In Mexico, the Associated Press offers a fact-checking website not dissimilar to Snopes, “to combat misinformation shared online, and includes a collaboration with Facebook to identify and reduce the circulation of fake news circulating on Facebook.”
In a post in October, written in Spanish, they undertook to verify rumors about Rosa Laura Junco, the daughter of Mexican media magnate Alejandro Junco and her connection to Nxivm.
https://apnews.com/article/ap-verifica-afs:Content:9533647950
The AP format begins with “The Affirmation,” a narration of the rumor, followed by “AP Verification,” which tries to determine if it’s true, and lastly the “Facts,” which could be described as additional background information.
If they had everything correct in their Snopes-style report on Rosa Laura, I would not have added my own clarification. In fact I would have likely not published this article at all.
Here is the AP report, translated from Spanish by myself [largely with the help of an online translation program]:
Rosa Laura Junco
THE AFFIRMATION: Rosa Laura Junco, daughter of the owner of the Mexican newspaper Reforma, Alejandro Junco de la Vega, was accused of fraud, intimidation, human trafficking and slavery in the case of the NXIVM sect.
AP VERIFICATION: Partially false. Although Rosa Laura Junco is identified as a member of the inner circle of Keith Raniere, the leader of NXIVM, she has not had formal charges brought against her by United States authorities.
The “Inner Circle” of NXIVM/ESP – Government exhibit in the trial of Keith Raniere.
THE FACTS: In the social networks circulating, a publication says Rosa Laura Junco, daughter of the owner of the Mexican newspaper Reforma, is implicated in various crimes as part of the NXIVM sect, whose leader Keith Raniere awaits sentencing in the United States. [He has since been sentenced to 120 years.]
“The media will not say anything, but the daughter of the owner of Reforma is accused by 80 people in New York for fraud, intimidation, human trafficking and slavery,” says the publication.
However, that statement is imprecise. Junco was mentioned in the trial of Raniere in the United States, but there were no criminal charges brought against her.
The Associated Press reviewed the public documents of the trial, through the Public Access to Court Electronic Records ( PACER) system, and although she is pointed out by victims and witnesses as part of Raniere’s inner circle, there are no charges against her. .
Nor does she appear on the list of defendants. The defendants, along with Raniere, are Clare Bronfman, Allison Mack, Kathy Russell, Lauren Salzman and Nancy Salzman.
John Marzulli, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office in charge of the case in New York, confirmed to the AP that there are no criminal charges pending against Rosa Laura Junco.
Frank Report’s CLARIFICATION:
Rosa Laura Junco is the daughter of media giant, Alejandro Junco, president and CEO of Grupo Reforma.
According to its Wikipedia page, “Grupo Reforma is the second largest printed media company in Mexico and Latin America. It publishes ten daily newspapers in five cities, including the leading newspapers in Mexico’s three largest cities: Reforma in Mexico City, El Norte in Monterrey and Mural in Guadalajara. It also publishes the daily Metro in Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Puebla and Toluca, and the afternoon tabloid El Sol in Monterrey. The average daily circulation of all these papers is 1.4 million copies.
“The group also owns the largest content-intensive web sites in Mexico: reforma.com, elnorte.com, and mural.com. It owns the largest newswire service with Mexican information, Agencia Reforma. Cancha, a tabloid with Mexican sports and entertainment news, is published biweekly in Las Vegas in partnership with The Las Vegas Review-Journal. Grupo Reforma also has strategic alliances with leading US dailies to publish their information in its papers, including a daily section of The Wall Street Journal and a weekly section of The New York Times.”
His daughter, Rosa Laura, was a dedicated Nxivm follower, one of the eight first line masters of DOS.
Despite her deep involvement n DOS, it is true that Rosa Laura Junco was not charged criminally, just as the AP report says.
However, the AP apparently did not know that the publication they cited was referring to a civil lawsuit, filed on January 28, 2020, about six months after the conviction of Raniere in his criminal trial, where some 80 plaintiffs are suing him and 14 Nxivm leaders, including Rosa Laura Junco.
Of those who might be able to pay damages, Rosa Laura, along with Clare and Sara Bronfman, are the most appetizing. The rest of the defendants are not wealthy.
While working with Nxivm, Rosa Laura founded a company with Keith Raniere called the Knife Media. It was based on analyzing media reports for bias.
The lawsuit is on hold pending final resolution of the criminal cases against the Nxivm defendants.
Neil Glazer of Kohn Swift and Graf of Philadelphia is lead attorney on the case.
The defendants are:
KEITH RANIERE
NANCY SALZMAN
CLARE BRONFMAN
SARA BRONFMAN
LAUREN SALZMAN
ALLISON MACK
KATHY RUSSELL
KAREN UNTERREINER
DR. BRANDON PORTER
DR. DANIELLE ROBERTS
DANIELLA PADILLA BERGERON
ROSA LAURA JUNCO
LORETA J. GARZA DAVILA
MONICA DURAN
NICKI CLYNE
NXIVM CORPORATION
EXECUTIVE SUCCESS PROGRAMS, INC,
ETHICAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
FIRST PRINCIPLES,
According to the Kohn Swift website,
Neil Glazer
The lawsuit seeks compensation from NXIVM founder Keith Raniere and members of his “Inner Circle,” including heiresses Clare Bronfman and Sara Bronfman and actress Alison Mack, for fraud, forced labor, human trafficking and for conducting unlawful medical experiments.
The complaint alleges that the defendants peddled an inherently risky “pseudo-scientific hodgepodge of psychotherapeutic methods” as expensive self-improvement courses, taken by thousands of unsuspecting people, many of whom lost their life savings and were severely traumatized by the process….
“Defendants systematically stripped women of their self-esteem, and those who fit certain criteria were then groomed to become Raniere’s sexual partners,” said Glazer. “Through an insidious process of slow, subtle indoctrination and manipulation, NXIVM’s leaders drew ever closer to its Albany headquarters those students who had become most vulnerable to defendants’ abusive and coercive methods.”
The lawsuit further alleges that the defendants employed fear tactics to suppress internal dissent, prevent defections and intimidate those who left into keeping silent. According to the complaint, sisters Clare and Sara Bronfman spent millions of dollars bankrolling campaigns of vexatious litigation against NXIVM’s perceived enemies, including lodging false criminal complaints and having lawyers send letters threatening lawsuits and criminal prosecution to the women who were leaving “DOS,” the so-called “master-slave” group that Raniere created and secretly ran…
***
An Unfortunate Email
The most explosive mention of Rosa Laura Junco at the Raniere trial was when a witness, FBI special agent Michael Weniger, read an email she wrote to Raniere into the record. In it, she mentions her teenage daughter, Lauris.
Weniger testified that Junco’s daughter was a minor when the email was written, on October 4, 2015, though he couldn’t recall her exact age. [A source in Nxivm told me she was 15 or 16 at the time.] Raniere was 55.
Here is the email:
Hello, M. [Master] I fear I may be affecting Lauris and your possibility for success. I used to easily feel inspired and alive. I feel now crippled to operate my daily life. I am being a crappy sl. [slave].
I can’t find the inspiration to become uplifting, regaining some hope.
What triggered this state has been experiencing the complexity of your life and commitments and knowing intuitively that it will only get more complex and complicated. I love you and have enough of a conscience to want only what’s best for you and serve you. I don’t want to add more to your burdens.
Wanting anything from you automatically makes me a burden, so I can’t allow that. Part of me feels love, but the other part of me feels neglected, doomed to miss out. I should know better than to want petty things.
I humbly share this because it may be affecting Lauris, keeping her away from you. If I don’t experience my commitment to you joyfully, I cannot genuinely projectively want that for my daughter, and she probably feels that. Personally, I feel it’s a phase that I will outgrow, but we don’t have time. I have failed to overcome it and I want your thoughts before I do more damage.
I am 100 percent clear that you are what I want for my daughter and, obviously, for myself.
I am sorry for my shortcomings. [Frown face emoji.] RL. [Rosa Laura].
***
Much has been made of this email in the media, especially in Mexico, where her father is a well known figure. The meaning is not completely clear, but the inference the prosecution intended the jury to make was that Rosa Laura was offering her teenage daughter up as a sexual partner for Raniere.
Based on past allegations and texts introduced at trial between Raniere and Camila, a woman he was accused of having sex with when she was 15, it is suspected that Lauris was intended to be a “vessel” or “successor” for Raniere.
He asked Camila and others to help him find and shepherd a virgin through a “pure” life until he was ready for her. Raniere told Camila that he originally intended this successor role to go to Camila, but she disqualified herself after she had an affair with another man.
Keith Raniere
Rosa Laura believed that DOS was a brilliant plan to raise the power of women in the world. Here is a text Rosa Laura wrote to a DOS slave about the brand that was scarified on women’s groins as part of their vow of slavery in DOS.
Here’s more data re: branding. About the branding: It is a symbol that she will hold herself higher than her body. It is part of being willing to be humiliated around our pride – so we can be free of our false image and truly fee of soul and spirit.
Branding is a constant reminder of keeping ourselves humble and not prideful – pride limits who we are and keeps the fear in place.
We’re meant to come to love and cherish our brand – as a constant reminder of a life other than petty suffering – true love – true freedom – and our commitment to be on that path forever – which assures us we’ll get there!!
In her testimony at trial, Lauren Salzman said she believed Rosa Laura was the only woman of the eight DOS First Line Masters who did not have sex with Raniere. However, another source told me the two did have an intimate relationship.
We have no absolute evidence that this is what Rosa Laura meant when she said she wanted Raniere for herself.
There is also no evidence that Raniere actually began privately training Lauris. It is known that Raniere offered to be a casual tutor for the teen in math. She was encouraged by her mother to view him as a great teacher and approach him with questions.
Lauris would come to volleyball and Raniere would talk to her about her math homework and she would ask him questions about dance, which was one of her interests. It is not known if the Vanguard of the community and the teen, whose mother wanted him for her, were ever alone.
