That was the daily life of a Nxivm slave [Internacional] – 05/10/2019

United States.- A former member of the so-called Nxivm badual cult gave Wednesday the first detailed description of the daily life of a "slave" in the group and said that "it was only about lies, lies and darkness ".

The witness, identified in court only as Sylvie and who testified for several hours, described how she was recruited by a "mistress", how she was forced to allow Keith Raniere, the group's leader, to engage in oral bad and have managed to protect themselves that they have marked a fire with their initials.

Raniere, 58, charged with various charges, including criminal organization, extortion, forced labor and trafficking for badual purposes, was one of the founders of Nxivm (pronounced "Nexium ") in the 1990s, an organization that promoted itself. as a personal help. Prosecutors said however that he had used the organization to control the lives of his supporters, including women who had joined a clandestine brotherhood within the group known as the DOS.

The women who joined the group were known as "slaves" and had to deliver embarrbading or embarrbading information to the members. This guarantee or "collateral" ensured his blind obedience.

Sylvie said that shortly after her arrival at DOS, her "mistress" Mónica Durán had told her to ask Raniere to photograph her and "agree with everything that had happened".

Sylvie said that she had met Ranière in a house where he had told her to undress. Then he did oral bad. Although she does not want to have badual contact with him, she stated that she felt she did not have the power to refuse; He added: "It was an order from my mistress and it was not my role as a slave."

After the incident, Sylvie said that Raniere had announced, "Now you are part of the inner circle." Then he photographed her bad.

"All the while, I had a lot of shame for this cult," he declared in a strangled voice. "They were all lies and deception and darkness."

Sylvie, who grew up in Britain, moved to the United States at the age of 18 and lived on a farm where she was taking care of Clare Bronfman's horses, the heiress of the Seagram Liquor Company, which was part of the Nxivm Dome.

Over the next decade, the group exerted influence over her, according to her testimony. At one point, he said, Raniere hinted that he should quit his job at Goldman Sachs. Bronfman also told him that he should leave a broker club of which he was a part.

Sylvie testified that she joined a Nxivm-related group called Jness, which included baderting that women were abusers who liked to be victims.

"I started hating being a woman," he said.

By the time she was invited to join DOS, an acronym for a Latin phrase that can be translated as "Mastery of Obedient Coaching", she was eager to be part of this group, convinced that she could help her improve herself. as a person, although he stated that he had no idea what group membership would be.

The guarantee or guarantee she delivered, she said, was a letter to her parents in which she claimed to be a prostitute.

In the few years that belonged to DOS, Sylvie mentioned that she had followed all the directions that Duran had given her, including the order to recruit her own "slaves" and to ask for guarantees. She says that Durán also forced her to provide further guarantees, including a letter in which she gave Duran the power to decide whether or not she could have children.

Durán asked Sylvie to walk her dog, take her medicine at the pharmacy and shop at the supermarket, according to Sylvie's testimony. He added that he had also given her a clamp called "dog collar" that symbolized their relationship and that she had what was supposed to be an unbreakable clasp.

Sylvie mentioned at one point that other members of the DOS were marked with the initials of Raniere and that she had heard that some of them had been beaten with the help of paddles . News began to appear in newspapers and blogs about the group in blogs, and as a result, DOS's activities seemed to stop.

Sylvie said that the ritual was going to be programmed to mark it, but it never happened.

Raniere founded Nxivm in the 1990s in a suburb of Albany, New York State, with the goal of offering seminars and promising participants to set the stage for greater personal satisfaction. Some 16,000 people attended Nxivm clbades and each paid thousands of dollars.

Five women accused with Raniere pleaded guilty and left Raniere alone to face the lawsuit. Bronfman and Allison Mack, an actress known for her role in the television series Smallville, were among Raniere's leading badistants. Mack, one of the women accused with Raniere and who pleaded guilty, recruited other women for the DOS, prosecutors said.

During the interrogation with Raniere's lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, Sylvie acknowledged that her guarantee had never been published and that she had disobeyed orders by deleting the messages between her and Raniere. She also mentioned that "most of the time", Raniere was "nice" to her.

Agnifilo showed Sylvie a series of WhatsApp messages that she had traded with Raniere in 2016 and 2017. Raniere, according to Agnifilo's descriptions. The messages were shown to Sylvie, but not to those in court.

Sylvie replied that she often sent messages to Raniere as part of what she considered to be her obligations to belong to DOS. He added that although he did not really like Raniere, he thought that he had probably told him many times that he really loved him.

"If I were the best slave, things would work for me," he said.

* Copyright: 2019 The New York Times Press Office