American cult founder and convicted felon (born 1960)
Keith Allen Raniere ( ; born August 26, 1960) is an American cult leader who was convicted of a pattern of racketeering activity, including human trafficking, sex offenses and fraud. Raniere co-founded NXIVM, a purported self-help multi-level marketing company offering personal development seminars and headquartered in Albany, New York. Operating from 1998 to 2018, NXIVM had 700 members at its height, including celebrities and the wealthy. Within NXIVM, Raniere was referred to as "Vanguard".
Scholars in the fields of religious studies, law, and sociology describe NXIVM as a cult. Mental health professionals and cult experts such as Rick Alan Ross, Diane Benscoter, and Steve Hassan have called Raniere a cult leader who manipulates and exerts coercive control over his followers. Multiple women have said they were sexually abused by Raniere, including three who have reported being underage at the time of the abuse.
In 2018, reports of abuse related to a secret society within NXIVM, known as "DOS" or "the Vow", led to the arrests of Raniere and five other NXIVM associates. On June 19, 2019, a jury in the Eastern District of New York convicted Raniere of racketeering for a pattern of crimes, including the sexual exploitation of a child, sex trafficking of women and conspiracy to commit forced labor. The court received more than 100 victim impact statements detailing the harm Raniere caused. On October 27, 2020, Judge Nicholas Garaufis sentenced Raniere to 120 years' incarceration and a $1.75 million fine.
Early life.
Raniere was born on August 26, 1960, in Brooklyn, New York, the only child of James Raniere (1932–2020), an advertising executive, and Vera Oschypko (1931–1978), a ballroom-dancing instructor. When Raniere was five years old, his family relocated upstate to Suffern, New York. His parents separated when he was aged eight.
Raniere attended Suffern High School for ninth grade before transferring to Rockland Country Day School. He graduated in June 1978, two months prior to his eighteenth birthday. As an adult, Raniere reported that he read Isaac Asimov's mind control-themed work "Second Foundation" at age 12 and credited the novel with inspiring his work in NXIVM. In 1982, Raniere graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a 2.26 GPA, barely passing and failing many classes. He was employed as a computer programmer for the New York State Division of Parole.
Describing a conversation with Raniere's father, his former partner, Barbara Bouchey, recalled, "[James] said ... [they] told Keith about how gifted and how intelligent he was. And he said it was almost like a switch went off. And suddenly, overnight, [Raniere] turned into ... Jesus Christ ... [thinking] he was superior and better than everybody, like he was a deity. [James] said it was that [snaps] dramatic and that profound; he said it went right to [Raniere's] head." According to Bouchey, Raniere's mother also reported hearing "dozens of young girls ... calling the house, and [that Raniere] ... was telling every single girl the same thing: 'I love you. You're the special one. You're important. You are the only one in my life, and I love you.' And Vera says, 'He's saying this to all these girls. He's clearly lying 'cause all of them are not special!'"
In June 1988, the Albany "Times Union" profiled Raniere, reporting on his membership in the Mega Society after he achieved a high score on the MEGA test, an unsupervised, 48-question test published in the April 1985 issue of "Omni" magazine. Although the MEGA test has been widely criticized as not having been properly validated, the 1989 edition of the "Guinness Book of World Records" (the last edition to include a category for highest IQ) described the Mega Society as "the most exclusive ultrahigh IQ society", and the 1989 Australian edition identified Raniere, Marilyn vos Savant and Eric Hart as the highest-scoring members of the group.
Career.
Throughout the 1980s, Raniere was involved with the multi-level marketing company Amway. In 1990, he founded a multi-level marketing company of his own, Consumers' Buyline Inc. (CBI), a buying club that offered discounts in exchange for recruitment.
At a CBI pitch meeting, Raniere met Toni Natalie, who subsequently became a top seller for the organization, along with her then-husband. Natalie and her son later moved to Clifton Park, New York, to be near Raniere; her marriage ended shortly thereafter. Natalie and Raniere dated for the next eight years.
In 1993, CBI began to decline, and regulators in twenty states launched investigations into the entity. New York State filed a lawsuit alleging that CBI was a pyramid scheme. In 1994, Raniere created National Health Network, a multi-level seller of vitamins; that business failed three years later. In 1996, Raniere signed a consent order with New York State resolving the case against CBI; without admitting wrongdoing, he agreed to pay a $40,000 fine. He ultimately only paid $9,000 to the state; despite having claimed a multimillion-dollar net worth, he said he was unable to pay the remainder. The consent order also permanently barred Raniere from "promoting, offering or granting participation in a chain distribution scheme".
NXIVM: Executive Success Programs.
Foundation.
In 1998, Natalie met Nancy Salzman, a nurse and a practitioner of hypnotism and neuro-linguistic programming. Natalie recalled:
Nancy said, "You're so wonderful; how can I help you?" So I said, "Well, you can help me with my boyfriend." He had grandiose ideas and his hours were becoming erratic again ... She listened and she said, "Oh that's easy, I can help you. He's a sociopath ..." They met, and four days later she came out with the glazed eyes and gave me the, "You don't know who he is", and I was like, "Wow, there goes another one."
Raniere and Salzman founded Executive Success Programs (ESP), a personal-development company offering a range of techniques aimed at self-improvement. A few years later, the program was rebranded under the name NXIVM. Raniere "adopted the title 'Vanguard' from a favorite arcade game in which the destruction of one's enemies increased one's own power." Much of NXIVM was influenced by the teachings of Ayn Rand, one of Raniere's favorite authors. In 2002, Raniere and Salzman succeeded in recruiting members of the influential Bronfman family, heirs to the multibillion-dollar Seagram fortune. Sara Bronfman initially became involved, followed by sister Clare Bronfman. Their father, Edgar Bronfman Sr., took a NXIVM course the following year.
"Forbes" exposé.
In October 2003, Raniere was featured, cloaked in shadows, on the cover of "Forbes" magazine, accompanied by the appellation "The World's Strangest Executive Coach". The "devastating" cover story, penned by Michael Freedman and entitled "Cult of Personality", was later described as "a gold mine of previously unpublished information". It discussed Raniere's title of "Vanguard"; detailed the failure of CBI; and included a quote from Edgar Bronfman accusing the organization of being a cult.
"Vanity Fair" subsequently reported on the "Forbes" article's impact within the group: "People at NXIVM were stunned. Expecting a positive story, the top ranks had spoken to "Forbes", including Raniere, Salzman, and Sara Bronfman. What upset them above all were Edgar Bronfman's remarks." According to "Vanity Fair", the article was a turning point in Raniere's relationship with Edgar: one anonymous source said that the article's publication "was when Edgar Bronfman became NXIVM's enemy". A witness at Raniere's trial later testified that Bronfman's computer was compromised and his emails monitored by group members for a period of years.
NXIVM teachings drew upon diverse influences, including Ayn Rand ("parasites"), L. Ron Hubbard ("suppressives"), Milton Erickson's hypnosis, Isaac Asimov's science fiction, Rudolf Steiner, Tony Robbins and neuro-linguistic programming. NXIVM incorporated elements of multi-level marketing and practices from judo, with colored cloth for rank and bowing.
Commodities trades.
From January 2005 until late 2007, Raniere lost nearly $70 million in commodities trading. Bouchey spent $1.6 million covering losses of commodities trades which Raniere had made in her name. Raniere suggested to Clare Bronfman that the losses were due to market manipulation by her father. Beginning in August 2005, the Bronfman sisters covered the losses, ultimately using $150 million of their own funds in support of Raniere and his organization.
Collaborations with the Dalai Lama.
Eager to distance themselves from negative allegations, NXIVM members sought the endorsement of the 14th Dalai Lama, spending $2 million on the project. On May 6, 2009, the Dalai Lama traveled to Albany to give a talk; during the event, he presented Raniere with a white scarf onstage. The Dalai Lama additionally wrote the foreword to the book "The Sphinx and Thelxiepeia", which Raniere co-authored in 2009. The prior year, Raniere had co-authored his first book, "Odin and The Sphinx". Eight years later, it was revealed that, in 2009, Sara Bronfman had a sexual relationship with Lama Tenzin Dhonden, the Dalai Lama's gatekeeper, who arranged the appearance; and who, as a monk, had taken a vow of celibacy. Amid accusations of corruption, Dhonden was replaced.
Mass resignations and public allegations.
In 2009, a group of Raniere's associates called the "NXIVM Nine"—which included his former partner, Barbara Bouchey—broke with the organization, citing "concerns about unethical practices and the alleged abuse of his leadership status to sexually manipulate women in the organization". In November 2010, "Vanity Fair" published an article, "The Heiresses and the Cult", in which Natalie, another former partner of Raniere, recalled that he "had insisted she keep the body of her dead puppy in her garage freezer and look at it daily". In a 2010 "Times Union" article, former NXIVM coaches characterized students as "prey" for Raniere to satisfy either his gambling or sexual proclivities.
Departure of Kristin Keeffe.
Kristin Keeffe was a longtime partner of Raniere and the mother of his first child. In 2010, it was reported that Raniere had ordered that the child be kept away from peers and that he was being cared for by nannies speaking five different languages. In February 2014, Keeffe broke up with Raniere and left NXIVM. After she fled the Albany area with her son, an email bearing her name explained: "I have full sole legal custody of Gaelyn. Keith was experimenting on him. I had to get Gaelyn away." Keeffe publicly described Raniere as "dangerous".
In 2015, Keeffe publicly alleged that Raniere directed the Canadian investigative firm Canaprobe to obtain financial information on six federal judges and a United States senator as well as a reporter, an editor and the publisher of the "Times Union". That same year, Keeffe further alleged that Raniere had planned to lure his critics to Mexico with an invitation to an anti-cult conference; once there, the critics were to be arrested on false charges by order of a local judge who had been bribed. Keeffe stated at Raniere's sentencing that he had never paid child support for their son.
Patent-infringement litigation.
In 2015, Raniere sued AT&amp;T and Microsoft, alleging they had infringed on his patents. The following year, the case was dismissed with prejudice. The trial court ruled that Raniere's "conduct throughout this litigation, culminating in his untruthful testimony at the hearing on the motion to dismiss, demonstrates a pattern of obfuscation and bad faith". Raniere was sanctioned and ordered to pay $450,000 in attorneys' fees.
History of sexual abuse and assault cases.
Public accusations of sexually predatory behavior and inappropriate relationships with minors began trailing Raniere in the early 2010s. Soon after his arrest in 2018, prosecutors opposed bail, writing that Raniere had "a decades-long history of abusing women and girls." At his trial, prosecutors introduced evidence that Raniere held views approving sexual assault, child sexual abuse and incest. 
Toni Natalie.
Raniere's eight-year relationship with Toni Natalie ended in 1999. She later claimed to have been the victim of harassment. In a January 2003 ruling, federal judge Robert Littlefield implied Raniere was using a legal suit to harass his former partner, writing, "This matter smacks of a jilted fellow's attempt at revenge or retaliation against his former girlfriend, with many attempts at tripping her up along the way." In 2011, Natalie filed documents in federal court alleging that she had been repeatedly raped by Raniere.
"Times Union" exposé.
In 2012, the "Times Union" reported that Raniere had three sexual relationships with girls under the age of consent during the 1980s and 1990s; "Times Union" reporters spoke to the girls and their families. One of the victims, who spoke out on condition of anonymity, said that she met Raniere in 1990, when she was aged 12 and he was aged 30. Raniere offered to tutor the girl, whose mother worked for CBI, and one of his live-in