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Wealthy Founder-Sex-Cult-Perv BRANDS Victims · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I do not know how
0:10
Speaker 1: wealthy educated socialite women get suckered into a sex cult,
0:19
Speaker 1: I mean a sex cult that's bizarre, where young girls
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Speaker 1: are raped, forced into orgies, even branded, yes, branded like cattle.
0:30
Speaker 1: In the last hours, a bombshell development in the case
0:35
Speaker 1: against Keith Ranieri, the founder of Nexium sex cult. I'm
0:41
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace, this is Crime Stories. Thank you for being
0:44
Speaker 1: with us. Keith Renier, and let me tell you he's
0:47
Speaker 1: not much to look at. I do not know how
0:51
Speaker 1: these women got sucked into his craziness to become part
0:55
Speaker 1: of a bona fidei sex cult, but they did, and
1:00
Speaker 1: this guy was the mastermind. In the last days, this guy,
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Speaker 1: Keith Renier, has been declared guilty on all counts including racketeering,
1:13
Speaker 1: wire fraud, conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy, and sex trafficking, now
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Speaker 1: facing life behind bars after a jury arrives at a
1:24
Speaker 1: unanimous verdict after just four hours of deliberation. This after
1:30
Speaker 1: six weeks of testimony in the case, during which multiple
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Speaker 1: women describing lured into the sex slavey group to recount
1:39
Speaker 1: their experience as the jurars men and women were shocked.
1:44
Speaker 1: Fornier it actually issued an order for these women to
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Speaker 1: be branded with his initials in an extremely painful process.
1:53
Speaker 1: I mean, think about it. Taking a hot iron, burning
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Speaker 1: it until it's read, and then putting it on human flesh.
2:03
Speaker 1: He described it in one recording as a sacrificial whatever.
2:09
Speaker 1: That's what he said. Let me tell you something, A
2:13
Speaker 1: lot of people are going to be on the front
2:15
Speaker 1: row when he gets sentence September twenty five. Of course
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Speaker 1: he insists he's innocent, but all these women come forward
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Speaker 1: to describe what he did to them. Alexis Terreschuk joining
2:26
Speaker 1: me from Radar Online dot Com investigative reporter. Alexis it's
2:30
Speaker 1: a little hard for me to believe this. Start at
2:33
Speaker 1: the beginning, Alexus Terrestrict. The police are saying is that
2:36
Speaker 1: they spent years recruiting women around the country, around the
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Speaker 1: world to join what was supposed to be a female
2:43
Speaker 1: empowerment club, you know, kind of like a yoga class extraordinaire,
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Speaker 1: and you would go and this man, Keith is so charismatic.
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Speaker 1: You want to be a part of this thing that
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Speaker 1: gives women power. Instead, they were turned into sex slaves
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Speaker 1: who were branded branded literally with a hot poker on
3:01
Speaker 1: their bodies to become a member of this cult. And
3:04
Speaker 1: there's not a better word for it. It's not a
3:07
Speaker 1: women's group, it's not a tennis club. It is a cult.
3:09
Speaker 1: Because these women were having to give when they joined
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Speaker 1: and professed their faith to this cult. They were having
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Speaker 1: they were blackmail. They had to give things like naked
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Speaker 1: pictures of themselves are the most compromising stories about themselves.
3:23
Speaker 1: They had to give this to the leaders of the
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Speaker 1: group so that in case they ever left this begin
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Speaker 1: It sounds like a freaky, weird, felonious version of scientology
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Speaker 1: where you have to have be audited and tell all
3:34
Speaker 1: the worst things you've ever done, the extreme in your life,
3:37
Speaker 1: and then they have it to hold over your head. Guys,
3:41
Speaker 1: hold on with me. As Alexis Jurez Chuck investigative reporter
3:44
Speaker 1: with Radar Online dot Com but now joining us is
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Speaker 1: the journalist who originally broke the story of this cult.
3:54
Speaker 1: It's real NXIVM pronounced nexium. It's found Keith Rainieri allegedly
4:01
Speaker 1: subjecting women to humiliating sex acts and branding women and
4:07
Speaker 1: their pelvic area with a series of initials. It had
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Speaker 1: a large basse, has a large bass in Albany, New York.
4:18
Speaker 1: The guy who first cracked this story, journalist Frank Parlotto,
4:23
Speaker 1: and the former Nexium publicist. You can find out all
4:27
Speaker 1: about him and a lot of his work at Art Voice.
4:31
Speaker 1: Frank Parlotto, thank you for being with us. This is
4:33
Speaker 1: such a wildly fantastical story it's almost hard to believe.
4:38
Speaker 1: And Frank, you broke the story. What happened, Well, initially
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Speaker 1: it began just called Nextium in nineteen ninety eight, and
4:48
Speaker 1: on two thousand and two they achieved their first great recruit,
4:52
Speaker 1: and that was Seagram's heiress Claire Brockmann. With her hundreds
4:58
Speaker 1: of millions of dollars behind the cult, they were able
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Speaker 1: to recruits various celebrities such as Kristin Kruk, Grace Park,
5:10
Speaker 1: and Alison Matt. Matt became a true believer, and in
5:14
Speaker 1: time she elevated herself to nearly the top of the
5:18
Speaker 1: cult and became Ranier's top recruiter of young, attractive new
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Speaker 1: Bile slender women or ranees invidious sex cults who wa wa, wait,
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Speaker 1: what did you say? What kind of women? He had
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Speaker 1: a type and they were young, slender, long haired, new
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Speaker 1: bile and attractive prosperably with a little bit of monch. Okay, sorry, Jackie,
5:44
Speaker 1: we're out. Okay, we're not getting into they as as
5:49
Speaker 1: they say, the unique human development and women's movement, that
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Speaker 1: is what Alison Matt, the thirty five year old star
6:00
Speaker 1: of the hit series Smallville, had been tweeting and sending
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Speaker 1: notes to Kelly Clarkson and also to Emma Watson, trying
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Speaker 1: to lure them in. Luckily they're smart enough to stay
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Speaker 1: away from it. Frank Parlotto with me, the former Nexian publicist.
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Speaker 1: He's in charge of an incredible site called Art Voice
6:26
Speaker 1: and the journalists that first broke the story. So it
6:29
Speaker 1: all starts off with a fringe group that manages to
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Speaker 1: recruit an heiress from the Seagram's liquor dynasty, and she
6:39
Speaker 1: pumps a lot of money into it. They according to
6:44
Speaker 1: Frank solicit young. I don't believe I've heard anybody say
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Speaker 1: the word new bile in a long time. It's flashback
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Speaker 1: to Playboy in nineteen ninety. But okay, not judging Frank Young,
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Speaker 1: thin women, Okay, what happens? Then? It begins innocently enough.
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Speaker 1: The first meetings are surrounded with a group of women,
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Speaker 1: all of them already in the cult, who present a
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Speaker 1: picture of normalcy, a picture of a friendly, wonderful, kind
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Speaker 1: of lovely sorority. I think the term that's often used
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Speaker 1: in these kinds of cult like recruitment scenarios is love bombing.
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Speaker 1: A woman comes in, she's told that this kind of
7:34
Speaker 1: program will improve her life, she'll get life coaching, and
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Speaker 1: she'll be mentored by other women who care about her.
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Speaker 1: That's the initial deception. Then what happens, So they have
7:46
Speaker 1: the facade of normalcy. So you think you're joining a
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Speaker 1: women's group, Is that right, Frank Parlato. Yes, you are
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Speaker 1: elbow to elbow with stars like Alison Mack or Kristin Krug.
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Speaker 1: You're hobnabbing with Claire Brafman, who's Seagrim's heiress, and surrounded
8:05
Speaker 1: by attractive women, all of them slender. Later you'll realize
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Speaker 1: why they're so slender. They're kept down restrictive diets. But
8:13
Speaker 1: your initial impression is this is really quite an exciting
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Speaker 1: opportunity for me or whoever it is that's joining. And
8:21
Speaker 1: then they begin be hypnotic induction. Okay, what's that? It's
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Speaker 1: a very carefully laid out plan and Keith Rinieri, the
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Speaker 1: head of Nexium, is a master hypnotist. This is his
8:35
Speaker 1: art and this is his specialty. And you begin by
8:39
Speaker 1: attending very long classes. They're very intense, high intensity classes.
8:44
Speaker 1: They begin at seven in the morning and the end
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Speaker 1: of ten or eleven at night, and there is a
8:50
Speaker 1: slow hypnotic process that goes on, very carefully laid scheme. Well,
8:55
Speaker 1: what are the classes about, Frank. They purport to be
8:58
Speaker 1: about new ways of doing critical thinking. In fact, it's
9:02
Speaker 1: called rational inquiry, and they start to challenge the students
9:07
Speaker 1: on various kinds of conceptions that they've long held as
9:12
Speaker 1: their base of beliefs, such as what well, for instance,
9:16
Speaker 1: they begin kind of innocently, they talk about the criminal code,
9:22
Speaker 1: the social morays. They ask you, for example, to make
9:28
Speaker 1: a list of all of the advantages that would accrue
9:33
Speaker 1: to you if your boyfriend or husband should happen to die. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa,
9:42
Speaker 1: whoa whoa right there, right there, it sounds to me
9:45
Speaker 1: and Karen start with me, a New York psychologist, very
9:49
Speaker 1: well known. That's exactly what happens. When you get brainwashed
9:53
Speaker 1: your core beliefs. You're you're incouraged to start questioning them
9:57
Speaker 1: until suddenly what you're doing doesn't same wrong at all.
10:00
Speaker 1: I've seen it in yangs. There's a whole us versus
10:04
Speaker 1: them mentality that ensues, and they choose people that are susceptible.
10:10
Speaker 1: And as that brainwashing experiences occurring that you just mentioned, Nancy,
10:16
Speaker 1: what happens is that they become more and more open
10:20
Speaker 1: to the suggestibility of the cult and they are actual
10:24
Speaker 1: they're beginning to discover brain changes that occur. That starts,
10:30
Speaker 1: it's like an overload of information that starts to happen,
10:35
Speaker 1: so that the individual becomes more entrenched. And it's hard
10:41
Speaker 1: to believe how convincing this new world becomes. But think
10:46
Speaker 1: about Manson and all the girls that he was able
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Speaker 1: to attract to him, which when we're looking on the outside,
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Speaker 1: makes no sense. Crime stories with Nancy Grace welcome back.
11:12
Speaker 1: I mean, see Grace and breaking news right now. The
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Speaker 1: leader of a so called sex called Keith Ranieri, and
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Speaker 1: this is a guy highly educated, has money, has a home,
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Speaker 1: has had very reputable jobs, ends up leading a sex
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Speaker 1: called Well, he's got plenty of time to think about it,
11:32
Speaker 1: because a jury has just thrown the book at him,
11:34
Speaker 1: guilty on all seven counts. But how does this happen
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Speaker 1: in the two thousands, Frank Parlotto with me former nexting publicist,
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Speaker 1: the journalists that broke the story and has a site
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Speaker 1: called art Voice. Frank, somehow this guy Ranieri, Keith Ranieri,
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Speaker 1: managed to brainwash, you know, powerful and educated and wealthy women.
12:02
Speaker 1: So they're in these grueling classes about questioning their beliefs.
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Speaker 1: How does it go, Frank Parlato to getting branded with
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Speaker 1: a hot iron on your pelvic region. Well, you have
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Speaker 1: to consider that it took nine years from Ellison Mac's
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Speaker 1: first entree into the cult to the day she was
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Speaker 1: branded and began to brand of your women, nine long
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Speaker 1: years of hypnotic conduction. So to Alexas Treschut, investigative reporter
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Speaker 1: with Radar Online dot com, what starts as a women's
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Speaker 1: empowerment group with a facade of normalcy ends with sex
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Speaker 1: trafficking and literally branding women physically. And these women were
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Speaker 1: expected and I'm pressured by Alison and Keith into having
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Speaker 1: sex with Keith. And it wasn't just Alison, Keith was
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Speaker 1: all of the women and that's what and they were
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Speaker 1: they were told and the indictment revealed that they were
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Speaker 1: threatened with physical force and violence if they didn't submit
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Speaker 1: to this, that they would be physically harmed if they
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Speaker 1: didn't submit to have sex with Keith, and then the
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Speaker 1: brand name they were really lied to. These women were
13:19
Speaker 1: told that joining this organization, you know, into the upper
13:23
Speaker 1: levels of the of the club Splash Cold, that they
13:26
Speaker 1: would just get a small tattoo. And the first woman
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Speaker 1: they came out and said, I had I was fine
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Speaker 1: with a small tattoo. But instead they were taken into
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Speaker 1: a room. They were placed on a massage table, the
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Speaker 1: face up. Three people held them. One person held each
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Speaker 1: leg and the other held their shoulders, and their arms
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Speaker 1: held them down, and these initials were carrized into their body, burned,
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Speaker 1: turned into their body, and it literally took between like
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Speaker 1: twenty and thirty minutes. One of the women who came
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Speaker 1: forward said, I disassociated. I felt like I left my body.
14:00
Speaker 1: I wept the entire time because it was so awful.
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Speaker 1: What were the initials that were branded into the women?
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Speaker 1: Keith Ranier's initials are in this branding. It's a K
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Speaker 1: and an R design. And in fact he has said,
14:14
Speaker 1: well what if if they were Bill Gates as initials,
14:18
Speaker 1: you wouldn't care, but because their mind, you're upset about it.
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Speaker 1: It's horrific that these women were burned this way. Well,
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Speaker 1: I would care no matter who. Initials were branded into
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Speaker 1: my skin or my daughter's skin branded to Joseph Scott Morgan,
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Speaker 1: forensics expert and professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University.
14:38
Speaker 1: Long story short, that is your prime forensic evidence right there. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and this is not something that's going to be going away.
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Speaker 1: It's branded into the skin. It creates this this nasty
14:52
Speaker 1: looking kind of keylloid scar. I've seen these on gang
14:55
Speaker 1: members primarily, and it's really interesting, Nancy. You perilel held
15:00
Speaker 1: this earlier talking about gang membership. One of the things
15:02
Speaker 1: that some gangs and even fraternal organizations will will do
15:07
Speaker 1: is take a h take a coat hanger, for instance,
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Speaker 1: and bend it into a particular shape, heat superheated, and
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Speaker 1: then branded in and um. And it's really interesting that
15:19
Speaker 1: that the uh, these women are so beaten down at
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Speaker 1: this point mentally and emotionally where they get them to
15:27
Speaker 1: this point where he, the leader obviously feels comfortable with
15:31
Speaker 1: doing this to them and they allow it to certain
15:35
Speaker 1: degree to be done to them because they're they're staying
15:39
Speaker 1: within this environment. It's almost like it's like all norms
15:43
Speaker 1: have been stripped away. Of course this is more Karen's area,
15:45
Speaker 1: but yeah, yeah, it is. It is something. It is
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Speaker 1: a unique identifier that has left behind that will be
15:53
Speaker 1: connected back to them, you know too. And Bremner, high
15:56
Speaker 1: profile Seattle lawyer who has been at the forefront of
15:59
Speaker 1: so many many renowned cases. And Bremner, in what universe
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Speaker 1: is it suddenly okay to hold a woman down by
16:10
Speaker 1: force and brand her with a hot iron. I mean,
16:14
Speaker 1: at any point didn't these people go, WHOA, this is
16:18
Speaker 1: so wrong. I got to get out of here. Well,
16:21
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just so alarming and amazing. And you
16:24
Speaker 1: know what these cults somebody does I think Karen mentioned
16:26
Speaker 1: the Manson cult. I mean they went out and killed
16:28
Speaker 1: for him, and I don't we don't understand it. You know,
16:31
Speaker 1: at some point you say, I've got to get out
16:33
Speaker 1: of here. Alison Max's bizarre blog, she had detailed life
16:38
Speaker 1: and an alleged sex cult. And while she says, quote
16:43
Speaker 1: it seems like it has been a lifetime in here already,
16:47
Speaker 1: it's not going to matter as to her feelings about
16:52
Speaker 1: if she wanted to get out because her actions belie
16:56
Speaker 1: that she was taking part, according to the step, in
17:00
Speaker 1: recruiting and using young girls women in a sex cult
17:05
Speaker 1: where they were physically branded with a hot iron. I
17:08
Speaker 1: want you to hear on ABC's twenty twenty a report
17:13
Speaker 1: on this group, this cult, Nexium, and it's right here
17:16
Speaker 1: in our country, and there are Hollywood stars and wealthy
17:21
Speaker 1: educated women as part of it. Take a listen to this,
17:25
Speaker 1: including former members as they describe being stripped, naked, blindfolded, tattooed,
17:34
Speaker 1: and abused. Listen to ABC's twenty twenty five women summoned
17:38
Speaker 1: to a house outside Albany, New York, one night this
17:41
Speaker 1: past March. Sarah Edmondson says she was one of them,
17:47
Speaker 1: willingly participating in a strange initiation ritual led by a
17:52
Speaker 1: woman who told everyone to take off their clothes and
17:56
Speaker 1: put on a blindfold. Let us in blindfold and sat
18:00
Speaker 1: us in a semicircle fuck naked, no clothes on a
18:04
Speaker 1: cheepskin rug Like, could you could that be any weirder? No,
18:08
Speaker 1: it could not be any weirder. We were all you know,
18:11
Speaker 1: my goodness, what's going on here? This is so weird
18:15
Speaker 1: weird doesn't begin to cover it. Sarah told authority she
18:19
Speaker 1: thought they were there to get tattoos. Instead, she says,
18:23
Speaker 1: they found out they were all going to be branded.
18:26
Speaker 1: It sounds like a horror movie. It was a horror movie.
18:29
Speaker 1: It was the most inhumane, horrific way to treat anybody.
18:34
Speaker 1: What was that like? It was worse than childbirth. It
18:37
Speaker 1: was worse than childbirth. It was imagine a hot laser
18:45
Speaker 1: dragged to crash your flege for thirty minutes without anesthetic.
19:04
Speaker 1: Prime Stories with Nancy Grace, Welcome back on Nancy Grace.
19:14
Speaker 1: Keith Rainieri, founder of the Next FIM's sex cult, guilty
19:18
Speaker 1: on all counts. The jury was barely out long enough
19:21
Speaker 1: to get a drink, a soda and some snacks, and
19:25
Speaker 1: they return a guilty verdict. I'm sure the prosecutors are
19:27
Speaker 1: dancing up and down the halls. Mixed reviews from victims families,
19:33
Speaker 1: The victory bitter sweet. Yes he's going to jail, but
19:37
Speaker 1: think of what all these young girls have lived through,
19:41
Speaker 1: so many lives changed forever. You were just listening to
19:46
Speaker 1: ABC's twenty twenty and a report on NEXIM It's spelled
19:51
Speaker 1: n x I the M and with me is the
19:56
Speaker 1: former publicist for NEXIM who wrote the story, journalist Frank Parlotta.
20:03
Speaker 1: You can find him on art Voice online. Frank, I
20:08
Speaker 1: still don't understand how women were brainwashed into thinking this
20:11
Speaker 1: was okay. As now charges of sex trafficking are going down.
20:16
Speaker 1: Where do those from? Where do those charges stand? World
20:20
Speaker 1: two witnesses and there are others, but strictly speaking, the
20:25
Speaker 1: Jane Joe one and the Jane Joe number two, both
20:30
Speaker 1: of these were escaped slaves from the sex culture who
20:34
Speaker 1: told their horrifying stories first to me, and then I
20:40
Speaker 1: encourage them to go to the FBI to tell their
20:44
Speaker 1: entire story, which they did. Their horror emanated primarily from this,
20:49
Speaker 1: and this is a secret that many don't yet understand.
20:53
Speaker 1: It just didn't start with Brandy. It began by the procurement,
20:58
Speaker 1: the assiduous procurement by Wilson mac of blackmail worthy material.
21:04
Speaker 1: So the slippery slope occurred where you began as a
21:10
Speaker 1: women's empowerment, you were brainwashed. You gave blackmail worthy material
21:17
Speaker 1: to Allison and Keith R. Neary, and suddenly you found
21:20
Speaker 1: that what you thought was voluntary no longer became voluntary.
21:25
Speaker 1: But of course, so let me understand this Alexus terres
21:29
Speaker 1: Chuck Radar online dot Com investigative reporter, this sex called Nexium,
21:36
Speaker 1: which allegedly forces women to have relations with its leader
21:41
Speaker 1: and brands them, we believe with his initials and others
21:47
Speaker 1: Alexis terres Chuck. As far as the sex trafficking goes,
21:51
Speaker 1: what is the origin of the claim? So for sex trafficking,
21:54
Speaker 1: she has been accused of recruiting these women from all
21:57
Speaker 1: over and taking them to different places to have sex
21:59
Speaker 1: with ring year And what they're saying is they used
22:02
Speaker 1: either force or coercion. She excuse me, used forced or
22:05
Speaker 1: coercion to make them have sex with him, and so
22:09
Speaker 1: they traveled all over the world, this group did. And
22:13
Speaker 1: in fact, when she the last video we saw of
22:16
Speaker 1: Alison mac is, Keith was arrested in March in Mexico.
22:21
Speaker 1: They'd been hiding out in a very very very high
22:23
Speaker 1: end home in Mexico and the authorities captured him. Allison
22:28
Speaker 1: jumps in a car and there is video of her
22:31
Speaker 1: chasing the police and chasing the car that Keith is
22:34
Speaker 1: in in hysterics. Basically, she is so upset that her
22:40
Speaker 1: leader has been arrested and she is She's not somebody
22:43
Speaker 1: who was like, oh, yeah, this is right, this is bad.
22:45
Speaker 1: This guy's finally been arrested, thank goodness for me. No,
22:48
Speaker 1: she is convinced that this guy is being treated unfairly,
22:51
Speaker 1: and so she was chasing the police down as if
22:53
Speaker 1: to try to rescue him from the cops in Wolco. Well.
22:56
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, take a listen to Hollywood
22:59
Speaker 1: store Alice mac as she is interviewing the alleged cult
23:03
Speaker 1: leader about his program that quote helps actors be better actors. Okay, listen,
23:10
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk a little bit about the Source,
23:12
Speaker 1: which is the company that you've created for actors, artists,
23:16
Speaker 1: people who want to get better at expressing in general.
23:21
Speaker 1: Several years ago, when we first met, I had said
23:23
Speaker 1: to you, would you be willing to work with me
23:25
Speaker 1: and becoming a better actress, and you said, yeah, you know,
23:28
Speaker 1: we'll talk about it. And then several years later you
23:32
Speaker 1: started working with me and a bunch of other people
23:34
Speaker 1: to develop a curriculum specifically for actors. And I've been
23:38
Speaker 1: talking to different people about it in like different actors
23:41
Speaker 1: and things like that, enrolling them in the idea of
23:42
Speaker 1: coming and participating and saying what you've created, because it's
23:46
Speaker 1: been incredible for me. And a lot of the questions
23:49
Speaker 1: that they ask is like, well, how is it different
23:51
Speaker 1: than Meisner? How is it different than Stella Adler or whatever,
23:53
Speaker 1: And a lot of what the answers that I've given
23:56
Speaker 1: have been like, well, it's sort of, it's sort of
24:00
Speaker 1: it's a partnership with that because it gives you the
24:02
Speaker 1: foundation underneath all of the technical skills and all of
24:06
Speaker 1: the kind of traditional approaches to acting that we've had
24:10
Speaker 1: throughout time, Like it really gets to the core of
24:15
Speaker 1: the actor so that you can work on the raw
24:17
Speaker 1: material and then everything else that they produce is affected
24:20
Speaker 1: by that. But I don't know, Like I'm curious to
24:23
Speaker 1: know what your perception is of the curriculum that you
24:26
Speaker 1: created and where it came from. And well, it comes
24:29
Speaker 1: from a mix of human behavior and philosophy and also
24:35
Speaker 1: really technical communication. You know, acting is all about a
24:40
Speaker 1: type of communication and being not only more aware, but
24:46
Speaker 1: more congruent in your communication. So you want people to,
24:51
Speaker 1: if you will, to be a bit common in what
24:57
Speaker 1: I say. You want people to buy your character right,
25:01
Speaker 1: and the way they buy it is they find it
25:05
Speaker 1: congruent and authentic the questions. I mean, if someone could
25:09
Speaker 1: be totally congruent in a character and express authentically through
25:13
Speaker 1: that character, so they could do any sort of a
25:16
Speaker 1: scene or whatever, certainly that actor could do anything. So
25:21
Speaker 1: the question is, how do you achieve that? How do
25:24
Speaker 1: you achieve congruents? How do you achieve authenticity? And I
25:28
Speaker 1: think there are many roads to do this. The thing
25:31
Speaker 1: that I think makes the source a bit unique is
25:36
Speaker 1: I come from a non acting background. You could say
25:38
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm talking about, So that's good
25:43
Speaker 1: and bad. The good aspect is it comes from a behaviorist,
25:50
Speaker 1: humanist sort of practical and philosophical background, dealing with communication
26:00
Speaker 1: with all sorts of things relating to the psychodynamics of
26:06
Speaker 1: people and humans. As you hear Alison mac interviewing the
26:11
Speaker 1: cult leader, compare that the dichotomy of these victims describing
26:18
Speaker 1: being strip naked, blindfolded a tattoos. Sarah says she devoted
26:22
Speaker 1: twelve years to Nexium, recruiting hundreds of new members, rising
26:27
Speaker 1: through the organization, even opening and running a center in
26:31
Speaker 1: Vancouver along the way, becoming best friends with Nancy Saltzman's
26:36
Speaker 1: daughter Lauren, who was made of honor at Sarah's wedding.
26:40
Speaker 1: She's like my therapist, and in the ranking system she's
26:42
Speaker 1: also above me. Then in March, after all their years
26:46
Speaker 1: together in Nexium, Sarah says, Lauren approached her about a
26:50
Speaker 1: new and mysterious opportunity. She said, I want to avoue
26:53
Speaker 1: you to something that totally changed my life. It was
26:57
Speaker 1: a secret sorority for women only, life changing, but top secret.
27:03
Speaker 1: And the first step is making a valve obedience to
27:06
Speaker 1: her as me being a slave and her being my master.
27:09
Speaker 1: Again she used the word slave, of course, yeah, and
27:14
Speaker 1: objected every stage of the way, and she said, it's
27:16
Speaker 1: just a it's a metaphor, it's a guru disciple. Then
27:20
Speaker 1: came the night that Sarah says she and four other
27:23
Speaker 1: women submitted one by one to being branded by this woman,
27:28
Speaker 1: she says, doctor Danielle Roberts. And then the woman on
27:32
Speaker 1: the table screamed out in pain, you know, twisted and
27:35
Speaker 1: turned and yelled, and the woman I was with, holding
27:39
Speaker 1: her legs down, we looked at each other and we
27:40
Speaker 1: just wept. Why did you let go and run out
27:43
Speaker 1: of there, even naked? It didn't seem like a choice
27:47
Speaker 1: at the time, She points. Two years of Nexium training
27:50
Speaker 1: and all the indoctrination, all the years of women are weak,
27:54
Speaker 1: women have no character. Now is the time to prove
27:56
Speaker 1: I can do it, and I said. Sarah gives another
27:59
Speaker 1: explanation for her obedience. Before she joined the Secret Sorority
28:03
Speaker 1: and got branded. She says, Laurence Saltzman had demanded highly
28:07
Speaker 1: compromising collateral. You need to provide something to me that
28:11
Speaker 1: I'm going to hold forever, just to confirm and to
28:14
Speaker 1: solidify that you'll never share the secret. So what did
28:17
Speaker 1: you give her? So? I gave her a written confessional,
28:20
Speaker 1: and she says, for her and some others, the price
28:23
Speaker 1: of admission to the secret group also included providing nude
28:27
Speaker 1: photos of themselves. So understand when women do that, it's
28:30
Speaker 1: very difficult to say no, I'm not doing this because
28:33
Speaker 1: the person has something of you with them. Instantly, all
28:36
Speaker 1: my alarm bells are going absolutely So why did you
28:39
Speaker 1: do it? I did it because I trusted her. That
28:41
Speaker 1: was from ABC's twenty twenty report on Nexium Crime Stories
28:58
Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace. I mean, see Grace, this is crime stories.
29:03
Speaker 1: Keith Rneer, the founder of a bizarre sex called Right
29:06
Speaker 1: under Our Noses, including wealthy, educated, socialite women, I mean
29:11
Speaker 1: famous women as part of this sex cult. Just had
29:16
Speaker 1: the book thrown at him, and frankly, I can't wait
29:19
Speaker 1: till he's sentenced. I hope he gets the maximum on
29:22
Speaker 1: every account to run consecutively, one after the next. But
29:26
Speaker 1: you gotta wonder. Yes, while I'm happy and relieved, more
29:30
Speaker 1: relieved at the guilty verdict, I just gotta stop and
29:35
Speaker 1: try to figure out how this happened. I mean, this
29:39
Speaker 1: is going on right under our noses. How this is
29:43
Speaker 1: how the whole thing works. I'm Former members of the
29:48
Speaker 1: cult claim the Hollywood star Mac would lure young ladies
29:53
Speaker 1: into joining the cult cult and then demand they turned
29:56
Speaker 1: over quote collateral. The collateral would be compromising photos or
30:03
Speaker 1: their personal assets, money belongings, car titles. That collateral was
30:08
Speaker 1: then used by Mac to control the women who were
30:12
Speaker 1: transformed into branded sex slaves. Now the founder, Ranieri was
30:19
Speaker 1: arrested the way Alexis Reschuk just told us in Mexico,
30:25
Speaker 1: the States said that during the past twenty years, Ranierie
30:31
Speaker 1: established a series of self help programs. Self help programs.
30:40
Speaker 1: They had centers, so they were getting a lot of money.
30:44
Speaker 1: Funding in the US Mexico, Canada, South America, and it
30:49
Speaker 1: was a pyramid scheme. The courses cost thousands of dollars
30:54
Speaker 1: and the people that took them were then encouraged to
30:58
Speaker 1: pay for other classes and recruit other people to take
31:02
Speaker 1: the classes so they could rise up within the ranks.
31:06
Speaker 1: It's like it's a pyramid scheme. And Bremner it's like
31:11
Speaker 1: a Ponzi scheme. And Bremner Seattle lawyer explain what I
31:15
Speaker 1: mean by pyramid. Basically, it's like Amoy or any of
31:18
Speaker 1: these kinds of things that you just keep building membership
31:20
Speaker 1: by using your members to go out and get to
31:22
Speaker 1: the people, and just keep building that pyramid. There's a
31:25
Speaker 1: lot of financial ones like that too, But this is
31:27
Speaker 1: human trafficking and it's just self perpetuating. So what would
31:32
Speaker 1: happen Frank Parlotto with me, the former Nextium publicist, the
31:36
Speaker 1: journalists that first broke the story. You can find him
31:39
Speaker 1: at art Voice. What would happen if someone try to
31:43
Speaker 1: stop and leave the cult? Well, they threatened them with
31:47
Speaker 1: the release of their quote unquote collateral. It all exploded
31:52
Speaker 1: their own May of two thousand and seventeen, when the
31:55
Speaker 1: secret part of Nextium they call it dust In that
32:00
Speaker 1: stands for dominos, obsequious serrium, or the master over. The
32:05
Speaker 1: slave women became revealed to the external group of Nexium,
32:11
Speaker 1: the women who had not yet been branded, and that
32:15
Speaker 1: caused kind of a chaotic explosion with the Nexium and
32:18
Speaker 1: a rapid exodus. Ellison stuck with the group, as did
32:24
Speaker 1: the core slaves, and even when the women's were threatened,
32:29
Speaker 1: some of them, like Sarah Edmondson, decided to leave any
32:33
Speaker 1: way and risk the collateral being released. Wow, it's just
32:38
Speaker 1: amazing that this is happening right here under our own noses.
32:42
Speaker 1: Take a listen to this. According to promotional materials, even
32:46
Speaker 1: as a child, Ranieri was destined for greatness, speaking in
32:51
Speaker 1: full sentences at age one, reading at age two, judo
32:55
Speaker 1: champ and concert level pianist. At thirteen, I was told
33:02
Speaker 1: that he was one of the smartest men in the
33:04
Speaker 1: world and just an incredible man. With that, I'm going
33:07
Speaker 1: to pass the microphone over to mister and Neery. So incredible.
33:12
Speaker 1: It seems that an ordinary name just won't do. Participants
33:16
Speaker 1: say they're taught to call Ranieri Vanguard. Vanguard. Yes, Vanguard
33:20
Speaker 1: is the name that we referred to Keith as because
33:24
Speaker 1: he is a leader of a philosophical movement. The second
33:27
Speaker 1: highest ranking member of Nexium is a woman named Nancy Saltzman.
33:31
Speaker 1: Former members say she is known as Prefect so Keith
33:35
Speaker 1: and Nancy Vanguarden Prefect. At the heart of Nexium training
33:39
Speaker 1: is something called intensives, which former members say are like
33:43
Speaker 1: group therapy, running as long as fourteen hours a day
33:46
Speaker 1: for up to sixteen days. Edmondson says she attended her
33:50
Speaker 1: first in two thousand and five, when she was twenty seven.
33:54
Speaker 1: I left my five day, my initial training, as if
33:58
Speaker 1: a veil had been lifted and I could see things
34:01
Speaker 1: more clearly in my life. I could communicate better with people.
34:04
Speaker 1: That sounds fantastic, Yeah, it was great. Classes are invitation
34:08
Speaker 1: only and they are not cheap. A five day intensive
34:12
Speaker 1: will run you three thousand dollars, a sixteen day is
34:15
Speaker 1: seventy five hundred. In promotional videos and materials, it claims
34:20
Speaker 1: more than sixteen thousand people worldwide have taken Nexium courses.
34:25
Speaker 1: Many testify to its effectiveness. I learned through the tools
34:29
Speaker 1: that there was a different way. Sarah was recruited into
34:33
Speaker 1: the group by filmmaker Mark Vicente. What was it that
34:36
Speaker 1: was so compelling to you, just a wait it to
34:39
Speaker 1: break down and understand certain things in my life in
34:41
Speaker 1: a way I never had before. Ranieri is fiercely protective
34:44
Speaker 1: of his teachings, requiring participants to sign confidentiality agreements. Everyone
34:49
Speaker 1: signed it, and if you didn't sign it, you couldn't
34:51
Speaker 1: take the curriculum. We do know that Nexium has its
34:55
Speaker 1: own LINGO. Students are taught about overcoming disintegrations to be
35:00
Speaker 1: become more potent and less suppressive, and avoiding people termed
35:05
Speaker 1: parasites or luciferians, you know. To Karen Stark, New York Psychologists, Karen,
35:12
Speaker 1: when you're in so deep in something, I guess it
35:14
Speaker 1: seems normal to you. It seems normal to you, and
35:17
Speaker 1: it seems normal to the people around you. And maybe
35:22
Speaker 1: for people who are vulnerable for the first time, they
35:25
Speaker 1: get a strong feeling of belonging to something. It always
35:28
Speaker 1: involves a charismatic leader, so that you're enticed and you
35:34
Speaker 1: feel like you're getting the special attention. She talks about
35:37
Speaker 1: Alice and at the fact that he was her mentor
35:40
Speaker 1: that he mentored her in acting and the skills of acting,
35:44
Speaker 1: and they made it all sound very legitimate. You took courses,
35:48
Speaker 1: There was a curriculum. It became extremely enticing to be
35:52
Speaker 1: a part of this group, particularly because there were so
35:56
Speaker 1: many people who were celebrities or who had a great
35:59
Speaker 1: deal of money, and you begin to question, well, estate,
36:02
Speaker 1: why would they be a member of this group if
36:05
Speaker 1: it were not legitimate. We are talking about a cult
36:09
Speaker 1: that started in Albany, New York, Upstate New York, with
36:13
Speaker 1: connections all over the world. Now it poses as a
36:16
Speaker 1: self help organization to empower women, and it rides the
36:21
Speaker 1: coattails of girl power. It ends up in the spotlight
36:26
Speaker 1: when the New York Times investigation exposed that the women
36:30
Speaker 1: in the group were referred to as slaves and subjected
36:35
Speaker 1: to ritual humiliations. They starved themselves. They were forced to
36:41
Speaker 1: starve themselves to achieve the cult leaders beauty ideal and
36:48
Speaker 1: to have repeated relations with him. To Frank Parlotto, former
36:54
Speaker 1: Anxium publicist, founder of Art Voice and the journalists that
36:59
Speaker 1: broke the story, Frank, how did you become involved with
37:04
Speaker 1: Nexium as their publicist? But I was originally retained to
37:08
Speaker 1: work for them by Claire Broffman, the Seagrim's heiress who
37:13
Speaker 1: funds the entire operation of Nexium. She funded all of
37:17
Speaker 1: the branding and the cult network, and I was retained
37:23
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and seven to try to help
37:27
Speaker 1: them get a better public persona. Even at that time
37:33
Speaker 1: people in the media were labeling this group as a cult. Well, Frank,
37:38
Speaker 1: how did you get out of it? Why? I had
37:40
Speaker 1: uncovered that Keith rugh Neeri, the head of the cult,
37:43
Speaker 1: he had embezzled or swindled Claire Broffmann out of one
37:47
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars. And I approached Claire and I told
37:52
Speaker 1: her that her money was missing and that Keith was
37:56
Speaker 1: in charge of that money. One hundred million disappeared, and
38:00
Speaker 1: she didn't really want to accept that finding, which you
38:05
Speaker 1: know later wound up being proven to be true. She
38:09
Speaker 1: was contented in swindling herd on of one hundred milks.
38:13
Speaker 1: Anti Ranieri fired, Wow, I just wonder what jail he's
38:17
Speaker 1: going to. I can only think about what may happen
38:21
Speaker 1: to him behind bars. Not that I approve vigilante justice.
38:26
Speaker 1: Of course, we wait as justice unfals. Nancy Grace crime story,
38:31
Speaker 1: signing off, good bye friend,