Whistleblower beat NXIVM Cult T.R.O.

NXIVM Cult - Keith Raniere found guilty -Lawsuits - Recovery
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Whistleblower beat NXIVM Cult T.R.O.

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My Friends Susan Dones and Kim Woolhouse won their court battle against the T.R.O. issued by the NXIVM cult.
Saratoga politics: Susan Dones and Kim Woolhouse NXIVM trial over
http://saratogaindecline.blogspot.co.nz ... nxivm.html

NXIVM “formerly known as Executive Success Programs (ESP)” is no exception.
Keith Raniere founder of this particular nasty organization could even teach Judith a few executive cult management tricks!
How about $6,000 for a 16-day "intensive”?
Then dipping into the billion dollar bank accounts of converts Sara and Clare Bronfman to finance
lawsuits and restraining orders to chase down and intimidate whistle-blowers for alleged breach of a confidentiality agreements and defamation.
When Raniere tried to silence Rick Ross it totally backfired.. and he lost big time.
Meanwhile Keith Raniere continues with his bullying NXIVM whistle blowers, case in point..
Susan Dones and Kim who is standing her ground and sending a clear message to Keith Raniere and the likes of JZ Knight....
There are people in this world that hold integrity and compassion above your power, greed and deceptions.

Thank you Susan and Kim.... :D

View topic - RSE/Mark Vicente: Executive Success Programs Inc (ESP)
'EMF' Message Board link...
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1016&p=7975#p7975

David.
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The NXIVM Files

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The NXIVM Files
http://www.scs.cmu.edu/~dst/NXIVM/

Poor Little Rich Girls: The Ballad of Sara and Clare Bronfman | The New York Observer
http://www.observer.com/2010/daily-tran ... rich-girls
http://www.observer.com/2010/daily-tran ... s?page=all

The Heiresses and the Cult | Culture | Vanity Fair
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/featu ... man-201011

In a separate case in 2004, NXIVM contracted Interfor-whose founder, Juval Aviv, claims to be an ex-agent for Mossad-to orchestrate a sting on anti-cult activist Rick Ross. Interfor hired an actress to impersonate a concerned mother seeking to hire Mr. Ross to lead an intervention for her son on a cruise ship. The intention, Mr. O'Hara claims, was to throw Mr. Ross overboard. They went so far as to wire Mr. Ross a $2,500 deposit for his services before dropping the plan.
http://www.rickross.com/groups/esp.html
http://www.rickross.com/reference/esp/esp117.html
saratogaindecline
http://saratogaindecline.blogspot.com/

More than one NXIVM apostate or former business associate has wound up in court, and then filed for bankruptcy. When Toni Natalie, a Raniere intimate, left NXIVM in 1999, Raniere sent her passages of John Milton's Paradise Lost-a seminal NXIVM text-with notations comparing himself to Jesus and Natalie to Lucifer. "I was the chosen one," she says. "I was brought in to bear the child that would change the world." Natalie later filed for bankruptcy-Raniere was a creditor, in an ordeal that lasted over eight years and which a judge ultimately complained "smacks of a jilted fellow's attempt at revenge, with many attempts at tripping her up along the way."
Critics say NXIVM's workshops, which cost US$6,000 for a 16-day "intensive," use 14-hour days, warm rooms and protein-poor meals to push newcomers into a psychologically pliable state. They point to the handful of people who have suffered breakdowns while pursuing the NXIVM curriculum, including an Alaskan who in 2003 paddled a canoe to the centre of a lake and drowned herself. "I was brainwashed and my emotional center of the brain was killed/turned off," she wrote before her death. Yet even former Nexians with good reason to distance themselves from the group say such reports fail to reflect how effective Raniere's program can be in raising self-esteem and erasing anxieties, and stress that good, intelligent people often stay with the program. Says a former member who admits she spent US$90,000 on workshops over 10 years:
"I will never regret it.

NXIVM File links..PDF documents
https://acrobat.com/app.html#d=-KXSkPE3SfWe67xFYrCgQg
https://acrobat.com/#d=hCIHIvUwRZkc*WiPryEkzA
https://acrobat.com/app.html#d=TAYYygfUMS7FrQEOJByP4Q
https://acrobat.com/app.html#d=HfloHEYRKGhcLF9LepYcGg
https://acrobat.com/#d=7u3csyAbREPAQhEZYF0drA
https://acrobat.com/#d=c2JAdDO5HC7gFMm3ejH0OA
https://acrobat.com/#d=baLiLczXnMdnP-BxjTUHrg
https://acrobat.com/#d=oqkPEo1GzOPknvUVMKgIhQ
https://acrobat.com/#d=nZqQu96sHswSnVbnddCRwg
https://acrobat.com/#d=JFMqJt8n66PGiGqyhvREiw
The Albany Times-Union/November 22, 2010
By James M. Odato
Ex-NXIVM trainer: Students are prey

Colonie - In court papers filed Friday, a former high ranking officer of NXIVM depicts the cultlike group as a self-help and ethics school that is secretly a place for its leader to explore opportunities for sex and gambling money.
Susan Dones, a trainer who ran the Colonie-based company's former Tacoma, Wash., center, told a bankruptcy court last week that Keith A. Raniere, the creator of the teachings used in NXIVM's self-improvement courses, may have motives beyond the education of human potential.
Dones said NXIVM presents Raniere "as the most honest, ethical, Nobel (sic), man who had the answers to mankind's problems" yet his training sessions are "used as a venue to stalk their students ... who might fit into Raniere's profile of sexual conquest and who might be willing to 'give' Raniere money to feed his gambling problem."
The NXIVM business, also known as Executive Success Programs, treats Raniere, 50, of Clifton Park as its intellectual guru. It has attracted an estimated 12,000 students to long-term studies and short-term intensive programs aimed at "a new ethical understanding that allows us to build an internal civilization and have it manifest in the external world," as Dones said in court records.
Dones' accusations echo assertions raised in a California lawsuit involving a soured real estate investment of Clare and Sara Bronfman, who are major financial backers, students and leaders of NXIVM. In that case, records say Raniere is the absolute leader of a cult with complete control over the Bronfmans. The records call him a man with many girlfriends and a gambling compulsion.
That case disclosed he directed $65 million in the Bronfmans' funds into losing commodities trades and encouraged them to make a roughly $26 million investment in housing construction in Los Angeles that didn't pan out.
Raniere also uses funds mined from NXIVM members to pay his legal bills in litigation that harasses whistle-blowers, Dones claims in the new filings Thursday in Washington. She said the NXIVM's litigation against her in her bankruptcy case is likely costing the company $1 million monthly even though she has few assets.
She said Raniere's personal behavior, which was inconsistent with his teaching, is a reason why she and eight other women left NXIVM in April 2009.
Raniere, who uses the name "Vanguard," and NXIVM President Nancy Salzman, Dones claimed, acted maliciously toward members who were "sold on Raniere being someone he is not and that NXIVM 'mission' is something it is not."
"I was informed and believe that Raniere/Vanguard was having sexual relationships with multiple women, sometimes with more than one of them at the same time (many of these women were told that they were the chosen one; several of them were members of NXIVM's executive board which is a per se conflict of interest and all them had to keep their relationship with Raniere a secret from the NXIVM community because it was feared that many members were not 'evolved enough' to be able to deal with this information)," Dones stated in her court declaration.
She said that she has not shared trade secrets of NXIVM as alleged in a claim against her bankruptcy case brought by NXIVM. Students of the program, she said, are led to believe that leaders can do no wrong as they seek to teach ways to become "unified" -- "whole and complete with no attachments to the outside world" by taking multiple, expensive advanced training courses.
As for operations, she said that one of NXIVM's officers bragged about an ability to forge signatures, suggesting that documents generated by the company are suspect. And she said the company may be dodging paying taxes.
"The destruction to NXIVM comes from within the upper, inner most leadership of the NXIVM organization," she said, calling herself a whistle-blower.
Albany lawyer Stephen Coffey, who has been representing NXIVM in bankruptcy cases involving former members, did not return a call. And NXIVM attorney Robert Crockett in California said he was unable to speak to a reporter on matters involving the company.
Dones, who lists $558,951 in assets and $728,152 in debts, could not be reached.
http://www.rickross.com/reference/esp/esp122.html
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Federal judge rules against NXIVM;Calls treatment of ex-memb

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Federal judge rules against NXIVM; Calls treatment of ex-member deplorable.
* The court refused to accept NXIVM’s argument that its infamous Confidentiality Agreement precludes anyone who signed it from ever revealing anything about NXIVM.
* The court rejected NXIVM’s request that Dones and Woolhouse be ordered to pay the astronomical legal bill that the cult’s 6 attorneys ran up on this case.
Keith Raniere backed by Clare Bronfman the youngest daughter of the billionaire philanthropist Edgar Bronfman,
in typical cult dirty-tricks used the courts as a weapon against penniless Susan and Kim who dared speak out in public the truth about Keith Raniere and his corrupt NXIVM organisation .
Raniere/NXIVM retaliated with a law suit armed with an $800 P hour attorney Bob Crockett + a 5 attorney team.
Well ... Keith Raniere with his high flying attorneys LOST
It gives me hope in the US judicial system that saw though the nasty tactics of a powerful cult,
Congratulations.....
Susan and Kim who drew a line in the sand and won this battle without legal expertise against a "Cult Goliath bully"
so proud of you.. :D

Federal judge rules against NXIVM;Calls treatment of ex-member deplorable.
http://saratogaindecline.blogspot.com/2 ... calls.html

Adobe Acrobat.com
https://acrobat.com/app.html#d=WI92b961jzeYGLTpC-z9Jg
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Re: NXIVM formerly known as "Executive Success Programs" (ES

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David, et al...

what Nixiummmmm did was a SLAPP suit.
A strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) is a lawsuit that is intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition. [1]

The typical SLAPP plaintiff does not normally expect to win the lawsuit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLAPP

Margaret Singer and Janja Lalich got sued like this by Landmark [aka est, Forum, Werner Erhard cult] for merely mentioning them in a book with "cult" in the title (Cults in Our Midst-1996). Singer and Lalich's publisher prevailed and won an anti-SLAPP suit after some compromise, apprently:
Landmark Education legal dispute (1996)In 1996, Landmark Education sued Singer for defamation. Singer mentioned Landmark Education in Cults in our Midst; it was unclear whether she labeled Landmark Education as a cult or not. Singer issued a statement pursuant to a settlement agreement stating that she did not intend to call Landmark a cult, nor did she consider it a cult.[32] Singer removed the references to Landmark Education from subsequent editions of the book. She also stated at deposition that she had "no personal, firsthand knowledge of Landmark or its programs."

Amanda Scioscia reported in the Phoenix New Times that Singer never called Landmark a cult, but that she described it as a "a controversial New Age training course". She also stated that she would not recommend the group to anyone, and would not comment on whether Landmark uses coercive persuasion for fear of legal recrimination from Landmark.[33]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Singer
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Re: NXIVM formerly known as "Executive Success Programs" (ES

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some followup on this: comments are interesting
http://saratogaindecline.blogspot.com/2 ... stmas.html
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Re: NXIVM formerly known as "Executive Success Programs" (ES

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Thanks Joe,
from this outcome the truth does matter in a court of law. .
this quote sums it up for me..
10. Saving his best for last, Judge Lynch concludes his opinion with the following: “NXIVM’s pursuit of Woolhouse is another matter entirely and sheds light on its true motivations. Apart from participating in the April 2009 meeting with Raniere and joining in the subsequent email with the other participants, there is absolutely no evidence that she did anything to harm NXIVM. Her “sin” was to attempt to walk away after discovering that NXIVM was not what she thought or hoped. In return, she was labeled a “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. Despite multiple depositions and extensive discovery, they were never able to prove that Woolhouse did anything wrong. NXIVM’s treatment of Woolhouse in this adversary proceeding was, in a word, deplorable.” Uh-oh, Batman, I think this is where Raniere decides that we tanked this case on purpose and refuses to pay our outstanding fees.
JZK understands full well by suing EMF will steer RSE into a massive iceberg of truth that will sink RSE.Inc faster than the Titanic!

David
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Re: NXIVM formerly known as "Executive Success Programs" (ES

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THE 2 WOMEN REPRESENTED THEMSELVES
nxivm went through several highpowered firms
again, good judges see through the games. evidence and fact wins out :D
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Re: NXIVM formerly known as "Executive Success Programs" (ES

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Secrets of NXIVM
Some experts say Keith Raniere, the guru behind an unusual training business, is really a cult leader

Albany Times Union

James M. Odato and Jennifer Gis, Times Union http://analytics.apnewsregistry.com/ana ... ACopyright 2012 Times Union. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
By James M. Odato and Jennifer Gish
Sunday, February 12, 2012

In a Saratoga County townhouse complex, a man who wears a Jesus beard and seeks to patent his philosophies keeps a cluster of adoring women at his side. He has drawn more than 10,000 people to his mission of ethical living. But some disciples say he has delivered a much darker reality.

Keith Raniere, a multilevel-marketing businessman turned self-improvement guru, has peddled himself as a spiritual being to followers, most of them women. A close-knit group of these women has tended to him, paid his bills and shuttled him around. Several have satisfied his sexual needs. And a few have left their families behind to wrap him in their affections.

Claiming one of the world's highest IQs and holding three degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Raniere has evolved over the past two decades

from the fresh-faced founder of Consumers' Buyline Inc., a buying club business investigated for being a pyramid scheme, into the 51-year-old intellectual commander of NXIVM, a Colonie-based company promising followers from Canada to Mexico it can "help transform and, ultimately, be an expression of the noble civilization of humans."

Raniere has convinced some followers he doesn't drive because his intellectual energy sets off radar detectors. He says his energy is drained if those around him disappoint or defect, former girlfriends have said. "He's the Vanguard," one of his key supporters testified in court, with the insistence and reverence of a child describing Santa Claus. Dozens of followers assemble annually near Lake George for Vanguard Week, a celebration of Raniere's birthday also considered a corporate retreat.

But Raniere's time here also has unfolded in a way that suggests more than a harmless God complex.

At least one cult expert said Raniere directs one of the most extreme cults he has ever studied and has likened Raniere to David Koresh, who most Americans link with images of a burning cult compound packed with women and children. Raniere has denied that NXIVM is a cult

Other experts believe there is sufficient evidence for the New York Attorney General to investigate whether NXIVM — thought to have multimillion-dollar revenues — is an illegal multilevel-marketing business.

And some former followers have said it's expected you buy into Raniere's mission with money, mind and body.

Raniere "is a compulsive gambler, a sex addict with bizarre desires and needs, and a con man that specializes in Ponzi schemes," one of his former girlfriends, Toni Natalie, recently declared in federal court.

Since the 1990s, Raniere has attracted the attention of attorneys general in several states and the Securities and Exchange Commission. In 1996, he admitted no guilt but signed an agreement with the New York State Attorney General's Office promising he would not operate an illegal "chain distributor scheme" and pay a $40,000 settlement. Since then, he has never been prosecuted by any state or federal agency, and he had only been sued once as of last month — a countersuit by a noted cult expert who claims NXIVM invaded his privacy.

Through the years, Raniere has remained a somewhat mysterious figure, but based on a yearlong investigation, including scores of interviews and a review of business records, police reports and court documents, the Times Union has uncovered troubling details about a man once considered a boy genius.

His several decades spent in the Capital Region have included what the Times Union has been told was the sexual manipulation of women and underage girls, murky financial dealings and relentless intimidation of people who have tried to break away or question the practices of NXIVM. But this assessment comes without a response from Raniere, who did not respond to repeated attempts to contact him, including certified and overnight letters sent to him and his last known attorney. He and the women who remain in Raniere's inner circle also did not respond to repeated requests for interviews, and NXIVM's lawyers, including those at the prominent Albany firm of O'Connell and Aronowitz, which represents Raniere's financial backers, declined to speak to reporters.

Some former followers have become frightened by Raniere's growing power, fueled in large part by resources at the disposal of Clare and Sara Bronfman, NXIVM followers and heirs to the Seagram's fortune.

Many have emerged broken, and a few are speaking out and spilling all into the court record, claiming the man who sells enlightenment is really pitching something else. They're mostly women who have broken away from Raniere and NXIVM years ago, but their stories are believed to be telling of the way things still operate today.

Raniere was the only child of a Rockland County ballroom dance instructor, who raised him mostly on her own even as she struggled for years with heart disease. She died while he was in college.

He was her young genius, mastering calculus by age 12 and transferring to Rockland Country Day School after he had exhausted his public school's curriculum. A teacher recalled him as a strikingly bright student, known for challenging his instructors, particularly in math. He left the school at age 16 because he felt the curriculum was holding him back, and enrolled at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, where he picked up bachelor's degrees in biology, physics and math, with minors in philosophy and psychology.

He is listed in the 1989 "Guinness Book of World Records" for being one of three people in an IQ group called Mega, a Mensa-like collection of geniuses requiring a minimum one-in-a-million IQ level and formed by philosopher and librarian Ronald K. Hoeflin. Raniere once worked as an Amway salesman, where he learned techniques he later used at Consumers' Buyline, a members-only buying club he boasted had grown to a $100 million company by 1992.

He has claimed to have been an East Coast judo champion by age 12. In adulthood, he was once a dedicated weight lifter. He loves choral singing and leads regular volleyball matches with NXIVM followers.

Those who have known Raniere describe him as charismatic, a good listener and an engaging speaker.

The evolving portrait of him through the years reveals an unexpected charmer who has drawn countless people into investing in his projects, buying into his ideology and at times sliding into his bed.

Throughout most of the 1990s, Raniere ran Consumers' Buyline, a nationwide buying club, fueled by young employees willing to keep late hours with the idea they were part of something innovative and bound for success. He was spirited in video promotions for the company, but bore an awkward delivery, baby-faced and swallowed up by his suit jacket.

After the New York attorney general's investigation and after closing Consumers' Buyline, he began developing National Health Network in the mid- to late-1990s. Soon, his hair was growing longer and his frame was filling out with bulging muscles. He explained the money-making potential of his new enterprise like a confident, polished salesman. One associate at the time recalls female recruits hanging on his words during training, erupting into adolescent giggles at his jokes.

In the years since, Raniere has traded hair trimmed at the neck for a shoulder-length look, and favored a beard, John Lennon-style glasses, sweatpants and untucked shirts. At times, he delivers New Agey lingo in soft, almost effeminate tones.

Across all these incarnations, he has been able to draw women in, making them feel special and easing their insecurities.

A home-schooling mother recalled Raniere saying her daughter was strikingly bright, and that the woman was a "wonderful mother and nurturer" who had a special place in his heart and profound role to play on this planet.

He once convinced a high school dropout, who would become a romantic obsession, to take an IQ test, and then, after scoring it himself, told her she was three points shy of genius.

Raniere's townhouse is in a tidy middle-class suburban development in Halfmoon, just a few miles from Clifton Park's cluster of chain stores and restaurants. Several female followers have moved nearby. Raniere has never married, but he has spent most of the last 24 years in this little area living in neighboring townhouses with Pamela Cafritz, Kristin Keeffe and Karen Unterreiner, three women who are former Consumers' Buyline employees and current NXIVM devotees.

Raniere landed on the cover of Forbes magazine in 2003 as part of a story called "Cult of Personality." Since then, former followers have said, he has dropped into the background of NXIVM in an effort to avoid attracting the attention of the government, according to sworn testimony. Although he is NXIVM's philosophical guide and figurehead, he has served officially only as a member of the executive board and has been eligible to receive royalities for leasing his Rational Inquiry methods. He makes rare appearances at NXIVM events, creating a certain mystique among those who adore him. His teachings and speeches are all recorded on video in case he might utter something so innovative it would be worth patenting.

Thousands follow his theories, a mix of science and self-improvement. The ideas are branded with labels such as "The Science of Joy," "Rational Inquiry" and "Metatheory."

His interest in philosophy traces to author Ayn Rand, particularly from her novel "Atlas Shrugged."

In the book, the creative people in society — innovators and artists — withdraw from it to show a nation can't survive when people aren't free to create. It emphasizes hands-off capitalism and puts forward Rand's philosophy of objectivism, which among other things holds that "the pursuit of [man's] own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life."

Rand's ideas of celebrating sex and honoring effort are common themes in Raniere's dogma. In the NXIVM program, which Raniere has claimed as copyrighted and tried to patent, Raniere describes some people as "parasites," a term borrowed from Rand.

"All parasitic strategies lower self-esteem and therefore destroy value," Raniere wrote in his patent application. "It is our intent to rid the world of those things that destroy value. We can do this by modeling effort strategies with our own behavior and helping others learn to use them. This is spreading the mission."

NXIVM devotees admiringly refer to Raniere's concept of "mission."

And his group shares obvious similarities with other organizations propagating missions of self-improvement.

Many of the terms within NXIVM are similar to those in the Church of Scientology, a religious movement that has been called a cult — a label the Church of Scientology denies. As with Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, Raniere's ideas are labeled "technology." Those who are seen as disloyal to the group are dubbed "suppressives" and students move up a ladder of coursework meant to make them more successful in life and work. Long, involved sessions of guidance are called "intensives."

Rick Ross has been a cult tracker for more than 25 years. He has examined and spoken about NXIVM so extensively it spawned an ongoing federal lawsuit from Raniere for publicizing portions of NXIVM's training program. That legal battle with NXIVM, where he is countersuing, is entering its ninth year.

Ross has been qualified and accepted as an expert witness regarding cults and cultlike groups in the courts of 10 states and has been used by the federal government as a consultant. He has spent 50 to 100 hours talking with NXIVM members, he said, and additional time talking with ex-members, which is why he said he's confident in his view that Raniere is a cult leader. Ross has been retained by three former NXIVM members to help in deprogramming, and he has counseled several others, including one he said was sent into a psychotic episode from her NXIVM experience.

"In my opinion, NXIVM is one of the most extreme groups I have ever dealt with in the sense of how tightly wound it is around the leader, Keith Raniere," Ross said in an interview.

Ross was asked to provide insight on David Koresh to the federal government during the height of the Waco situation and says Raniere shows characteristics similar to Koresh.

Like the infamous leader of the Branch Davidians, Ross said, Raniere thinks he knows a way to reorder human existence, believes he is on the cutting edge of the new wave of the future, has followers who see him as a savior and uses his position of power to gain sexual favors from women.

For more than a decade, Raniere has been surrounded by a group of adoring women. In the 1980s and 1990s, it's believed Raniere had sexual relationships with three underage women, according to Times Union interviews with those women and their close family members. One of the characteristics of cults commonly cited by experts is the predisposition of group leaders to use sex as a means of power and control. Ross, who had two mental health professionals review the NXIVM curriculum, said he believes followers of NXIVM undergo a "thought reform" or "brainwashing" and "the ability of people to independently think is largely compromised."

One woman who learned Raniere's ways was his former girlfriend Natalie, who has survived years of legal battles with him. She described her relationship with Raniere in a series of Times Union interviews. The first time she met Raniere, she said, he had noticed she'd gone outside for a cigarette and asked if she wanted to quit smoking. When she told him she did, Raniere took her into his office for what she thought was only 15 minutes. Her husband at the time told her afterward that she had been in the room with Raniere for 2 1/2 hours. She doesn't remember anything that happened during the session, but she didn't smoke again.

In attempts to get Natalie to change other behaviors, Raniere later told her that in a previous life she was Heinrich Himmler, chief of Hitler's secret police in Nazi Germany, and NXIVM leaders were formerly Jewish victims.

When Raniere's investments in the commodities market were failing to pan out despite his mathematical formula to conquer it, he told Barbara Bouchey, one of his investors, that her emotional reaction to losing money was influencing the universal forces and affecting him negatively on a spiritual level, Bouchey recalled in an October 2009 deposition and June 2010 sworn statement filed in federal court.

Through the years, Raniere has shown an interest in hypnotism and neurolinguistic programming, a technique that identifies how people have been "programmed" to think and act and analyzes their words and body language in order to help them shed those beliefs.

Some who have been suspicious of Raniere initially have become strong supporters. Nancy Salzman, a registered nurse, first met Raniere in the 1990s and told Natalie she thought Raniere might be warped. Natalie said Salzman spent four days holed up with Raniere in his offices and emerged as his business partner.

Today, with Raniere's guidance and with Salzman as his No. 2 — devotees call her "Prefect" — NXIVM is a tightly controlled system. Members are ranked and assigned colored sashes, adopting something like a martial arts system Raniere learned as a boy. Students, also called "clients," are taught rules and rituals such as how to shake hands with one another and bow to NXIVM leaders. Students are told it's essential that much of the world's money be controlled by ethical people for human existence to survive. Students must sign confidentiality agreements.

Dozens of former students have publicly praised the NXIVM program for making them a better person. Several testimonials from high-ranking public officials and business leaders once were handed out by NXIVM in recruitment packages. Some of those who gave the testimonials, reached by a reporter, say they did not authorize the remarks or did not want to discuss the matter.

"I still think it's awesome," said area chiropractor Edward A. Kinum, a longtime NXIVM trainer who left the group because he disliked the litigation it had become involved in. "If I could find something as good, without the controversy, I'd love it."

Trainees are sometimes drawn into "intensives" — those marathon sessions of powerful introspection — and at least three NXIVM students later sought psychiatric help. State records say one other student committed suicide for unknown reasons, but she left behind a note about having taken NXIVM courses. In one court claim, NXIVM described the note as a fake.

Joseph Szimhart, a cult information specialist from Birdsboro, Pa., who broke away from his own damaging, two-year participation in a large New Age sect, has been recognized by courts as an expert on cults. He has also helped with interventions in families affected by cult membership.

"Based on evidence from NXIVM-related websites alone, Raniere fits the profile of a self-centered cult leader promoting warped ideas of individual transformation," Szimhart said. He said NXIVM poses a "level of harm" he has seen in modern cults that promote training programs for developing human potential. Szimhart based his comments on his review of NXIVM's website, two videos of Raniere on YouTube and by reading published material about NXIVM and Raniere.

Cathleen A. Mann, a cult expert from Colorado who has testified in nine states in the past 15 years, said Raniere is, in her opinion, "dangerous." She said she has been gathering information on NXIVM for a few years and has been consulting with former members to form her analysis. Particularly troubling, said Mann, who has a doctorate in psychology, is what she views as Raniere's increasing isolation and withdrawal into his own reality.

"He doesn't have anybody around him for checks and balances," she said. "His isolation makes him more unstable."

Not all experts agree on what constitutes a cult. Michael D. Langone, executive director of the International Cultist Studies Association, said cult is a subjective term and no clear diagnostic test is available. He did not express an opinion on NXIVM.

Robert Crockett, a lawyer for NXIVM, told a federal judge in October: "It's not a cult, it's not anything like Scientology" — not that there is anything bad about Scientology, he added.

Raniere has told his inner circle he wants to create his own country with its own currency, according to sworn testimony.

At one time, according to Bouchey's October 2009 deposition, NXIVM was gathering names of local Native Americans to see if they could be brought into the group to create a sovereign land like an Indian reservation Another plan involved exploring Australia to see if NXIVM could develop its own country within its borders

In the meantime, the organization is working on reaching the next generation. A boy, with a mysterious past, now about kindergarten age, has become a part of the NXIVM "family" and a test case for some of Raniere's ideas.

The child is a seedling in Raniere's "Rainbow Cultural Garden," described by Raniere as "a revolutionary child development program promoting children's cultural, linguistic, emotional, physical and problem-solving potential."

Former NXIVM associates have said that in 2007, Barbara Jeske, one of Raniere's top aides, said she traveled to Michigan with Keeffe, and came back with the newborn boy. That account could not be confirmed, but in October, former NXIVM training center operator Susan Dones testifed in federal court that the the origin of the boy offered was "a story." "Why could they not tell us that Kristin (Keeffe) had a baby or adopted a baby?" Dones asked.

The child has lived at Keeffe's address, two doors away from Raniere's home and next to the condo purchased by other NXIVM followers in the middle of the three attached units. The boy has had a series of nannies who speak to him in Russian, Chinese, Hindi, English and Spanish. Keefe did not respond to requests for comment.

Saratoga County child welfare authorities won't say whether they have looked into questions raised about the child being raised under Raniere's guidance. In federal court, NXIVM has alleged that opponents have conspired to contact the authorities about the boy with unfounded reports. Meanwhile, the Rainbow Cultural Garden is marketing its programs.

Raniere's ideas about humanity and human potential have led him to start other companies and foundations in the last 20 years. He has organized an a cappela singing group aimed at attracting younger people to NXIVM and helped found a NXIVM women's group called Jness, with a 20-hour curriculum on the differences between the sexes. Two women have recalled that Jness included two hours on men not being predisposed to monogamy, and Dones has testified in court that some NXIVM leaders challenge the practice of monogamy, pushing one to question such relationships as "ownership."

A NXIVM center in Vancouver is thriving. Satellites in Mexico, where some aggressive recruiters focus on affluent families, have drawn Mexicans to the Capital Region, where they have not only taken NXIVM courses but also, in some cases, relocated their families. Raniere directly markets in Mexico, frequently contributing to the magazine Conocimiento (Knowledge) with plugs for NXIVM, or Executive Success Programs.

Thousands have fallen in step with Raniere's march to build an ethical society. But some who have strayed from his path to enlightenment are emerging, hoping to make Raniere accountable for the damage they've said he has done.

jodato@timesunion.com • 518-454-5083 • @JamesMOdato • jgish@timesunion.com • 518-454-5089 • @Jennifer_Gish • facebook.com/JenniferGishwriter

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Re: NXIVM formerly known as "Executive Success Programs" (ES

Unread post by David McCarthy »

Joseph Szimhart, a cult information specialist from Birdsboro, Pa., who broke away from his own damaging, two-year participation in a large New Age sect, has been recognized by courts as an expert on cults. He has also helped with interventions in families affected by cult membership.

"Based on evidence from NXIVM-related websites alone, Raniere fits the profile of a self-centered cult leader promoting warped ideas of individual transformation," Szimhart said. He said NXIVM poses a "level of harm" he has seen in modern cults that promote training programs for developing human potential. Szimhart based his comments on his review of NXIVM's website, two videos of Raniere on YouTube and by reading published material about NXIVM and Raniere.
Yea Joe..... :D
Thank you

David
But he has nothing on at all, cried at last the whole people....
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Re: NXIVM formerly known as "Executive Success Programs" (ES

Unread post by Sad Grandfather »

This brings out something I learned, over the years. There are 2 kinds of people who can't be intimidated. Those with unlimited resources and those with nothing left to lose. This case proves that the latter is the more powerful!
Down with Judith Hampton Knight!
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Re: NXIVM formerly known as "Executive Success Programs" (ES

Unread post by joe sz »

'NXIVM is a litigation machine'
Criticize Keith Raniere or tell the public NXIVM's secrets and you'll be sued, several subjects say
Albany Times Union

James M. Odato
,
Times Union


Copyright 2012 Times Union. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

By James M. Odato and Jennifer Gish
Thursday, February 16, 2012
They joined NXIVM hoping to secure an improved life. But when they left the organization, they found themselves entangled in the court system, bankrupt and in one case suicidal.

Some people who have defected from NXIVM have said the same leaders who preach humanitarianism are also master intimidators who will wring out opponents with years of litigation, use private investigators to bully and urge the government to pursue charges against those they believe have crossed them.

"They'll go to the ends of the earth to destroy you," Susan Dones, who once established a NXIVM training site in Washington state but broke away from the group in 2009, said in court last fall. She and her partner and former NXIVM trainer Kim Woolhouse were representing themselves against NXIVM's claims they had violated their confidentiality agreements with the organization.

"NXIVM is a litigation machine that is quick to file legal action against anyone who expresses an opinion about their 'leader' Keith Raniere's behaviors," the women told the court.

The judge in that case, Brian D. Lynch, agreed with some of that sentiment while noting that Dones was not blameless. "NXIVM's claims and litigation tactics were disproportionate and largely lacking in merit," Lynch ruled in dismissing nearly all of the claims against Dones.

"NXIVM's pursuit of Woolhouse is another matter entirely and sheds light on its true motivations," the judge wrote in his Oct. 25 opinion, in which he called the treatment of Woolhouse "deplorable." "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."

About 10 people, including cult tracker Rick Ross, four former NXIVM members and one former NXIVM attorney, have fallen into the self-improvement organization's legal cross hairs, pummeled with court filings some of them have said are meant to deliberately slow the judicial process and punish defendants for defecting from or speaking out against the group.

But what several of these people have called harassment and intimidation has extended beyond the courtroom.

Ross, the cult tracker NXIVM sued for publishing portions of its training program, has alleged private investigators hired by NXIVM rifled through his trash, searching for financial records. After being sued by Ross, the private investigators denied knowledge of it in court papers.

Toni Natalie, a former girlfriend and business associate of NXIVM founder Keith Raniere, said a breakup with the self-improvement guru began with pleas for her to return to him and developed into an eight-year bankruptcy nightmare, an alleged campaign outside the business she once owned and a report to police that one of Raniere's close associates had been tampering with her mailbox Bankruptcy Judge Robert Littlefield sized up Raniere's litigation against Natalie this way: "The individual challenging the Debtor's discharge is her former boyfriend this matter smacks of a jilted fellow's attempt at revenge or retaliation against his former girlfiiend, with many attempts at tripping her up along the way."

Another woman mentioned the organization in her suicide note, only to have leaders of NXIVM suggest after her death that she was part of a drug ring, as recounted in sworn testimony.

Barbara Bouchey left NXIVM in 2009, but in February, as she testified before a federal magistrate, she detailed how the group would not let go.

Bouchey, a financial planner who once served as an executive board member of NXIVM, financial manager for two top NXIVM devotees and girlfriend of NXIVM founder Keith Raniere, sounded in her court testimony to be ground down by the process, which included hours of sometimes intense depositions with NXIVM attorneys.

"NXIVM has brought two adversarial lawsuits against me. The Bronfmans, the Seagram 7 heiresses, who are high-ranking leaders and members, have brought two lawsuits against me, two that are still currently pending," Bouchey told a federal magistrate in New Jersey while testifying in the case of Ross. "They've reported me to my financial planning ethics board. They reported me to FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) ... both for criminal investigation and misappropriation of funds, which are completely unfounded. They also brought in the district attorney of Saratoga County of accusing me of extortion and criminal charges because I asked Keith Raniere to pay me back $1.6 million that he owes me, which now is being mislabeled into extortion. I've already been dragged into three or four of their other lawsuits as a witness and produced 23 boxes of material, over a hundred thousand pages."

Bouchey has said NXIVM's legal onslaught has cost her more than $400,000 in legal and adviser fees the past two years. After heavy litigation within her bankruptcy case from NXIVM and the Bronfmans, a bankruptcy judge threw out her Chapter 11 filing and exposed her to creditors earlier this year.

Raniere and his NXIVM associates did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Ross, the cult expert who was sued for publicizing portions of NXIVM's training program, considers himself the luckier of those challenged by NXIVM, though he has been bound in litigation for eight years. Investigators allegedly hired by NXIVM, he said, rifled through his garbage, obtained his bank and phone records and kept his home office under surveillance. Ross sued the investigation firm and reached a confidential settlement agreement in 2008. The firm then made claims to recover damages and legal costs from NXIVM, insisting NXIVM officials had approved all their actions involving Ross, who still has an invasion of privacy case pending against NXIVM. NXIVM is fighting all the claims against it, but despite the stress of being pursued, Ross feels fortunate he had attorneys representing him at no charge during these years of court proceedings.

Joseph O'Hara, an Albany businessman and former owner of locally based professional sports teams, served as an adviser to NXIVM in 2003 and 2004 before leaving in early 2005. He resigned, giving NXIVM a letter that accused the organization of committing illegal acts, including the tactics used to investigate Ross, according to a document filed in court. He told Ross of a history of questionable tactics used by NXIVM. NXIVM leaders accused him of criminal activity. He and his company were driven into bankruptcy because of litigation brought against him by NXIVM and the Bronfman sisters, Sara and Clare, and he is unemployed after being let go by a recent employer, who told him he didn't like getting caught up in the litigation.

Meanwhile, NXIVM lawyer Robert Crockett told a federal judge that some of NXIVM's detractors have been involved in schemes to hurt or harass the organization or its members.

Emails from O'Hara produced by NXIVM in the Dones and Woolhouse case showed he was urging Dones and others to call child protective services about a child being raised by a NXIVM member when Crockett contends there was no cause for investigation. Crockett produced emails showing O'Hara also was in touch with Dones and Toni Natalie, Raniere's former girlfriend. In one of the emails, Dones responds to O'Hara by writing "I love that we are a bug up their ass." Trial testimony did not provide further details. The judge later noted there was no evidence Dones ever made calls to child protective services.

Sometimes, rather than filing a civil suit, NXIVM has chosen other tactics to silence its critics. The movement and its devotees have hired political figures or high-profile lawyers to push its agenda, sometimes attempting to spur a criminal investigation.

Many of those services have been paid for by Clare Bronfman, or her sister, making it unclear whether the deal was made for work done on behalf of NXIVM. It's part of a cloudy relationship between the personal interests of NXIVM members and the organization itself, one a federal judge struggled to separate in a February 2007 ruling, where several NXIVM members were plaintiffs in a case against O'Hara.

"Further, notwithstanding we have twelve Plaintiffs, it appears that NXIVM is the heart and soul of Plaintiffs' case against the Defendants," federal magistrate Randolph F. Treece wrote. "Therefore, for the sake [of] brevity, since all of the Plaintiffs appear to be united in interest, we will refer to the plaintiffs collectively as NXIVM."

During the same time period, former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger — a partner in a law firm once used by NXIVM — contacted Capital Region district attorneys and encouraged a criminal investigation of Joseph O'Hara, who had gotten embroiled in a legal dispute with the Bronfman sisters. Harshbarger met with Saratoga County District Attorney James Murphy and with Albany County District Attorney David Soares, according to Murphy and a Soares spokeswoman. The district attorneys did not suggest Harshbarger's actions were improper.

Soares' staff allowed Kristin Keeffe — one of Raniere's top aides — to enter the DA's office for several weeks, helping develop a case against O'Hara. She was allowed access because she worked for an organization that was an alleged victim of crime, Soares spokeswoman Heather Orth said.

Prosecutors working for Soares were able to get a grand jury to indict O'Hara in 2007 for alleged grand larceny, but the charge against O'Hara was dismissed by a state judge for insufficient proof shortly after.

The district attorney's office did not seek another indictment because there was no more evidence to prove intent to steal, Orth said. Orth said Harshbarger's contact on behalf of the Bronfmans did not influence the prosecutor.

Although Keeffe was allowed to work in the DA's office to assist in understanding allegations, it was an arm's-length relationship, according to prosecutors. She brought reams of documents and devoted numerous days of effort.

O'Hara has questioned whether Keeffe's presence in the prosecutor's office tainted the investigation. Harshbarger, Keeffe and the Bronfmans have declined to comment.

Even in death, Kristin Marie Snyder, a former NXIVM student, wasn't safe from having her reputation attacked.

Snyder was a 35-year-old career-minded environmental consultant in Alaska who spent $16,000 in three months on Executive Success Programs, self-help training regimens marketed by the group, from November 2002 to February 2003. Two of the sessions were 16-day "intensives," workshops that could stretch into 10- and 12-hour days.

According to Alaska State Police investigators, on Feb. 6, 2003, it is believed that Snyder drove to a campground in Seward, Alaska, paddled a 16-foot kayak into the bay and intentionally capsized it into the glacier-fed water.

Her body was never found, but a state health department jury declared her death a suicide. Police had discovered a spiral notebook in her truck.

"I attended a course called Executive Success Programs (a.k.a. Nexivm) (sic) based out of Anchorage, AK, and Albany, NY," she wrote. "I was brainwashed and my emotional center of the brain was killed/turned off. I still have feeling in my external skin, but my internal organs are rotting. Please contact my parents ... if you find me or this note. I am sorry life, I didn't know I was already dead. May we persist into the future." Calling the note a fake, NXIVM members put forward a theory different from the authorities: They say Snyder faked her death to escape a drug ring The theory came out in court testimony from Bouchey, who was there when various NXIVM members discussed the suicide.

"There was no drug ring," insisted Kenny Powers, a former Alaska assistant attorney general and friend of Snyder's. He was director of the Nordic ski patrol that Snyder had been a member of, and which led the search for her body. Powers saw Snyder in the days before she disappeared. He recalled her as suicidal, a dramatically different person from the level-headed woman he knew for years before she began NXIVM courses and traveled to Albany to meet Raniere.

Toni Natalie thought ending her eight-year relationship with Raniere would be like cutting any other boyfriend loose. Instead, she received a map showing her path to demise and heard constant pleas by one of the women in his inner circle to return to him.

Joan Schneier, Natalie's mother, said Raniere once called to say Natalie must come back to him. "He went on and on," Schneier said. "He talked with a soft voice ... like he was counseling me that she should come back with him, and if she didn't, he would see her dead or in prison." If she didn't hear from Raniere himself, Natalie said his inner circle of women pursued her about her "karmic mistake."

Natalie said Keeffe, the same woman who later spent time in the district attorney's office urging an investigation of O'Hara, stood vigil for weeks outside the restaurant she once ran in Saratoga Springs and appeared at her door saying she had a vision Natalie was coming back to the family. Natalie said Keeffe would call her "the chosen one" who is "supposed to have the child that will save the world."

During Natalie's 2002 bankruptcy hearing, Keeffe said she did not recall standing in front of the business for five hours and testified she didn't remember police asking her to move, but she confirmed bringing flowers and chocolates to Natalie and filing a complaint against a police officer who "threatened" Keeffe's roommates. Natalie said the officer was checking complaints about Keeffe's vigil.

In another incident in 1999, Natalie secured a restraining order against Barbara Jeske, a longtime member of Raniere's inner circle, after she'd videotaped Jeske tampering with her mail.

Jeske did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Today, Natalie, who said she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of her final dealings with Raniere and those around him, attributes the recent breakup of her marriage of the past decade to NXIVM. Her husband, Scott Foley, said he got fed up with Natalie's preoccupation with NXIVM. "It was always present and one the foremost things in her mind," Foley said. Although Natalie has a healthy grown son whom she loves so much, he said, she carries a fierce resentment toward Raniere for the stress he brought on her family.

"[Raniere] teaches through intimidation. He takes good people looking for a better way of doing things and uses their vulnerabilities to control them," she said. "And I've always wondered why he's pursued me for so many years. What secret do I hold?"

jodato@timesunion.com • 518-454-5083 • @JamesMOdato • jgish@timesunion.com • 518-454-5089 • @Jennifer_Gish • facebook.com/JenniferGishwriter

This series

"Secrets of NXIVM: The untold story of Keith Raniere," is the result of a more-than-year-long examination of the self-improvement guru and conceptual founder of NXIVM, which has attracted students from Vancouver to Mexico but remains rooted in the Capital Region.

The reporting includes scores of interviews and a review of business records, police reports and thousands of pages of court documents, which provide a window into Raniere's world, but it comes without an interview with the elusive Raniere, who did not respond to repeated attempts to get comment. It also lacks any response from the women who surround him and serve as NXIVM's lifeblood. They, and the lawyers who represent the organization, have refused repeated requests to speak with them.

The four-part series — which details the grasp of mind, money and body Raniere has held over some followers — unfolds in print, online and with a special report for the iPad.

• Last Sunday: An overview of Raniere and his unusual life.

• Today: Relentless litigation wrought against NXIVM defectors.

• Friday: Raniere's multi-level marketing mind.

• Sunday: A history of Raniere's sexual conquests.

http://www.timesunion.com/local/article ... 334301.php
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Re: Whistle Blowers beat Cult T.R.O.

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Whistle Blowers beat T.R.O..
* The court refused to accept NXIVM’s argument that its infamous Confidentiality Agreement precludes anyone who signed it from ever revealing anything about NXIVM. To the contrary, the court specifically ruled that the agreement does not cover “personal or private meetings with NXIVM members or agents.”

* The court also refused to accept NXIVM’s argument that another one of its agreements precludes anyone who has taken one of its intensive courses from ever revealing anything about NXIVM. And the court specifically ruled that the other agreement “does not cover the entire scope of information about NXIVM, its business or its agents and affiliates.”

* The court ruled that there is no evidence to support NXIVM’s claim that Dones and Woolhouse violated their Confidentiality Agreements with NXIVM.

* The court found that Dones and Woolhouse did not attempt to extort money from NXIVM.

* The court decided that even though it allowed NXIVM to introduce several emails that had been illegally obtained from Joe OHara’s private email account, it could not conclude that the attachments to those emails contained “proprietary information” for the simple reason that NXIVM failed to introduce any of those attachments as evidence. (A real nice job by the Stormin’ Mormon on that one!).

* The court ruled that Dones and Woolhouse had not used any of NXIVM’s materials for their own benefit. And it also ruled that the two women had not attempted to lure away any of its NXIVM’s customers and potential customers.

* The court decided that even though Dones (but not Woolhouse) demonstrated animus towards NXIVM, this issue had nothing to do with her bankruptcy case. And it found that NXIVM had not offered any proof that Dones had actually done anything to cause any harm to the child that the court refers to as “G____” and that I assume to be Gaelen.

* The court rejected NXIVM’s claim Dones had filed false claims with local health authorities in New York about potential food poisoning at one of the cult’s events. Although the decision doesn’t specify, I assume this is a reference to the illegal café operation at NXIVM’s headquarters at 455 New Karner Road. (Hello, Albany County Department of Health staff who are constantly reading this blog, can’t you do something about this?).

* The court dismissed NXIVM’s claim that Dones and Woolhouse had failed to disclose all of their assets at the time they filed for bankruptcy, which is the same argument that was used to get Barbara Bouchey’s bankruptcy case dismissed. Oh, and the assets that they supposedly failed to disclose were their potential claims against NXIVM and their list of NXIVM students in Washington.

* The court totally rejected NXIVM’s argument that Dones and Woolhouse had refused to return all of the cult’s materials and pointed out that they had actually tried to turn over all of those materials even before the lawsuit was filed. Or as the court put it, “Dones made repeated, sincere and unsuccessful attempts to return NXIVM’s materials but was stymied by NXIVM’s refusal to accept the materials in a reasonable manner. The court is left with the impression that NXIVM was less interested in getting the materials back than in using the turnover of the materials to gain an advantage regarding its other claims.” Well put your honor if I do say so myself

* The court rejected NXIVM’s request that Dones and Woolhouse be ordered to pay the astronomical legal bill that the cult’s 6 attorneys ran up on this case.
Oh, and did mention that Dones and Woolhouse represented themselves in this matter?

* The court concluded its decision with the following observations:
- “While the Court is less than entirely sympathetic with Dones under the circumstances, NXIVM’s claims and litigation tactics were disproportionate and largely lacking in merit.”

Saratoga politics: Susan Dones and Kim Woolhouse NXIVM trial over
http://saratogaindecline.blogspot.co.nz ... nxivm.html
Thank you Saratoga politics :idea:
But he has nothing on at all, cried at last the whole people....
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