By Chris King • Published: 11 Nov 2020 • 1:10
Jailed Sex Trafficker Keith Raniere still has Loyal Followers even after being Convicted and Sentenced to 120 years in prison.
Nxivm boss, Keith Raniere, was convicted on charges of sex trafficking, fraud, and other crimes, being sentenced to 120 years in prison, and yet some of his ardent followers still maintain he is innocent.
For many years, his company Nxivm (pronounced NEX-ee-um), was synonymous with the likes of top Hollywood actresses, millionaires, and Ivy League graduates, who flocked to him to study in his company’s teaching classes. The largest majority of those people have of course distanced themselves from Raniere, since his awful crimes came to light, after the jury at his hearing were told how Nxivm recruited females under false pretenses, enrolling them into Raniere’s secret sorority, where each female got branded near their pelvis with his initials and then groomed to act as his partners for sexual purposes, whilst being blackmailed.
Despite clear evidence that Raniere had child pornography in his possession, along with starving and depriving his victims of sleep, amounting to a huge list of federal crimes, a small number of his victims still insist that Keith Raniere is a good man, and should not have gone to prison. One of his victims alleged in court that Raniere started abusing her when she was only 15 and he was 45, an allegation that Mr. Raniere’s lawyers have never disputed to this day.
Only last month, eight females, including a corporate lawyer, a doctor, and a former actress, released a video online where they each stated that they had been branded of their own free will and that Raniere never forced them to participate in the sexual relationships they had with him, and they even went on record on the day of his sentencing to say that he had never coerced them against their will.
Nxivm, it turned out, had a history of dealing with anybody who tried to bring Raniere down, or challenged his teaching methods, by shunning them from the community and sometimes even targeting them with lawsuits that drove them into bankruptcy.
Around 18,000 people have taken Nxivm’s courses since 1998, ad it seems Raniere used his company and its reputation to lure recruits with its expensive “Executive Success Programs,” which it claimed tapped into a desire for personal growth within elite circles. Nxivm was an illegal enterprise, prosecutors said, dealing in fraud, extortion, immigration violations and, sex crimes that, under Mr. Raniere’s direction, took place over a 15 year period. A jury convicted Mr. Raniere on all counts after a six-week trial in 2019, and five women in his inner circle also pleaded guilty to felony charges.
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Originally from Wales, Chris spent years on the Costa del Sol before moving to the Algarve where he is a web reporter for The Euro Weekly News covering international and Spanish national news. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com
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