According to multiple sources, previous reports, and earlier court filings, Keith Raniere’s defense team is expected to file a motion arguing they have evidence that the 30 plus nude pictures that were shown to the jury of Camila, when she was purportedly 15, during his 2019 criminal trial, were tampered with by the FBI.
If it is true that the FBI tampered with or created evidence in order to convict Raniere, this will not necessarily negate Camila’s civil claims.
It is, of course, possible that two things may be true: that Raniere did actually take photos of Camila and sexually abuse and rape her when she was 15 – and that the photos of Camila used at the criminal trial by the prosecution were not those photos.
They may have been photos of Camila when she was older. More specific to the allegation of tampering is that the photos, whether she was 15 or older, were not found on the hard drive when it was seized by the FBI pursuant to a search warrant but were manually placed there later by FBI agents.
Much will be written about this in the coming days as evidence is released. This evidence will almost certainly find its way into a public court filing and most likely will appear in the form of a Rule 33 motion, a federal motion filed after a conviction when new evidence of innocence or prosecutorial misconduct is discovered.
Raniere’s original appellate attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, wrote in her appeal that a Rule 33 motion will be forthcoming.
A Rule 33 motion either seeks to have a conviction vacated and a new trial held – and it is adjudicated by the same judge that presided at the trial.
Should it be determined that the FBI did tamper with the photos of Camila, it will be a massive news story – and create serious legal issues for the FBI agents who participated in this conduct. It might also result in Raniere getting a new trial, since Camila and the evidence of her underage photos not only caused Allison Mack to admit to crimes and take a plea deal, it also caused all the other NXIVM defendants, other than Raniere, to plead guilty within a few days of the discovery of the Camila photos, which were supposedly only found months after the hard drive was seized and just a month before trial.
Frank Report is taking no editorial position on the veracity of the allegations of tampering.
They may be true or they may be an utter fabrication by a convicted felon who may otherwise have to serve the rest of his life in prison. Raniere, who will turn 61 on August 26th, was sentenced to 120 years in federal prison plus 5-years of supervised release after that.
Frank Report, however, does take the position that these allegations should not be buried or dismissed on a technicality. The allegations are of such a serious nature that if they are backed by any shred of reasonable evidence, they should be thoroughly investigated and either dismissed as nonsense and frivolous or shown to be valid.
If there is a preponderance of evidence showing that evidence was tampered with or fabricated, then appropriate criminal charges should be filed against everyone who participated in this atrocity. Clearly, if it is true, the crime of tampering or planting evidence by government agents is far worse than anything Raniere was convicted of doing – and letting the guilty parties go unpunished is a threat to everyone’s liberty.
The Rule 33 motion will not likely be filed under seal for the court has a policy of not shielding the names of the accused.
The public has a decided interest in hearing about this matter.
If Raniere presents anything close to what would be normally viewed [if it was not coming from Raniere] as evidence, a special prosecutor could be appointed since otherwise the alleged crimes fall under the jurisdiction of the very agency that will be alleged to have committed them– and foxes never do well investigating evidence at the henhouse.
If the allegations of evidence tampering and evidence creation are untrue, as I imagine most readers will assume, then these false efforts must be exposed as false attacks by a desperate and reckless convicted felon who is willing to besmirch the good names of the agents who prosecuted him.
Either way, the Department of Justice should welcome this investigation for they are always assuring the public that they are above suspicion and the custodians of the highest level of integrity and trust in our land [as the watchdog of the liberty of targeted defendants] and that whenever they accuse someone of committing crimes, they do it fairly, impartially, and are always interested in justice above all and never winning convictions for their own sake.
We should trust that they have done so not for the purpose of conviction but for justice and public safety.
If any of this claim is true – even in the slightest degree with even a single agent – the DOJ, above all, should want to know. And if they are as honest as they assure us, then an investigation will surely prove it.
Was evidence planted on a hard drive to convict Keith Raniere? Frank Report takes no position on this matter other than to insist that all relevant evidence be carefully examined. If it is false, then it should be as easy to prove as it was easy to prove Raniere was guilty at trial. But if it is true – that FBI agents added pictures or changed dates to convict Raniere – then we have a problem much greater than Raniere. Even if the agents “knew” he was guilty of raping Camila but just could not prove it, this cannot justify planting evidence. Planting evidence on a guilty man will inevitably lead to planting evidence on an innocent one. Like in all matters, we should presume the innocence of the accused,
