On September 17th, Assistant US Attorneys Moira Penza and Tanya Hajjar for The U.S. Department of Justice, United States Attorney, Eastern District of New York, responded to Clare Bronfman’s recent request to be able to contact as many as 1000 NXIVM members as part of a modified bail condition.
Penza and Hajjar oppose the notion.
In a letter to the Honorable Nicholas G. Garaufis, United States District Judge, United States District Court in Brooklyn, in the matter of the United States v. Bronfman, et al., they wrote:
Dear Judge Garaufis:
The government writes in opposition to the defendant Clare Bronfman’s September 7, 2018 letter [seeking] … to remove the limited prohibition on association currently in place … and the defendant Kathy Russell’s letter in support of that motion. …. [T]he government respectfully requests that the Court deny the request.
At the August 21, 2018 hearing before the Court, the Court entered, among others, the following condition of pretrial release as to defendant Bronfman:
[Bronfman] may not directly or indirectly associate or have contact with—except in the presence of her attorneys—current or former employees of, or independent contractors for, NXIVM (including any and all affiliated entities), any individual that she knows to be a current or former member of DOS, or any individual who is currently, or was formerly, on the Stripe Path, subject to reasonable exceptions agreed upon by the parties…. The Court invited counsel for Bronfman to submit additional authority in support of her objection to the non-association provision. However, Bronfman’s September 7, 2018 letter simply reiterates the arguments the Court has already considered and rejected.
The defendant’s letter provides no additional support, in the form of case law or otherwise, that the narrowly-tailored non-association condition the Court has already imposed is overbroad. Such conditions are routinely imposed by courts in this District in similar cases…..
The defendants in this case are alleged to have committed criminal acts spanning fifteen years as members of a sophisticated criminal enterprise that is deeply entwined with Nxivm’s leadership. The Enterprise is alleged in the Superseding Indictment to have operated through coercive means and methods including, among other things “[obtaining sensitive information about members and associates of the Enterprise in order to maintain control over them,” “[u]sing harassment, coercion and abusive litigation to intimidate and attack perceived enemies and critics” and “[e]ncouraging associates and others to take expensive Nxivm courses, and incur debt to do so, as a means of exerting control over them.” … The risk to victims is supported by the letter submitted on behalf of several of them by their attorney, which was provided to the Court under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act…
Additionally, as alleged in the Superseding Indictment, “[t]he defendants . . . acted in concert with other co-conspirators, both known and unknown, who were members and associates of the Enterprise, some of whose identities” were presented to the Grand Jury. Because there are members of the Enterprise who are still at liberty, and the government has a compelling interest in ensuring that the defendants do not collude with unindicted co-conspirators or interfere with witnesses—concerns which are addressed by the narrowly tailored condition that the Court has already imposed—the government respectfully submits that the condition should not be lifted or modified.
