By Allison Fenimore
The emotionally conflicted NXIVM half-holdover Damon Brink writes, “Neil Glazer and every single person involved in his law firm, Kohn, Swift, and Graf, are complicit in taking advantage of that caring under the guise of Justice.”
He is talking about NXIVM as a loving, caring community instead of the racketeering enterprise that created mentally disturbed, emotionally arrested individuals like him.
Damon Brink
Damon is dead wrong.
The Bronfmans, Keith Raniere, Allison Mack, Nancy Salzman, Lauren Salzman, Kathy Russell, Nicki Clyne, Karen Unterreiner, Dr. Porter and Dr. Roberts hurt a lot of people. They hurt him but he doesn’t know it.
Clare and Sara Bronfman helped Keith Raniere continue his NXIVM endeavors, or as Moira Penza called it, his racketeering enterprise.
Plaintiffs’ lead attorney, Neil Glazer
Nicki Clyne. You’re going to lose your Subaru.
Nicki Clyne and her 2011 Subaru.
In 2017, New York State and the Northern District of NY federal prosecutors declined to prosecute Raniere and others for DOS, telling would-be complainants theirs were the actions of “consenting adults.”
Glazer was looking to take down Raniere in preparation for suing the Bronfmans.
When the EDNY got involved, Glazer maintained the civil case, which predated the criminal charges, and helped clients pro bono in the criminal. He was working on spec on the civil with retainer agreements that gave his firm a percentage of what they collected in the civil.
Richard Donoghue, then US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, announced the conviction of Keith Raniere.
Glazer spent hours working pro bono on the criminal case because he knew if Raniere were convicted, the civil case would be a slam dunk against the Bronfmans.
He represented more than a dozen civil clients when they went to speak with the EDNY, including witnesses Nicole, Daniela, Jaye, and Mark Vicente. He worked to get the women he represented restitution after Raniere was convicted.
Nicole, Daniela, Vicente, and others started as civil clients. Glazer had to hold their civil claims until after the criminal was concluded – which took more than 18 months after Raniere’s conviction to sentence the last one –Nancy Salzman.
Daniela and Nicole should be credited because they and Camila, who joined after the criminal trial, had to wait until after the criminal case was concluded to bring their civil claims which are worth millions.
Artist sketch of a woman who looks not unlike Daniela
After five years of planning and working full-time on this, Glazer and his firm, Kohn Swift, who paid his salary and all expenses including substantial travel have a serious investment in this case.
Get Me In Front of a Jury
Do you think the antics of NXIVM dead-enders like Michele Hatchette threatening to name names of plaintiffs and Suneel’s mind-numbing articles about “tampering” will stop their plans?
MK10ART
Let’s dispense with the argument that Clare had nothing to do with the abuse of Nicole, Daniela, and Camila.
Michele Hatchette and Nicole were sisters in DOS.
Clare’s attorneys will argue she had nothing to do with Nicole’s sex trafficking incident because she didn’t know about DOS. She was not present at Camila’s apartment when Camila and Raniere did what they did.
There is a “causal nexus.” A causes B.
Raniere would not have created DOS or tied Nicole on the table and forced Camila to sexually assault her if he didn’t have Bronfman money. Bronfman money probably paid for the apartment.
MK10ART’s painting of Keith Raniere, Clare Bronfman, and Sara Bronfman.
It doesn’t matter if Bronfman knew about DOS.
Nicole, the prosecution’s sex trafficking victim.
A criticism made of Glazer is that his complaint is vague and does not identify who is suing whom.
All seem to be suing everyone.
Keith Raniere and Clare Bronfman
Judge Eric Komitee seems less offended by Raniere and Bronfman than Judge Nicolas G. Garaufis. He seems to be open to bifurcating the case by consumer fraud victims as separate from sex trafficking, peonage, and forced labor plaintiffs.
But Glazer can keep them together as one.
Judge Eric Komitee presides over the civil case against Raniere, the Bronfmans, Clyne, and others.
Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis presided over the criminal trial of Keith Raniere.
That plan has been unveiled if you read between the lines.
But he does not need to explain now.
Glazer knows the civil case can’t be dismissed outright because there are issues of triable fact, and the attempts by the Bronfmans’ attorneys to bifurcate the case before trial will be defeated.
Besides, the judge won’t dare dismiss a civil case that was a landslide criminal case.
Glazer doesn’t need to cough up details at this stage. There will be enough time when the case progresses. This case is going to trial, even if it takes years.
He’ll make his arguments to the jury and show how Bronfman & Bronfman are culpable for plaintiffs’ damages. They have been mentally compromised by NXIVM courses, which would have been impossible without the Bronfmans’ support.
They suffered mental injuries, Glazer alleges, and emotional harm; some require a lifetime of therapy. The Bronfmans will not escape responsibility.
Bronfmans’ attorneys with well-funded attempts, will try to exploit the system.
Craig Martin of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, LLP of Chicago appears for Clare.
They’ll argue that Bronfman didn’t “fund NXIVM.” For example, they only funded trips to Fiji, and NXIVM had its own revenue and operated as a separate, distinct business.
But money is fungible. So were trips to Fiji.
Fiji is where the so-called “fitness” company exo|eso held VIP trainings, and where NXIVM leadership gathered to plot illegal deeds.
Bikini-clad NXIVM women in Fiji
The winsome Bronfman sisters – especially winsome to plaintiffs.
Glazer’s secret weapon?
RICO, created to prosecute the mob, gives prosecutors broad powers to bring charges and get indictments against individuals indirectly linked with specific crimes.
If you caught a low-level assassin in the act, you have a way of getting to the higher-ups, who usually keep their fingerprints off everything.
How does that factor in civil case?
The Raniere criminal case included one count for RICO – adn another count for RICO Conspiracy. The government charged Clare Bronfman, Allison Mack, Nancy Salzman, Lauren Salzman, and Kathy Russell as co-conspirators with him in a criminal enterprise. They were part of Raniere’s “inner circle” of friends and colleagues who conspired to promote him and committed criminal acts.
The six NXIVM defendants, Upper Row: Kathy Russell, Keith Raniere, Nancy Salzman, LowerRow: Allison Mack, Lauren Salzman, Clare Bronfman
Neither DOS, NXIVM, nor ESP was alleged to be a criminal enterprise. It was the inner circle of supporters who were the racketeering enterprise.
People, not a company.
The “Inner Circle” of NXIVM/ESP
In a pre-trial hearing on August 21, 2018, Bronfman’s then-attorney, Susan Necheles, told the judge:
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NECHELES: People are involved in a criminal enterprise, where NXIVM has not been named a criminal enterprise.
THE COURT: Well, maybe not. But I have a letter here, that I’m not using today, from a lawyer in Philadelphia that says a lot of stuff that is very disturbing and if we credit it, which I’m trying to avoid doing –
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That Philadelphia lawyer mentioned is Neil Glazer.
Even though NXIVM was not a criminal enterprise in the criminal case, in his Second Amended Complaint, in the civil lawsuit, Glazer alleges NXIVM IS a criminal enterprise.
He writes, “Plaintiffs file this second amended complaint against the Defendants for conspiring to operate, and for operating, a criminal Enterprise under the “NXIVM” umbrella (the “Enterprise”). Defendants also conspired to participate and participated in a “Venture” to commit sex trafficking, peonage, forced labor, and human trafficking offenses in violation of Chapter 77 of Title 18. The central purpose of the conspiracy, Enterprise, and Venture was to entice Plaintiffs to join NXIVM, which functioned as both a Ponzi scheme and a coercive community.”
Why is NXIVM not alleged as a criminal enterprise in the criminal but is in the civil?
Because the evidence bar is lower. In the criminal, you need proof “beyond a reasonable doubt.” In the civil, you need a “preponderance of evidence.”
Just because the government could not, or chose not to prove NXIVM was a criminal enterprise, doesn’t mean Glazer can’t prove the company was a criminal enterprise in the civil case.
By alleging NXIVM a criminal enterprise, Glazer can tie Bronfmans into anything that happened in the company, like emotional or financial harm, and make them pay.
Former Assistant US Attorney Moira Kim Penza, the lead prosecutor in the Raniere criminal case masterminded a relatively novel RICO approach by making Raniere’s inner circle the enterprise. She did not try to allege that NXIVM or DOS were a criminal enterprise. That would have been hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
Penza now refers to NXIVM as a criminal enterprise, though she didn’t in the criminal case.
Moira Kim Penza, lead prosecutor of USA v. Raniere.
Here is what Penza said on A Little Bit Culty on November 21, 2021:
Moira Kim Penza on A Little Bit Culty
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https://frankreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Penza_1_A_Little_Bit_Culty.mp3
PENZA: So one of the first things I did was really try to figure out who was your [Sarah Edmondson’s] agent, who are your lawyers. And so I think the first people I spoke to were people who were connected to you as entertainment lawyers, not as a lawyer representing you in the context of NXIVM, the criminal organization, but really sitting down with you, that was one of the first experiences that we really had where we started to learn more about this organization and more about what was happening.
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https://frankreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Penza_2_A_Little_Bit_Culty.mp3
PENZA: But the whole way in which NXIVM operated, or certainly one of the primary means and methods of NXIVM – the criminal organization – as we conceived of it, was having this collateral in all forms, right?
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The key to Glazer’s success is to show NXIVM and DOS were criminal enterprises, not just the people individually doing crimes. Once NXIVM is proven to be a criminal enterprise, the Bronfmans are responsible for everything, including DOS.
RICO is the key to the civil suit, and Bronfmans were clearly part of the RICO enterprise. They did not need to know everything that happened,
Just like a Mafia ‘made man’ does not know everything that happens in La Cosa Nostra, he is still responsible.
Bronfmans were not the Godfathers, they were the Capos. Without them, there was no NXIVM enterprise.
