offensive. To go and point to say, Camila.
Recording” “This call is from a federal prison.”
KEITH:
Even if they had all sorts of evidence that somehow proved I was guilty – to point to that [Camila said this at his sentencing] is the ‘squirrel distraction.’
It is deeply offensive. But especially, here’s someone [AUSA Trowel] who’s supposed to understand the nature of this, pointing to someone who came to sentencing and said something not under oath that contradicts the people around them. I mean, a whole bunch of things are wrong with that.
But to point to anything but government process here, to point to anything but due process is not only a distraction, it is bad.
It requires their resignation because they do not understand or they’re corrupt. If they don’t understand, they’re not competent to be in the position.
If they do understand, then they’re too corrupt to be in the composition — in the position — either by the culture of the beast or just they’re being a corrupt person, or who knows, maybe they’re even paid off or politically summoned.
But this is how we’re going to find the top of the politics. This is how we’re going to find all of these different things, the person involved and then their supervisor. So right now, this one person who signed off this motion and Tanya Hajjar are on the hot seat.
They need to resign. To resign. And we demand it. Justice demands it. And you want to know something? These people resign. One of the best things they can do for justice is resign. Because the moment we are effective, justice will improve. That will be a day that all of justice improves. Do you understand why?
SUNEEL:
Yes.
KEITH:
So you’re a corrupt prosecutor somewhere, or corrupt judge or corrupt FBI agent or whatever it is, and you see that people are being called out personally and that they must resign.
They’re not being transferred, promoted, and all of these different things. You’re going to think twice about being corrupt.
We’re going to change the culture overnight. And we the people need to do that … This is a historical wrong, which we can translate into a historical opportunity, which we can translate into historically good change. So let’s do this. Let’s not let them get away. Let’s not be light with language or anything like that. Anything else?
SUNEEL:
No.
KEITH:
Okay. I hope the recording is good. There’s a lot of noise around here.
SUNEEL:
It’s very good. Coming in really clear.
KEITH:
Okay. And the last one came in clear because I think the last one expressed some good things.
SUNEEL:
Yes, very clear.
KEITH:
It’s interesting at the end of JFK, the movie, where he looks up and says, in effect, get our government back. It’s up to you. That sort of a thing.
SUNEEL:
And just briefly, with respect to that
KEITH:
Yes
SUNEEL:
…. My experience is sometimes those types of people stay in their lane and they don’t see the historical purview. We’ll get it across — what can — I mean, it feels like it’s in our hands.
KEITH:
Yes, we have something in our hands….
Recording: This call is from a federal prison.
We, the people, can’t let the scared culture of defense attorneys stand in the way. Look at my trial. There’s a broken chain of custody, of the major thing of evidence that there’s tampering.
And they don’t ask certain questions. They don’t make certain objections, because they’re scared. Everyone’s scared.
They’re all scared of a judge. And if a judge is corrupt or a judge is crazy, that’s it. But they need to be asked to resign. Ultimately, judges need to be asked to resign. If there’s that much corruption, if it rises to the level, the people should not be shy about asking for any public servant, any government employee resign. They are our employees. So what were you going to say?
SUNEEL:
Just when you said, do you want to hear this? I just didn’t know what you were referring to. But I guess this whole message, yeah.
KEITH:
The message of, and asking for their resignations. That needs to go in writing, and we need to ask for it. And ideally, to get on Good Morning America, and they ask for it out there.
We’re asking for their resignation. We’re asking for this person’s resignation cannot be tolerated anymore.
Saying ‘this is frivolous.’ But what the prosecutor should have responded is, ‘My God, we need time to investigate this,’ and that’s at best, or ‘We join them. There is no frivolous.’
[The FBI put in] 100 hours worth of tampering work. Multiple government witnesses from the government, government agents lying, the subornation of perjury, the conspiracy for perjury, interfacing with all the different people that they did in all of this. This is a festering boil. It’s ugly. It smells. And by saying it’s frivolous, it covers it up.
SUNEEL:
They’re saying, by the way, that the assertion is frivolous, not that they agree it’s tampered and the tampering is frivolous. It amounts to the same but, um.
KEITH:
But they say the tampering is not frivolous, but the asser–.
SUNEEL:
No. They’re saying “Raniere’s assertion of government malfeasance is frivolous.” They’re saying that the claim isn’t frivolous, not that the claim is true, but it’s frivolous.
KEITH:
They didn’t even research it. They did this really quickly.
SUNEEL:
Exactly. Within 24 hours.
KEITH:
I wonder how Dr. Kiper feels about his experience of 20 years in the FBI and being a unit chief. And he says he’s never seen anything like this that being called frivolous. Maybe ask him.
SUNEEL:
Yes.
KEITH:
It’s not frivolous. And to think this is frivolous is a horrible sin, is a horrible evil. Has to be taken out of the gut. They have to resign. Does that make sense?
SUNEEL:
Yes, it does.
KEITH:
And we need to ask for publicly. So I’ll speak to you. I’ll try not to have too much more.
SUNEEL:
Okay. Thank you. All right.
KEITH:
Yeah. We have 10 seconds left. 5 seconds. So all right. Send my best to everyone. And I’m so sorry, but we’re in the war now.
SUNEEL:
Yes, we are.
KEITH:
No holds barred.
***
My Opinion
Frank Parlato
Raniere’s advice is utter insanity. Let me paraphrase:
MK10ART
Go out there, Suneel. Demand that government officials resign. If they don’t, make their supervisors resign. Get the public riled.
This is historic
If they say I am guilty, tell them it’s a “squirrel distraction.” Go tell Tanya – quit at once.
Go on, Good Morning America. If Trowel doesn’t resign, go to his bosses. Demand a date to fire him. No waiting around.
Go to the Attorney General. If he doesn’t fire Trowel, contact the president. Get the public on our side. Put them all on the hot seat.
Go to the FBI and demand they sign an affidavit. Then, bring video cameras and dance in front of their offices. Put it in writing. Put your name on the line. You’ll make history. It’s historic.
By MK10ART
The FBI tampered with evidence? It could be true or it could be false.
A soft voice. A temperate response. A quest for the truth. Present the facts. Quietly. Fairly. Isn’t that better?
No.
For Raniere, insane ranting is his method.
Why?
Ruining people’s happiness – especially his followers – is his goal.
Tampering is just Raniere’s squirrel distraction.
