[Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with additional comments from Heidi Hutchinson as of 12:23 EST Oct. 22, 2019]
Toni Natalie tells a rather embarrassing and disturbing story in her book, The Program Inside the Mind of Keith Raniere and the Rise and Fall of Nxivm – about husband #4, Scott Foley.
It may be a true story – or perhaps it’s a lie. If true, it shows her to be a domestic abuser, perhaps a violent sociopath.
If it is a lie – as so many of her stories are – it is still no credit to her that she wants others to believe she is a spousal abuser.
Toni relates that she first met Scott Foley when he went to work for her as head chef of A Place of Creations Cafe in Saratoga – a vegetarian restaurant that Keith and Toni owned together. Scott, who is 10 years younger than Toni, was married at the time, and Toni says she was still in a relationship with Keith.
Toni describes Scott as “a man’s man, ruggedly handsome” and embarrassingly points out in her book that Scott had a “nice ass.”
Pretty soon she starts an adulterous relationship with Scott and he leaves his wife and child, much like Toni abandoned her child. They married and were together for about 10 years.
Despite her describing Scott as a man’s man, she tells a story of how she wimped him out on her birthday – the last day they were together.
The story sounds a little fantastic – but here it is in Toni’s own words – from her book:
Scott and I took a much-needed and well-deserved vacation, renting a cabin on Canandaigua Lake. I had climbed out of the abyss and was working hard on myself, on my emotional recovery. For the first time in a long time, I felt optimistic. But I didn’t get that vibe from Scott. Even on the drive there, he seemed off—distracted somehow. It was my birthday, August 12, so we went to dinner with some friends. When we got back to the cabin that night, there was an incredible thunderstorm. The bursts of lightning shone purple light on the mountain, and all of that majesty was reflected on the lake. “Come outside,” I told Scott. “You can see God over the mountain.”
“I’m good,” he called from the back bedroom.
But it was too singularly beautiful to be missed. So I went inside to get him. Scott was sitting in bed, blanket over his knees, fiddling with his phone. His thumbs were moving at warp speed. He was so enthralled by whatever he was doing that he didn’t see me come in. When he noticed me, he was startled, and dropped the phone. It wasn’t his phone, I realized. It was a burner, the disposable kind that drug dealers use.
We both went for the phone. We grabbed it at the same time. But he was both stronger and taller, so he pulled it up over his head, and my grip wasn’t tight enough to snatch it. So, I grabbed his scrotum instead.
“Let go of my balls!”
“Let go of the phone!”
“Let go of my balls!”
“Let go of the phone!”
At that moment, my beloved dog, Raymona, cried out and peed on the floor. Worried, I loosened my grip on his balls (if not for Raymona, I could have ripped them clean off). He broke the phone in half, went outside, and hurled it into the darkness. As it flew, a bolt of lightning crashed.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just—you’re so distant, I barely know you anymore. Samantha makes me feel young, alive. Wanted.”
“Samantha?” I spat the name at him. “Sa/7?a/7tha?”
I packed up his things that night and sent him away. We were done. A few days later, I got an out-of-the-blue Facebook friend request from “Samantha Orr.” She wanted me to know that she was the one who had been texting my husband. As soon as she relayed that message, she vanished. Her profile picture morphed into a faceless egg. Scott had never actually met her in person. He’d been catfished. “Samantha” was a honeypot, I realized, tasked with seducing my husband and ruining our marriage.
In the months that followed, Raymona—whom I loved more than I loved Scott, truth be told—developed a rare medical condition that caused her nails to painfully fallout.
Now even my guard dog had PTSD
Toni with her dog, Raymona, who fortuitously peed on the carpet and saved Scott Foley’s balls.
***
Now, this is a fine story. Not quite sure why she chose to tell it – especially since it reveals herself to be a violent abuser. And if you don’t think her statement that “she could have ripped” his balls off is spousal abuse, then reverse the two. Suppose Scott found Toni in bed texting – and Toni did not want to turn over her phone.
A husband does not have legal authority over his wife’s phone. He can’t require her by force to turn it over. But then there is the morality question. She might be texting someone in an adulterous fashion. Would Scott have had the right to grab Toni by her fake boobs and demand she release the phone?
Of course not.
What if he threatened to tear her boobs off if she did not turn the phone over? Nope, sorry, that’s domestic abuse and he could be arrested.
Toni in her book glorifies domestic abuse – she admits to assault and battery. Is this acceptable? [There was clearly no editorial assistance from the publishers, Grand Central Publishing.]
Scott may be a wimp. He might be a loser. But Toni has no more right to be violent with him than he had a right to be violent with her. If, of course, her story is true.
Scott Foley – did his wife Toni Natalie really wimp him down to size?
So I called Scott Foley – the guy whose older wife claims she grabbed him by the scrotum – to ask him about the story.
A man answered Scott’s cell phone. When I identified myself and explained why I was calling, he quickly said he was not Scott – but that Scott didn’t care what was in Toni’s book.
I tried to ask him if he knew what was in the book and the man got rude and said, “Scott doesn’t want you calling anymore.”
I tried to ask him if Scott didn’t care about being abused by his wife and her telling the world about it?
He said again, “Don’t call here anymore!” ’
I said, “OK, Scott, I won’t call anymore.”
Toni Natalie has been telling people that I am working for Marc Agniflo – which was news to me. [Photo by Dianne Lipson]
I later learned from a source that Toni has been telling people [including the source who told me] that I am an employee of Keith Raniere’s and paid by his attorney, Marc Agnifilo. I was being paid, Toni told my source, to go after her because, after all, Toni is the one who took Raniere down and if she was discredited, Raniere would have a better chance at an appeal.
This lie of Toni’s might have been the reason Scott was so fearful of talking to me. On the other hand, he might just be a wimp, much like Toni described him to be.
Still, getting past that bit of nonsense that I was being paid by Raniere, I still wanted to find out if the Scott Foley scrotum story was true.
Beyond whether Toni wimped out little Scottie and almost sent him to the hospital – had it not been for her dog Raymona peeing – did Raniere really send in a woman to break up their marriage?
Toni claims that Samantha was a set-up – a fake – a honeypot – sent by Keith. And that Scott never met her.
It may be true.
Heidi Hutchinson
But Heidi Hutchinson recalls it differently.
After I read to Heidi, Toni’s story, Heidi said, “Oh my God, that is so far out. Even Raymona has to be worked into the honeypot scheme. Does that not sound insane? And God is on her side too. After Scott threw the phone into the woods, the thunder came crashing down.
“What’s wrong with that whole picture? Well, first of all, Toni called me the day after it supposedly happened. She told me how she went into the room – after asking Scott to go look at the thunderstorm – and found him in bed with an erection. And he had the phone in his other hand. She told me she grabbed him by the balls and demanded the phone.
“But here is where the story she told me differs from what she wrote in the book. What she told me the day after it supposedly happened is that she forced Scott – while holding onto his balls – to turn over the phone – which he did, meek as a lamb. Scott did not break the phone. She never said anything about Raymona peeing and distracting her. She got the phone, she said. She even read me text messages between Samantha and Scott from the phone.
“From the texts, it sure sounded like Scott and this woman had already met and they’d been texting for some time.
“Toni talked a lot to me that week about how Scott had been a victim of what was really her obsession with Keith. She developed this line of argument over the next few days as a justification as to why Scott was not interested in fucking her anymore. She thought maybe Scott and her should go to therapy. From there, Toni began to develop and formulate this idea that Raniere was somehow involved and that Scott was weak and succumbed. But there was no evidence.
“From the texts she read, it sure sounded like a true love relationship to me.
“That was in August. In December, I came to Rochester and Toni and I drove to Albany to be interviewed by the Albany Times Union for their expose. The day before we were to meet with reporters, Toni asked me to drive with her to Saratoga to visit the scenic town. On the way, Toni made a detour to Latham, to a supermarket and she parked way in the back and began, she said, to look for Scott’s car.
“I thought, the way she was talking, that she was going to vandalize Scott’s car. I said, ‘don’t do that.’ She said she wanted to go into the market and see if Samantha was working. She was. Samantha was working in the floral department. I went in with her and saw her. Samantha had light brown hair, about shoulder length, with a cute figure. She was about 5’4 or 5’5”
“Toni asked me, ‘Do you think she is pretty?’ I said, ‘yes’.
“Toni was talking about how Scott and Samantha were working in the same store. It blew the honeypot theory to shreds.
“It seems Scott was living in Latham and he was working in the meat department and Samatha in the floral department. As I recall, Toni told me they were living together. It sure didn’t seem like Keith had anything to do with their love affair. Despite Toni saying in her book that Scott never met her, here was Samantha in the flesh. If she was a honeypot scheme, she stayed around.”
Scott Foley seemed to have lost interest in the decade older Toni Natalie. She said it was Keith Raniere’s fault.
So let us recap Toni’s story:
Scott was texting someone on Toni’s birthday. Toni saw it and grabbed her naked husband by the balls. She demanded he turn over his burner phone.
He would not let go of it. She would not let go of his balls. She was ready to tear them off when Raymona peed. This distracted Toni and Scott escaped and broke the phone and threw it into the darkness as thunder crashed.
Toni later realized that this was a honeypot scheme cooked up by Keith Raniere – and that Scott never met the woman he was sexting. Samantha appeared but once on Facebook then disappeared.
And poor Raymona, the dog – like Toni herself – got PTSD – thanks to Keith Raniere.
***
Heidi says Toni told a different story just after it happened.
So who do we believe?
I can imagine Scott Foley won’t help us. He does not want to talk – I mean it was pretty cute of Toni to tell the story in her book of her wimping him out and grabbing him by the balls. Even if it’s true and you can get past her violent nature – did she really have to tell that story and humiliate the little rascal?
What I suspect – and this is just rank speculation – is that Toni never grabbed Scott by the balls. She did not catch him in the act of sexting, She somehow surreptitiously got hold of his phone and discovered texts between Scott and Samantha – and made the rest of the story up –- blaming Keith of course – and embellishing it further over the years.
I could be wrong. I’d like to invite Scott to comment.
But if Scott is willing to let the embarrassing story stand, then we may never know.
Now it is a matter of record – unless he clears it up – that he is the little wimpy rascal that was cheating on his wife – who then grabbed him by the balls and almost tore them off – but for a dog peeing.
By the way, Scott – if you speak on the record – I will correct any lies your loving ex-wife has told about you. If they are lies.
Knowing Toni, I suspect, I really suspect – that at least some of her story is untrue.
Toni Natalie has described herself as the Erin Brockovich of Nxivm. But some of her yarns seem dubious to those who were around at the time,
UPDATE: After Heidi Hutchinson read the above story, she wished to add the following – which also appears below the post as a comment:
By Heidi —
Toni’s account above from her novel includes more lies by Toni – beyond what Frank read to me before quoting my reaction.
It gets even worse and far more disparate from ‘Tone’s” original version.
What Toni told me then was that it was her birthday and she’d set the stage for romance in the lakeside cabin she’d tricked out to the envy of their neighbors. Toni rented the place for the Summer of Love she envisioned with Scott, there to heal their relationship from the ravages of NXIVM.
Far from the reaches of Raniere’s influence and, I might add, a younger woman Scott might have been having an affair with — Toni would rekindle their romance. But Scott remained distant.
On the night of her birthday, nature offered an aphrodisiac. A thunderstorm. Toni attempted to seduce Scott, purring, “Don’t you want to do something wild with the thunderstorm?”
In the original dialogue Toni recited to me there was no seeing God over the mountain, etc. It was raw sex, not a Godly manifestation she wanted to share with Scott. Scott was at the ready when she entered the room but he was not entirely alone. Toni ripped back the sheet covering his knees to expose his lover sweetly, effectively sexting him through his secret burner phone. Toni made a grab for the phone Scott held beyond her reach over his head, then she instead made the grab for his manhood and successfully negotiated the release of the evidence that, in fact, disproves her honeypot malarkey.
As I recall, Toni looked Samantha up on Facebook — she had her full name within a few days somehow — probably got much info from the texts on Scott’s burner and researched from there. I think she may have even sent me the FB pages of Samantha suspects. She was scouting for some link to Raniere and NX that just was not apparent as I recall. But she was also talking that week about how to restore her relationship with Scott — all the while looking for some hook into her NX victim narrative for not only herself but her beloved pooch, Raymona, in the final, published version.
Toni, you need some serious mental help.
***
[Editor’s Note: Keep in mind that both of Toni Natalie’s stories – the one she told Heidi at the time it happened and the version that made her book could both be false.]
