Susan Dones did an interview recently with podcaster, Roberta Glass, where she reveals some interesting NXIVM back story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWKFImlAFy8
It is a hugely informative interview for those interested in a lot of never-before-heard stories about Nxivm in its first 10 years – and what they did to Susan after she left. Glass is certainly a thoughtful interviewer who knows how to let her guests tell their story in their own fashion.
One thing about Susan is she is very candid. One of the things Susan tells Roberta is that Nancy Salzman once felt her up while she was driving with her in a car. She suspected it was not Nancy’s idea but an assignment from Keith.
Susan is a lesbian and Nancy seems to be a heterosexual woman.
Susan told Frank Report that it did not end there. Nancy wanted Susan to send her a letter where she explicitly says she had a desire to be with Nancy in a romantic or sexual way. This was pre-2009.
Susan was in a committed relationship with her spouse, Kim Woolhouse, which Nancy certainly knew.
Susan told Nancy she did not want to send an inauthentic letter professing a desire for Nancy which she did not feel. But Nancy insisted, explaining that this was some kind of test of trust or vulnerability or some such higher value Nxivm teaching.
Since Nancy was her superior in the business where Susan was earning her living – Susan ran the Tacoma Nxivm center – she went along, assuming there was some sort of teaching behind this that was meant to help her understand something she did not presently comprehend.
Susan sent the letter and Nancy, of course, held onto it.
Later, when Susan left Nxivm with the Nxivm-9 and filed for bankruptcy, along with her spouse Kim, Nxivm sought to intervene and try to prevent the bankruptcy from being discharged. The amount of money in dispute was probably far less than the amount of money Nxivm/Bronfman would spend on lawyers to stop the bankruptcy.
The story is rather well known of how Susan went up against a battery of Nxivm attorneys, representing herself pro se, and how she won hers and Kim’s cases.
Nancy Salzman
During the proceedings, the Nxivm attorneys introduced into evidence the letter Susan wrote to Nancy about her attraction to her.
Perhaps they had hoped that this might show that Susan was disgruntled with Nxivm because Nancy did not return her amorous desires. Perhaps they also thought that Kim did not know about the letter and this might cause a rift between the couple.
As far as Kim was concerned, it was ineffective. At the time Susan was being pushed by Nancy to write the letter, Susan told Kim about it and advised her that she had no such feelings towards Nancy and explained that it was supposed to be some kind of test.
In a sense, this was an early seed of collateral, years before DOS.
Now maybe there was poor communications between Nancy and the legal team that represented Nxivm in their quest to stop Susan and Kim from discharging their bankruptcies. But to use this manipulated [one might almost say ‘coerced’] letter and introduce it as evidence, expecting it to be taken at literal, face-value is a dishonest way of litigating.
It so happened that it backfired on them. The bankruptcy judge, by slow, deliberate degrees, began to take a burn to Nxivm. By the time it was done, Bankruptcy Judge Brian D. Lynch said, “NXIVM’s claims and litigation tactics were disproportionate and largely lacking in merit,” in dismissing nearly all claims against Dones.
In the Woolhouse case, Judge Lynch wrote: “Her ‘sin’ was to attempt to walk away after discovering that NXIVM was not what she thought or hoped. In return, she was labeled as ‘suppressive,’ a term that NXIVM applies to former associates who leave the company or whom NXIVM perceives to be its enemies, and subjected to protracted litigation from two large law firms and a phalanx of attorneys.”
Viva Executive Success!
