NXIVM lawsuit updates

NXIVM Cult - Keith Raniere found guilty -Lawsuits - Recovery
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NXIVM lawsuit updates

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Purported Cult May Have Case Against Ex-Member

Courthouse News Service

By ROSE BOUBOUSHIAN
(CN) - A New Jersey family must face claims that they tried to "destroy" NXIVM by giving its confidential files to "counter-cult deprogrammer" Rick Ross, a federal judge ruled.
Pronounced "nexium," the Albany, N.Y.-based organization started by Keith Raniere purports to offer ethics training through Executive Success Programs and other materials developed by its partner, First Principles Inc.

The two corporations claim that Michael Sutton, of New Jersey, turned to NXIVM in fall 2000 to help deal with the stress of his "double life," as he was allegedly hiding the fact that he had fathered a child with a non-Sephardic Jewish woman.
NXIVM said Sutton and his half-sister, Stephanie Franco, excelled in its coaching program to learn its trademarked "Rational Inquiry" problem-solving system.
In 2003, NXIVM and First Principles sued Franco for copyright infringement and later added more defendants to the federal complaint: Franco's parents, Rochelle and the late Morris Sutton, and Rick Ross, a consultant and lecturer who specializes in exit counseling and deprogramming of cult members.

NXIVM and First Principles say that, after Michael refused to dissociate from it, his father said that he would do whatever was necessary to "destroy" the business.

The parents allegedly hired Ross to conduct multi-day interventions with their son in November 2002.

Though Michael refused to give Ross NXIVM's confidential materials, Franco - either directly or through another of her siblings - provided the files, the organization says.

Franco meanwhile denies NXIVM's claim that she signed forms stating that she would return all course materials without duplicating them.

NXIVM and First Principles also say that the Suttons had Ross "disparage and damage plaintiffs' business" by sharing protected materials with John Hochman M.D. and Paul Martin Ph.D.

Ross allegedly hired the two doctors, who are also named as defendants, to write articles that pegged the organization as a cult.

Those pieces then appeared on Ross' website, according to the complaint.

After the Northern District of New York refused to order the removal of the articles, the 2nd Circuit affirmed. The District Court also dismissed the organizations' claims against Franco under the Lanham and Copyright Act, and transferred the case.

A federal judge in New Jersey has since dismissed the claims for product disparagement, tortious interference with contract and prospective contractual relations against all defendants, and a copyright infringement claim against Franco's parents.

On Dec. 18, U.S. District Judge Dennis Cavanaugh refused to grant Franco summary judgment but partially the motion for her parents.

NXIVM and First Principles can rely on an expert who says that the articles included some information that was never made public, according to the ruling

In declining to dismiss the breach of contract claim against Franco, Cavanaugh found that several issues of fact exist as to whether the former student signed a contract with NXIVM.

But the organizations' claim for misappropriation of trade secrets failed.

"Franco and the Sutton defendants clearly are not competitors of NXIVM," Cavanaugh wrote. "As for Ross, plaintiffs have not set forth sufficient evidence that Ross is a competitor and the 2nd Circuit has already stated that Ross is 'not trying to get into the relevant market that is NXIVM's central business concern.'"

The claim for tortious interference against Franco's parents survived because Cavanaugh said "the parties dispute whether plaintiffs have the ability to show that they suffered any damages as a proximate result of the Sutton defendants' conduct."

NXIVM also faces claims related to this litigation from an investigator who says he was hired to investigate a student suicide that Ross blamed on the organization.

In March 2009, NXIVM sued Albany's Metroland Magazine for pegging it as a cult, and a Niagara Falls
couple who hired Ross to deprogram their son.


http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/12/31/64178.htm
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David McCarthy
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Re: NXIVM lawsuit update

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Thank you Joe,
Yet another disturbing case of a very wealthy cult 'NXIVM' with their ill gotten millions financing equally devious lawyers in order to intimidate and punish whistle blowers through a civil lawsuit. The real object is to drive the defendants into bankruptcy just trying defend themselves in court.

David

Related:

(EMF) Online Forum • View topic - Whistle beat NXIVM Cult T.R.O.
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1208&p=15633&hilit=NXIVM#p15633

Jason Scott case - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Scott_case
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David McCarthy
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Re: NXIVM lawsuit update

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Seagram heiress Clare Bronfman pleads guilty in alleged sex cult case | US news | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... ads-guilty
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top NXIVM official, was hesitant to talk about Ramtha,

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Before Vanguard, there was Ramtha.
Mark Vicente, a former top official in the Albany-based alleged sex cult NXIVM and a key government witness at the Brooklyn federal court trial of its leader Keith Raniere, testified Thursday that before he became an adherent of NXIVM he was a devotee of an even weirder sect.
For about 10 years before joining NXIVM, Vicente said during cross-examination, he followed a Washington-based group led by a woman named JZ Knight, who claimed to be able to channel the teachings of a “35,000-year-old warrior” named Ramtha.
Vicente said he actually was a true believer in the “enlightenment school” based on the teachings of the “spiritual entity” for a “few years,” until he began to question the word of Ramtha. “It didn’t make much sense in the end,” he said.
He eventually wrote a letter criticizing the way Knight’s organization was run, he testified, and she gave a speech in front of 1,000 “very zealous” followers denouncing him and predicting “I’m going to die a horrible death.”
He was asked if that scared him. “You could say that,” he said. “The organization turned against me.”
Raniere, 58, is charged with promoting NXIVM as a self-help group, offering courses to an estimated 17,000 followers after its founding in the 1990s, but turning it into a group that psychologically abused members and coerced women into giving up nude pictures and having sex with him.
Known in the group as “Vanguard,” he is charged with racketeering, conspiracy, sex trafficking and forced labor, and faces up to life in prison. The trial started last week. Vicente finished his testimony Thursday after four days on the stand.
Vicente, a documentary film maker, was hesitant to talk about Ramtha, saying he feared repercussions from talking about the group. “There may be legal repercussions,” he said, asking if he was protected for everything he said in testimony.
He joined NXIVM in 2005, becoming a loyal adherent and serving on the executive board. But starting in 2016, his wife left the group after becoming alienated, and then in 2017 Vicente went to the FBI after learning a “master-slave” sub-group was using nude pictures to make women to have sex with the leader.
He said that after his wife started having concerns about the group, she went on a walk with Raniere to discuss her issues.
Raniere told her she was creating too many “boundaries,” Vicente testified, and urged her to run toward a nearby tree and not stop until she ran into it. Or lick a puddle on the ground.
By John Riley
john.riley@newsday.com

https://www.amny.com/news/sex-cult-tria ... 1.31164121
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The Parallels Between JZ Knight’s Ramtha and Keith Raniere’s Nxivm Are Startling – Artvoice

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Shadow: The Parallels Between JZ Knight’s Ramtha and Keith Raniere’s Nxivm Are Startling
May 31, 2019
Artvoice
By Shadow State
It turns out that many of the same kind of people who fell for NXIVM also fell for dangerous cults like Ramtha. Before Mark Vicente became enraptured by NXIVM and Keith Raniere, he was a follower of Ramtha, a cult run by a woman named JZ Knight. Vicente even filmed a movie about JZ Knight and Ramtha titled, “What the Bleep Do We Know”.
JZ Knight was born in Roswell, New Mexico in 1946, and lives in Yelm, Washington, just outside of Tacoma and Olympia, Washington in Thurston County. JZ Knight has done well for herself [and Ramtha]. She lives in a mansion on 80 acres. Unlike Keith Raniere, JZ Knight is not a renunciate.
In her vaudeville style routine, Ms. Knight goes into a trance and transforms herself into a 35,000 year old Lemurian Warrior named Ramtha. Lemuria is a lost continent located in either the Indian Ocean or the Pacific Ocean depending on which way the wind blows.
Ramtha speaks in a masculine voice with a slightly British accent. JZ Knight herself has a standard American accent. To JZ Knight’s credit, she actually speaks sentences that have nouns, verbs and proper syntax unlike the verbal vomit spewed out of Keith Raniere’s mouth.
Of course Ramtha and JZ Knight’s teachings are still full of crap.
In channeling the spirit of a long dead, 35,000 year Lemurian warrior, JZ Knight is a halfway decent actress. Better than many of the actresses who infest NXIVM. Like NXIVM, the Ramtha cult attracts pseudo-intellectual actresses who enjoy pretending to be smart.
Ramtha attracts a better class of stupid actresses than NXIVM. Among JZ Knight’s Hollywood followers are Linda Evans, Shirley Maclaine and Salma Hayek. Linda Evans also dabbled for a time in NXIVM.
JZ Knight with Linda Evans.
And JZ Knight has attracted wealthy airhead heiresses to help fund her research into alternate realities. One of Knight’s donors is Rebecca Oppenheimer, heiress to the South African De Beers diamond fortune. https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/loc ... 83200.html
Knight taught Oppenheimer the sport of Blind Archery which is, as the name suggests, practicing archery while blindfolded.
JZ Knight and her Ramtha cult has some significant control of politics of Thurston County, Washington, through massive donations to the county’s Democratic Party, much the same way that the Bronfman-funded NXIVM made large donations to Democratic party candidates in New York State.
“From 2014 through 2016, the Thurston County Democratic Party has raised $526,391 according to their reports with the Public Disclosure Commission. For contrast and comparison, the Thurston County Republican Party has raised $115,468. Of the over half million dollars the Thurston Democrats raised, $145,000 of it came directly from racist cult leader JZ Knight/Ramtha. This was more money than all the cash raised by the local Republicans during that same time.”
https://www.wethegoverned.com/how-democ ... nor-money/

While JZ Knight supports Democrats like Hillary Clinton, her masculine Ramtha alter-ego has endorsed Donald Trump. [I suppose that’s one of the advantages of having a split personality.]
Like Keith Raniere, JZ Knight sued a woman named Virginia Coverdale it seems to make Coverdale an indentured servant. A Federal Court rejected JZ Knight’s lawsuit.

Cult Leader JZ Knight fails in Federal Court
In a January 2018 story in wetheGoverned.com we learn, “The nastiest litigation saga by the most litigious cult leader – JZ Knight – finally came to an end last month. Knight lost her final legal effort in Federal Court to turn former cult member Virginia Coverdale into a perpetual indentured servant. Federal Judge Brian Lynch wrote in his findings of fact filed December 15th:
“’Overall, this Court’s conclusion is that JZK was intent on suppressing efforts by Coverdale to expose tenets and practices of RSE because it might cause serious damage to its reputation. JZK attempted to use its superior financial resources to intimidate its dissident ex-students by its lawsuit. Coverdale had the temerity to defend herself in a lawsuit pursued vigorously by J.Z. Knight and JZK.’
“The 31-page court findings of fact and conclusions of law document is a damning rebuke of JZ Knight’s abusive harassment of a former cult member.
“Virginia Coverdale was a former member who left the cult and attempted to warn local government officials and current cult followers about JZ Knight’s racist and bizarre behavior. JZ Knight initiated aggressive legal action against Coverdale in an attempt to silence her and intimidate other followers from exposing the truth about Knight.
“Coverdale had few resources and sparse legal representation during most of the five year legal drama. JZ Knight spent nearly a million dollars to harass Coverdale over the past five years, and it is difficult to prevail in Washington State’s court system with such a disparity of resources. Eventually Coverdale was forced into bankruptcy by Knight’s relentless legal harassment.”
The parallels between JZ Knight and Keith Raniere are startling. And what does it say about cults that their leaders behave in remarkably similar ways?

The Parallels Between JZ Knight’s Ramtha and Keith Raniere’s Nxivm Are Startling – Artvoice
Here > https://artvoice.com/2019/05/31/shadow- ... startling/
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