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- [00:00]
A
This is Frank Parlotto Jr. He's an author and journalist of the Frank Report and is basically the reason that the NXIVM cult got taken down. That's right. If you're not familiar with nxivm, it was a prominent sex cult that existed in New York operated by this guy, Keith Ranieri. They're known because they recruited very many prominent Hollywood stars. And many of those stars were actually used to recruit other members. Some of these members in the court testimony actually allege that they were sex slaves that were branded with the initials of Ranier. And this entire cult was basically taken down because of the guy sitting across from me right now. We go through all the details. He explains how he was originally hired by NXIVM and what he saw on the inside. He talks about cults and their leaders, specifically Keith Ranieri and the type of manipulation tactics that he would use on the members of his cult. And ultimately Frank tells us how he took down the cult, the channels and the processes and the legal battles that he went through, and why so many others failed when Frank eventually succeeded. So without further ado, sit back, relax, and welcome to camp. Frank Parlotto Jr. Specifically, how are you sir?
- [01:16]
B
Very well and thank you very much for having me here.
- [01:19]
A
Absolutely. Thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. I've been on a deep dive of different rabbit holes specifically regarding mysterious organizations, power and the corruption of power as it involves small groups and organizations that seem to be resembling of a cult. Not that that's what we're talking about today. We're talking about a different organization that has no cult like qualities at all. An organization known as NXIVM that you have an interesting history with initially being hired and then working as one of the lead journalists and investigators to expose the organization. So just for any of the viewers listening that might not be familiar, could you just get everyone up to speed? Could you first explain what NXIVM was and how you got involved with it?
- [02:10]
B
NXIVM was a name of a company that purportedly taught self improvement classes. It was founded by a man named Keith Ranieri and assisted by a woman named Nancy Salzman. And they taught classes called Executive Success Programs. And in it you were to learn certain truths that they proposed were not available anywhere else.
- [02:43]
A
And this started in like the 90s.
- [02:45]
B
1998 it began, and it began quite successfully attracting prominent people. And it was based upon a fanciful notion that the founder, Keith Ranieri, was the smartest man in the world, based.
- [03:05]
A
On what credit well, that's a great question.
- [03:09]
B
He got himself credited for something that is a story unto itself. But in 1989, he managed to get his name placed in the Guinness Book of Records Australian edition as one of the top three problem solvers as judged by a certain very specific IQ test. The category was highest iq. Ranieri, along with two others, achieved the highest score of a particular test, and the gullible editors of Guinness accepted this as a category and named him. Then when they did a little more research, they retired the category. But with his one appearance in 1989 in the Guinness Book of Records as the man with the highest iq, he was then able to advertise that he was the smartest man in the world Australia edition.
- [04:19]
A
I think that is a funny caveat because I've met some Australians. No disrespect to you guys, it's a low bar, okay? But that is a funny ripple in this whole story that based off of one IQ test that isn't even necessarily the standardized IQ test. This is like a subset of intelligence quotient testing.
- [04:36]
B
Well, there's worse to follow. It was a take home test, which.
- [04:42]
A
If anyone went to school through Covid, you know that take home tests are, you know, a little easier, maybe for lack of a better word.
- [04:50]
B
Well, it's rumored that he has several assistants helping him with the test. It was 50 questions, difficult questions, I will admit, but they were not unknown. They had been published.
- [05:06]
A
Hmm.
- [05:07]
B
And he managed to also co opt the IQ society that created the test and later controlled it. And so he was able to change his score. When he missed one question. He was able to have that changed post facto, and that's what elevated him up to the highest score.
- [05:31]
A
Interesting. So does he come from a well to do background? Does he have any type of high academic scholarship throughout his adolescence?
- [05:41]
B
No, not really. He did go to a college where he managed to graduate. And he had often said that he was the genius of the school. It's a lamentable thing. But the prosecution, in the subsequent prosecution of Ranieri, uncovered his scholastic records, and they weren't quite up to the standard that he had previously boasted.
- [06:11]
A
Hmm, interesting. So he creates this course and immediately gains intrigue from, I guess, people in the immediate community. Where does he start it? And where is most of the early membership coming from?
- [06:25]
B
It began in Albany, suburban Albany, and that's where it began and ended. But they had classes in Los Angeles, New York City, in Brooklyn, in London, and wherever they could gather a group to pay between 2 and $10,000 for a course the people would come, pay and learn the secrets of Keith Ranieri's wisdom.
- [06:55]
A
Can you share what any of these secrets were? Do you feel like the classes in the nascent years of the organization were legitimate in any way?
- [07:02]
B
You know, I think for modest people of modest intelligence. He had culled different logistical and problem solving techniques from history and used them to kind of stimulate people who hadn't really thought outside the box, who just accepted whatever the status quo was. And so he in some ways encouraged people to, and it's ironic, think for themselves while at the same time he was working on a program to indoctrinate people so that they wouldn't think for themselves.
- [07:45]
A
Hmm. And how does this indoctrination work at that time? Like, how are you simultaneously teaching people, you know, sort of like logical proofs to then think outside the box, but then simultaneously hindering their. Their ability to think?
- [08:00]
B
Well, I think the idea of thinking outside the box was the bait and the hook was greater acceptance into the NXIVM world. And there was a hierarchy based on, not dissimilar to martial arts, where you have various belts from white to yellow to orange, etc. And he did the same thing. You would get not a belt, but a sash which you could wear in class, and the color would denote your.
- [08:35]
A
Rank and furthermore denote your intelligence.
- [08:38]
B
I imagine, yes, in fact, they were down to handshakes. You had a certain hand clasp, and if you were in a higher rank than the person you would shake hands with, your hands would go on the outside of the lower ranked individuals. There was quite a bit of hierarchy and that encouraged people to want to rise in the ranks and one day be in the shadow of the greatest thinker of them all.
- [09:13]
A
And then how frequently do these groups meet? Because it initially starts as classes, I assume where people are coming from, maybe one off, or they're doing a package where they're coming in every couple weeks for a period of months. But then at what point do they start meeting on a weekly or daily basis?
- [09:28]
B
Well, that's an excellent question. They began with weekly classes for an hour or two. Then you were encouraged. If you really wanted to catch the spirit of Keith Ranieri, you needed to take an intensive. And an intensive is a 5, 11, or 16 day class where it is straight on every day from 7 in the morning till 9, 10 at night. In this class, Shoeless kept going constantly with instruction after instruction, tapes, sessions, breakout sessions, and for 12, 13, 14 hours a day straight, you are indoctrinated into the teachings, the rare Teachings of Keith Renery, who was referred to not by his name, but by his title, Vanguard.
- [10:29]
A
Which comes from a video game, correct?
- [10:32]
B
It does come from a video game. He loved that game.
- [10:34]
A
Interesting. That's kind of. I would have gone with Zelda or something. I feel like there's a cooler video game name to go with. But it's an interesting thing. What does he do in these early days that sort of preserves his mystique as some type of wise sage from a foregone era?
- [10:48]
B
What he did was wise. He used women, women preying on women. Most of his students were women and his teachers were women. And so he used women to persuade new prospective students, especially if they were slender, attractive women and or affluent of either gender. He would have the women extol him. And the women, especially a few of the top women, were extraordinarily good at inflating not only his genius, but his highest ethics. In fact, he called himself, it was a word I was unfamiliar with, an ethicist.
- [11:42]
A
Interesting. And so he's able to use these people internally in the group to sort of inflate his status within the organization and then, I'm assuming, keep a certain amount of distance from the newer members to kind of keep that mystique and the lore kind of going.
- [11:57]
B
That's right. He would not teach, but his picture would adorn the walls next to slightly smaller pictures of Mahatma Gandhi, an athlete that he admired by the name of Thorpe. Jim Thorpe.
- [12:14]
A
Jim Thorpe, absolutely. There's a town named after him in Pennsylvania. Yeah, it's actually a nice town.
- [12:19]
B
I bet it is. And the third character in his trio of portraits was Albert Einstein.
- [12:31]
A
That's good company.
- [12:32]
B
Well, that was the intimation. He had the athleticism of. Of Jim Thorpe, the ethics and heart of Gandhi and the genius of Einstein all combined in one human being.
- [12:44]
A
Wow, that's a good selection. I would have gone with a different athlete, probably. I would have gone with like, I don't know, Michael Jordan or I wouldn't have picked a white guy from like the 1900s. You know what I mean? If I was going to pick supreme athlete, I would have gone with like Bo Jackson. But, you know, to each his own. I'm not the leader of the organization. That's an interesting thing. So so far there seems to be no, you know, it has sort of the calling cards of kind of an organized alleged cult. Again using that word with some distance. But so far there's no misconduct. Right. He's teaching these classes. People are coming in and out at what Point. Does it take a turn? Is it early? Or does it go on for a number of years before there starts to be, I guess, criminal action?
- [13:28]
B
Well, I think two factors come into play here. Number one is that Ranieri, at least ostensibly, had a libidinous side to him. And it turned out that he was sleeping with most of his female teachers. And he had an interesting doctrine with his lady friends. He was so brilliant, his greatness was so enormous that they had to dedicate their entire life to him because should they have sex with anyone else, the subtle vibrations could revert back to him. That is, if you, for example, Mark, if you were to have an intimate relationship with one of Ranieri's harem, the vibrations that you emit or I emit would rebound back. So he told these women, and it could potentially kill him and end the entire mission.
- [14:29]
A
Oh, damn. Ouch. Right? That kind of. It's a diss to us, you know what I mean? What's wrong? What's so wrong with us?
- [14:35]
B
Frank, your DNA is not up to standards. No offense.
- [14:40]
A
I mean, none taken. Yeah, so I can see how all of a sudden now there's a power dynamic sort of infused with his sexual propensity. And he's now able to control these women, uh, oh, skateboard down. And now he's able to control these women using the sexual dynamic of their relationship. And this goes on, I'm assuming, for the better part of the 90s. This just continues.
- [15:03]
B
Yeah, it was a constant from the beginning through the time of his arrest.
- [15:10]
A
Now, at what point do high ranking members of society's aristocracy start coming into the fold? As you know, we're gonna find out later, there's very prominent actresses and billionaires and things like that. But from my understanding, there's even allegations that people like Richard Branson or the children of billionaires are now entering into this organization and are in either some way aiding and abetting the organization or funding it directly. When do they come into the fold and why?
- [15:43]
B
Within a couple of years. Enough of a established a reputation that this was a new and exciting form of teaching. And it attracted a few interesting people with some prestige, including some government officials and some executives of corporations. And then they landed some interest in Mexico and they were able to secure the interest of a prominent son of a former president of Mexico. Emiliano Salinas was the son. Carlos Salinas was the former president of Mexico and a very wealthy man. And Carlos is a man who strikes fear in Mexicans hearts. For it is widely rumored that he was, while president, the Literal head of the drug cartels.
- [16:42]
A
Hmm.
- [16:43]
B
Emiliano was his good looking, playboy type son who then joined NEXIVM and made a very public announcement that NXIVM was the greatest teachings the world had ever known. And this immediately attracted a large Mexican contingent. And suddenly now it's international.
- [17:03]
A
Interesting.
- [17:06]
B
Emiliano was not as wealthy as his father, but he was on a very handsome stipend.
- [17:11]
A
I can imagine. Now, I think that there a misconception about organizations like this, whether you call them self help organizations or following some type of guru or just an outright cult. And I think a lot of people look at this from the outside that have never really had any proximity to these types of groups. And they say, oh, these are for losers. These are for destitute people with no purpose in their lives. This is the behavior of the downtrodden of society. And I think that this case as well as many others, but this one specifically highlights that I don't think that that belief is actually accurate, that I think anyone is susceptible to falling into groupthink, specifically when you have a charismatic and intelligent leader. So I'm curious, in your research of this case and speaking with survivors and victims, was there any type of solid through line amongst people that were joining, why they were joining, what they were seeking, or was it sort of mirrored across the group?
- [18:13]
B
Well, you know, I heard one observer who had seen it pretty up close, who felt that almost everyone that was in it was in some way what he called a broken person. And whether that's true or what that means, precisely, it may be just more poetic than literal. But I think that everybody came there seeking something, maybe the fundamental quest in all beings to get the answers. And here was a man reputed to have the answers. And with a number of intelligent, good looking, smart women saying that he was competent to provide all the answers that all your life you've wondered about, hmm. What escalated the progress of NXIVM was the acquisition of two sisters, Bronfman by name, daughters of Edgar Bronfman Sr. The billionaire who was the chairman of Seagram Liquor. And they came with their own inherited wealth, and they were very publicly enamored and began to spend the money that Ranieri had never had access to before. Now he had hundreds of millions at his disposal.
- [19:48]
A
And he probably used this money for a good cause, right? He donated it and gave it to people and stuff.
- [19:53]
B
He donated it to lawyers to sue people. He donated it to the commodities market, where he lost $66 million of their money. He donated it to a scam Artist in Los Angeles to connive the girls, the two sisters, out of $26 million. That's where I entered in, because I recovered their $26 million.
- [20:19]
A
Okay, story time. Now we're talking, Frank. So he's now running this organization by the mid 2000s. Roughly how many members? Maybe a couple hundred at this point.
- [20:30]
B
Well, depending on how you define members. Bedrock hardcore members, a couple hundred people who were seriously taking classes, you know, a thousand or more. And casual students. Maybe 10,000 people, 15,000 people had come and gone through the doors.
- [20:48]
A
Interesting. So there's a couple hundred intersect them and, you know, tens thousands up into the 10,000, maybe even north of that, of people that are familiar and following this guy as a. And like him as a wise teacher, and they're enamored by him, and he's got millions and millions of dollars. And then you are now brought into the case. You're initially hired by them. Is that true?
- [21:11]
B
That's correct.
- [21:12]
A
And what does that look like? And how do you get involved and what do you think initially when this email comes into your inbox?
- [21:18]
B
Well, what happened just that preceded my arrival in 2007, was that he began to get some glamour people too. Several actresses and flashy people came into the fold and became enamored. Some of them quit their acting world. None of them, I would say, were tremendous stars, although there were some famous people who took classes. But serious advocates who were actresses were Alison Mack, Anne, Kristin Krug, Grace park were three. And these were attractive women in their 20s who were prominently featured on television at the time. And that added now beyond the wealth, the international appeal, glamorous and attractive actresses who would go up front and recruit for him.
- [22:20]
A
Do we understand how these actresses, how they joined into the fold? Obviously, I can understand a local business person in Albany, Googling, seeing a flyer, talking to a friend, getting pulled in, but someone that's living in Hollywood, that's in a show, that's filming, however many days out of the year, a ton of friends. How does someone like Alison Mack get brought into the group?
- [22:41]
B
It was through Vancouver and a woman, an aspiring actress with a modest list of appearances by the name of Sarah Edmondson, became a branch manager of a NXIVM teaching facility in Vancouver. And she knew a number of actresses because she had appeared herself in a number of productions. And she recruited Kristin Krug, who then recruited Alison Mack. And everyone recruited somebody.
- [23:18]
A
And did they have some type of direct incentive to do recruitment, or was it just because of their infatuation with the leader?
- [23:24]
B
I Think it was a threefold infatuation with the leader and getting his pleasure. There was an economic incentive because it was based on a multi level marketing. If you brought someone in and they took courses, you would get a. A slice of that. And if they recruited someone, you'd also get a slice in the. I guess they call it an upline.
- [23:51]
A
Yeah, it kind of makes like a pyramid. I wouldn't say that, Frank. I mean, that is slanderous.
- [23:57]
B
Well, that's what the prosecution called it.
- [23:59]
A
All right, in that case, I think they nailed it. So they now have a financial incentive as well as a social and sort of status incentive. And then they bring in all these high ranking people and then they lose $26 million and they need Frank Barlotto's help.
- [24:14]
B
Well, that was kept kind of on the low. And initially they didn't even understand they had lost the money. They Understood they lost $65 million because the commodities went against them. But Keith explained it to the two sisters. He said that the Illuminati, in combination with their own father, who was one of the members of the Illuminati, had manipulated the market to defeat his mathematically perfect strategy for taking control of the commodities market.
- [24:50]
A
Oh, that's a good alibi. I'm going to try that. My wife. That's a good. Next time I get an argument with her and she's like, yo, why'd you. I'll be like, hey, look, your dad's an Illuminati. And that's why I was late for dinner. That's smart. Wow. Well, it worked. And they believed it. They were like, all right, I guess.
- [25:07]
B
Yes, they did believe it.
- [25:08]
A
Wow.
- [25:09]
B
They blamed a guy named Stephen Herbert's as being the master manipulator who was the conduit with the Illuminati and the Bronfmans. Herbitz was a man, a friend of mine, by the way, a good man who was with the Pentagon at times and also worked for Broffman.
- [25:30]
A
So now you are brought in and at this point, what type of work are you doing upstate and why did they recruit you to try to retrieve this money?
- [25:42]
B
Well, they didn't recruit me initially to retrieve the money. They didn't even know they were being robbed. They recruited me initially because they felt I had enough knowledge about the following things, media spin and press spin, philosophy and a history of religions, so that I could articulate the difference between a religion and a cult, if there is any. And so I was initially hired at the sum of. It's a little embarrassing. To say, because it's way lower than I deserve to be paid. But it was in 2007. I was originally hired for the sum of $75,000 per month to manage their media strategies and to get them away from what was increasingly happening as media would portray them as a cult.
- [26:49]
A
I see. And what did you think of the organization? Had you had any prior knowledge? Had you seen or met people that were involved with it, or did it just come across your desk and you're like, what are these. This bizarre looking word? What does this mean?
- [27:03]
B
Well, what happened was two people who were on the opposite side of the political spectrum approached me. Steve Pidgeon, who's a Democratic at the time, a Democratic fundraiser and strategist, former counsel to the New York State Senate, and a figure who's pretty well known today, Roger Stone from Florida. And Roger was up in Albany at the time. He had worked for nexivm for a time, so had Pidgeon as consultants. And they asked if I'd be interested in looking into this matter and maybe taking on a challenging task.
- [27:45]
A
I see. And you're up for it? You're like, oh, this seems interesting. Two guys that I know and respect are kind of giving me a little pitch here. Might as well check it out. When do you start your initial investigation and kind of looking into the organization and seeing how you can kind of help the brand and help the strategy? And what do you uncover therefore?
- [28:05]
B
Well, I relocated there for the winter of 2007 so that I could observe and look at what we had up against them. I have been familiar with the concept that it's very easy to label somebody occult or anything, and it's hard to get out of that shadow. So I wanted to see what they were. And my initial impression of them was good. Ostensibly this was a group of happy, healthy people that were enjoying what they were doing. They liked their lives and they were smart, intelligent people.
- [28:49]
A
Were you going to any of the classes? Were you meeting with the members or was this based off of the media that you were consuming?
- [28:56]
B
I never went to a class. In fact, at one time they told me that if I really wanted to work for them, I'd have to go to a class. And I said, well, I don't really want to work for you that badly. I'll teach a class if you like. And they said, okay, you don't have to go to class. Would you write some modules for us? Some one hour classes? I never got around to that.
- [29:19]
A
What were you going to write?
- [29:20]
B
I don't know. We never got that far.
- [29:23]
A
Oh, that would have been kind of fun. Writing a class. That would have been interesting. So what stopped you from ultimately pursuing the class? Writing. What interrupted that?
- [29:32]
B
I got busy on this matter of a Los Angeles real estate project that I alluded to before, where $26 million appeared to be evaporating. Money had been invested by the Bron sisters, wired to a man named Yuri Plian, who has since changed his name. And it struck me as a project that had some hair on it. For one thing, they were to be buying and fixing, or rather buying and building hillside mansions. And they had purchased 30 lots in Los Angeles county, all of the lots south of Ventura Boulevard, where prices were pretty good and considered to be upscale neighborhoods. They bought stray lots that had heretofore been believed not to be buildable because of the unique characteristics of the hillside, the possibility of sliding down a hill, and so forth. And the concept was Ranieri's genius was such that they could build on these heretofore unbuildable lots and create super valuable properties. The art was in the foundations. Then they were supposed to build the rest of the house. Curiously, they had purchased the land and built a number of foundations. And two years had passed and not a house was built, just the foundations. And I thought it was awfully strange.
- [31:08]
A
Interesting. So what did you uncover as you started digging deeper into this? What happened with the homes? Was anyone contracted to build the homes? And was this all coming directly from Ranieri, or was there shell companies and mediators that were kind of handling this development?
- [31:23]
B
The man that was the developer was this aforementioned Plyom, Yuri Plyom, who was described to me as Keith's best friend. And one of the things I found out, ironically, was that Keith's best friend was also the commodities broker that had conducted the trades that had lost $65 million. And so, having failed in the commodities due to the, as Keith said, the Illuminati, he then went back to Plyom, now to be the real estate developer, using the Brafman's money.
- [32:01]
A
Hmm.
- [32:03]
B
And what aroused my suspicion was the Brafmans came to me and they said, we need five. Can you get us $5 million? I said, for what? And they said, well, we need it for this real estate project. We've put 26 million dollars, and now we're 5 million over budget. Can you find us alone? So that's when I began to investigate, and I flew out there, much against the wishes of Ranieri and his lieutenant, Nancy Salzman, because they didn't Think I had the ability to comprehend the genius that was behind this project. And when I went out there, I didn't bother to tell Yuri Plym or anyone else. I just slipped into town and I looked at their payroll records of 140 employees each week. And I went to all the properties, and there wasn't but maybe a dozen people there. So they had phantom payroll. And then I looked at the properties, and these foundations that were so brilliantly conceived were actually rusting because there was rebar exposed. And once that rusts your. You don't really have the foundation you thought you had. I confronted Plyom with his payroll records and so forth. He caved right away and signed over all of the properties. And we recovered the money that you two sisters wept with joy that I had exposed this thief that was taking their money. And I got most of the money back. But Ranieri was not pleased.
- [33:56]
A
Why?
- [33:58]
B
That's a question. I'm not sure if he thought I was with the Illuminati or what, or working in tandem with their father, but he felt that I had exposed something that he should have as the world's smartest man.
- [34:13]
A
Right. Your inferior DNA finding out about this and getting the money back might be a. Might be an affront to his power.
- [34:20]
B
I would say so.
- [34:22]
A
Now, do you believe that Raniere believes in these sort of external factions of power against him and the organization, or do you think he was using these things as a tool to control people?
- [34:35]
B
I don't think he believes it, but he thinks he can sell that to gullible people.
- [34:44]
A
I see.
- [34:45]
B
Because, you know, his shtick was he's so good, he's so pure that only invidious forces on a global level could conspire to undo him and the goodness that he wanted to give to the world.
- [34:59]
A
Did he believe that? Truly?
- [35:00]
B
I don't think so.
- [35:02]
A
Even that was. He knew he was kind of playing a ruse.
- [35:05]
B
I think what his real secret motive was was he enjoyed destroying people's happiness.
- [35:13]
A
Hmm. And just out of some type of bizarre paraphilia, or was it some type of trauma that he endured? Do you have any speculation as to what the. What the root of that would be? The desire to destroy happiness.
- [35:28]
B
I think he had an epiphany at some point. Originally, he misdiagnosed himself as a sex addiction. And he was of the nature of a kind of a beast that has to constantly engage in sexual activity. And then one day he realized that wasn't bringing him happiness. That wasn't the thing. And then he Realized much like his game Vanguard, you get power, you get happiness when you destroy the enemy. And so I guess technically in the game of vanguard, when you, you stay alive, you keep your power by destroying the enemy, and then you get more power, you have to kill. If you don't kill, you lose your power.
- [36:13]
A
I see. So happiness is, in some ways, zero sum. And in order for me to be more happy, other people need to be less happy.
- [36:19]
B
Yeah.
- [36:20]
A
Interesting.
- [36:21]
B
There's nuances to making people unhappy. You can make people unhappy by putting poison in the water and killing people or making them sick. But that's not really the art of making people unhappy. The real art, the beauty of it to him, was to make these people think he was helping them, that they were his students, while he slowly evaporated, diminished, and by degrees decimated their lives.
- [36:51]
A
What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because if you're anything like me, you're probably running late all the time. I am. I'm always leaving right when I'm supposed to be somewhere. And I never have time to sit down and grab a nutritious meal. And that's why I wanna talk to you about this little product right here called Huel. Huel is absolutely amazing. It's got everything you need, all the essential vitamins and minerals, all the nutrients, all the protein you need in a regular meal packaged in this beautiful, convenient little bottle. That's right. No more of the days of you running out the door being like, oh, I'll just grab some fast food or something. I'll have like, you know, the leftover cheeseburger in the fridge. No, no, no, no, no. With Huel, it's healthy, nutritious, everything you need to power through the day served in this little bottle right here. I mean, this has got 35 grams of protein, 7 grams of fiber, 27 vitamins and minerals. Everything's right on the back. And this will help you get through the day. It'll help you perform better, not only in the workplace, but also in the gym. I mean, at this point, I think they've sold over 400 million meals. I mean, that's. Is it 400 million? I mean, that's amazing. 400 million meals. So why not you take control of your health, be a little bit more time efficient and get all the essentials that you need in every little bottle. If you're Interested, go to huel.com, use the promo code Camp. That's Huell. H U E-L.com, use the promo code camp and get 15% off your first order. Check it out right now. Get control of your health. Get control of your life, and stop being so late. Let's just fix that. Also, be on time. All right, Set an alarm. Let's get back to the show. When was the first time that you met him?
- [38:23]
B
In September of 2007.
- [38:25]
A
And what was that meeting like?
- [38:27]
B
It was a dinner, and Claire Broffman, the heiress, was there, along with his top lieutenant, Nancy Salzman, and his legal liaison, Kristin Keefe Ranieri and myself. In fact, somewhere there exists a video of that dinner because they filmed everything that this genius did.
- [38:53]
A
Oh, really?
- [38:54]
B
I mean, I don't think they followed him into the bathroom, but whenever he was available to talk to anybody, there was usually someone filming it.
- [39:04]
A
Was it clear to you that there was filming going on?
- [39:07]
B
Absolutely.
- [39:07]
A
Interesting.
- [39:08]
B
The cameras were set up by none other than Claire Broffman.
- [39:12]
A
Did that feel strange to you, walking into a dinner and being like, oh, there's cameras here?
- [39:19]
B
I understood the idea that they thought he was an astounding person. So I was prepared to accept the fact that there were cameras. It was disclosed, and so we had dinner, which was vegetarian. Keith purported to be, and all of his followers had agreed that they were vegetarians. They must be for the kindness element of it can't harm animals. One interesting culinary aspect. I don't know. Do you. Do you use. Do you ever eat garlic? Yeah, you'd have to. Well, maybe you wouldn't have to, but the women had to issue garlic in their diet.
- [40:09]
A
I see. I can't imagine this is for a digestive purpose. I assume this was for some other type of sexual reasons.
- [40:19]
B
Yes. You've discerned accurately. And so he did not personally care for the secondhand odor of garlic.
- [40:33]
A
I see. Interesting. So even through what you consume, not only through, you know, teaching and media, but straight up to your diet, and your food was sort of curated and cultivated by one person?
- [40:47]
B
Yes, except he didn't mandate it per se. He suggested it. And his suggestions were realistically understood to be coming from the smartest and most ethical man in the world.
- [41:01]
A
I also imagine there was a social incentive as well, that if you were someone that was emitting a secondary scent of garlic, that maybe you would have less proximity to the most supreme being being.
- [41:11]
B
That is correct.
- [41:12]
A
And then that would lower your status.
- [41:13]
B
You'd have less access to his tongue.
- [41:16]
A
I see. Literally and metaphorically. That's an interesting way to control power. Now, Frank, where did you grow up?
- [41:24]
B
In the Buffalo, Niagara Falls area.
- [41:28]
A
Just Kind of like a regular upbringing. Was it a wealthy upbringing or was it more?
- [41:32]
B
I wouldn't call it wealthy. I'd call it middle class. My dad was an attorney who made a decent living.
- [41:42]
A
And you grew up around regular people. You didn't grow up around wealthy Hollywood types and influencers, so to speak. I feel like you have a pretty good metric for calling out bullshit and seeing when things are a little fugazi. Is that fair to say?
- [41:56]
B
I'd like to think so.
- [41:58]
A
So you walk into this dinner and this guy is the supreme being, and he's, you're technically, you're hired by his organization, and you're like, all right, are you trying to decipher what's going on? Is this ringing alarm bells in your head where you're like, oh, this is all, like, so crazy? Or are you just like, I got a job to do. I'm gonna keep my head down and do the job?
- [42:16]
B
No, I think it was something different. I, I, I've seen bullshitters before. In fact, some people have said that that's one of my stock and trade techniques is bullshit. I don't necessarily agree with that, but I have seen it, and I think I can smell it. And I saw Keith in a very different way at first. Now he's Sicilian, and I'm Sicilian, so I think I understood a little bit about his shtick.
- [42:47]
A
I love Italians. You guys are the best.
- [42:49]
B
Thank you.
- [42:50]
A
Even just, like, classifying to, like, specific towns in Italy. Like, look, it's two Sicilians. I know what the fuck's going on? So what did you see in him that you were like, all right, this.
- [42:59]
B
Is, I saw in him. He was a little younger than me, maybe, what, seven years, six years younger. And I saw him kind of doing what Sicilians occasionally do, Acting. The don, playing the role. He had these adoring sycophants, and he had a certain message he wanted to teach. And maybe I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he had certainly had the legal and the practical right to teach. If adults consented to be taught and they wanted to pay money for it, he had the right to teach his bs Or I'll take it a step farther. Maybe there was some value in some of the things he taught. And so what I was there for was to protect his right to be a teacher without being labeled a cult.
- [43:58]
A
Did anything interesting happen at that first dinner other than the cameras and the vegetarian food? Was there anything else that you noted that you were like, oh, that's interesting.
- [44:08]
B
There was two things I found interesting one was that I realized that I'd have to try to teach him to not pontificate. He ran long. He'd go on and ramble about philosophical things, and he was accurately quoting philosophical concepts that had been espoused thousands of years before he was born. But he was talking about Hindu and Buddhist philosophy and principles that were not unknown to me, but they sounded most wondrous to his devotees. And I recognize that he could potentially be taught to shorten up his monologue.
- [44:58]
A
I see. And did he have mentors? Did he have people that he trusted that he kept sort of out of the public view that he was getting this information from? Or was he just like a voracious reader? Like, where was he actually acquiring this knowledge?
- [45:12]
B
He would. His ego was too enormous to ever permit having a mentor. He read a lot and, you know, it's a remarkable thing because he was severely afflicted with strabismus. That is, he was cross eyed. And so despite that serious handicap, he was a voracious reader.
- [45:36]
A
Interesting. So you leave this dinner and go back to work. And at this point, had you already recovered those funds? That was prior to. So you go recover those funds and now you're back at your desk and you're thinking like, okay, how else do I work with this organization? What other strategies can I employ? What do you begin to do next?
- [45:57]
B
Well, I didn't get that far. After I recovered the assets, they had 30 properties that were in need of some kind of action. You can't just leave properties half built on a hillside next to Paris Hilton's house.
- [46:14]
A
That becomes a tax liability, right?
- [46:16]
B
More than that, it becomes a neighborhood nuisance. You've got this house with just a foundation that's sitting there for two years. We needed action. So I proposed to Ranieri, who had spent a lot of time with on the phone, particularly that I could finish the project, I could turn it around. Despite the challenges, we could still make this a money maker. So he negotiated a contract with me and on behalf of the Bronfman sisters, wired me a $1 million advance. I got the properties, got control of them, got the financing so they didn't have to put another dime into it. Started all the work in all the properties, and then I began to look into how they lost that $65 million. And the next day after I announced it, that I didn't think the Illuminati really, if they did indeed exist, had anything to do with the loss of the commodities. And on the following day, I was fired. Not Only fired. But he wanted the $1 million back.
- [47:29]
A
Oh, and you readily handed it over.
- [47:35]
B
I wanted to be an ethicist too, and I didn't think it was ethical to give him back a million dollars after I just recovered 26 million dollars and saved an 80 million dollar project.
- [47:44]
A
No, absolutely. I mean, I wouldn't give the money back. Are you crazy? That is rule number one of dealing with these type of egomaniacal leaders. You don't go against their sacred teachings and break the group's trust in what they say. And Frank, unfortunately, that's what you did.
- [48:01]
B
I don't.
- [48:03]
A
That was a mistake. You should have just went to the classes and been like, hey, this guy's right. And then nothing would have happened.
- [48:08]
B
I'm ashamed to be so transparently simple.
- [48:12]
A
Yeah, you're too much of an ethicist, Frank. So you get fired, and then immediately what happens? Are they now coming after you for the money? I mean, technically, he thinks this guy owes me a million dollars. That's not a great position to be in, specifically with a group like this. So how do you feel the following weeks? Are you kind of nervous? Are you trying to get attorneys lined up? What is the next course of action?
- [48:33]
B
I went on with my life. I had other things and other projects and people waiting for me to do things. So I just moved on and was prepared to essentially forget about them, not have any hard feelings. I didn't really understand the depth of their true nature, so I just moved on. I declined to return the million and they declined to sue me, at least at first.
- [49:00]
A
All right, seems like a wash. Kind of bad terms to end on. But you save them a couple $26 million and then you get a mill plus 70,000 and we'll call it a day.
- [49:09]
B
Yeah, that's how I would have liked to have left it.
- [49:13]
A
And so that's the end of the story, and there's nothing else to happen, right?
- [49:17]
B
A good story would end, and they lived happily ever after. In this case, there was two subtle nuances. One is that to recover the assets, I had commenced a lawsuit against the absconding partner, Yuri Plyom. And I laid out the entire case with affidavits lined up, the witnesses. This is while I was still employed at NXIVM as a consultant. And they did not want to move against me until the lawsuit that I had architected was completed. I had brokered a settlement where they would have gotten their $10 million in real estate, but they really didn't want money. They really wanted to get the partner in jail. And so I learned a very interesting thing then. It was just after I was fired. Their goal wasn't the money, because they could have had the extra money I had brokered that they wanted to destroy.
- [50:24]
A
This guy, Yuri Plyom.
- [50:26]
B
Yeah. So they spent $10 million suing him in legal fees. I had nothing to do with this part of it. I was gone. But it was the lawsuit that I had Architect, which they ultimately won. And they won a $10 million judgment against him. They won just as I had designed the case. The difficulty was he had gone bankrupt in the meantime, and he didn't have a dime to give them. So he spent 10 million instead of collecting an additional 10 million that I had lined up for him. They spent 10 million and got zero.
- [50:59]
A
And paid a bunch of lawyers to all that money.
- [51:01]
B
Yeah, they paid 10 million to their lawyers.
- [51:03]
A
But again, it wasn't about the money. It was about ruining this guy, and they were successful. Wow. Now you see all this unfolding. What are your thoughts as you see kind of the dominoes falling here?
- [51:15]
B
Well, he did steal the money. If they're too stupid to take the money and they wanted to prove it in court, like many people do, that's their business.
- [51:25]
A
I see. Now, did you ever speak with Stone or Pigeon about your sort of falling out with this organization? Did you ever reach out to him, be like, yeah, this whole thing is a little weird. Like, did that ever come up?
- [51:37]
B
Actually, Stone reached out to me before I had left them, and he felt that they were not terribly good people. And so we were able to discuss the fact that they probably weren't.
- [51:55]
A
And that was while you were still employed as a consultant.
- [51:59]
B
And then again, afterward, I see Stone would call with his usual sarcasm and say, how's the world's smartest man doing? And I would answer, I'm doing fine.
- [52:12]
A
I see. So there was a little sense, even from the people that had given you the opportunity. They're like, hey, this whole thing is a little. It's a little shady.
- [52:20]
B
Yeah. But I don't think anybody really understood the criminality that was. That was on the underbelly of it.
- [52:28]
A
And when do you start becoming aware of the criminality in the underbelly of the organization?
- [52:34]
B
When I discovered that Claire Broffman secretly went to the FBI and filed a criminal complaint against me right after she won the case that I had set up the $10 million judgment against Plyom, Claire Broffman, with Ranieri's insistence, filed a false criminal complaint against me with the FBI. Saying that I defrauded her out of $1 million.
- [53:06]
A
Oh, wow. With the FBI. This is a federal case. Oh, wow. And do you try to. Do you just get lawyers immediately to try to fight this? What is your initial thought like, oh, shit, I gotta deal with this now?
- [53:21]
B
My initial thought came rather by surprise when one day I got a call from the FBI to ask me about a contract, or lack thereof, with Claire and Sarah Broffman, who they told me had filed a criminal complaint against me. Shortly after finishing this phone call, I learned that the FBI had with pairs, in pairs with IRS agents, had essentially descended on many of my business colleagues in Niagara Falls and conducted interviews, surprise interviews, explained to these interviewees that I was the target of an FBI investigation.
- [54:22]
A
Wow. And why do you believe the FBI was so ready and eager to move on this case? Do you think it was because of sort of the political and financial influence that these sisters had? Or do you think that they brought evidence and painted like a very clear one sided narrative? Or is that just the nature of FBI proceedings, that once they get a tip, they start to investigate readily and by surprise?
- [54:46]
B
Well, that is not the nature of the FBI to enforce or investigate every tip they get.
- [54:56]
A
That's what I'm thinking, right. It's hard to get the FBI to do anything and all of a sudden now they're raiding your friends and offices in Niagara. So why, why were they so ready to act?
- [55:06]
B
I believe it had an element of what you might call a perfect storm. I owned a newspaper called the Niagara Falls Reporter. It was quite a prominent newspaper in Niagara County. I would say it was the most read, most prominent, highest penetration publication in Niagara County. And I had undertaken a series of stories that had cost some business people in the community about $380 million in lost revenue because I exposed some sweetheart leases and by a curious stroke of luck, misfortune. The men that lost the money were the leading donors to a governor of New York by the name of Andrew Cuomo. And he had a lieutenant governor by the name of Kathy Hochul, who is now presently the governor. And she had a husband by the name of Bill Hochul, who happened to be the U.S. attorney for the Western District of New York. So that means that he was the top law enforcement person in Buffalo, Niagara Falls, and he could direct the FBI. And Bill Hochul directed the FBI. Now that they had something they thought maybe they could pin on me to go and we have the man find the crime.
- [56:41]
A
Oh, wow. So now they bring up this case and they claim that this thing happened to them by you. And all of a sudden the powers that be in that jurisdiction say, oh, we've been waiting to get this guy for five years. This is perfect. And then bang, your offices are getting raided. Everyone you know is getting, you know, interviewed and investigated.
- [57:03]
B
Well, in fairness to the FBI and the, and the politeness of Bill Hochul, they didn't actually raid. They just came for interviews. They were good enough not to just break down the doors. And I give him credit for that. He was a little more sophisticated than, say, the prosecutors here in Brooklyn. And so he politely said, give me all your records now. He would have broke down the doors if I refused, but I was also polite enough not to.
- [57:31]
A
And so what do you do? What is your feeling at this point? Like, are you stressed out by this? Are you concerned? Are you afraid for your life? Or is this just going to be a legal battle you're going to have to muster through?
- [57:44]
B
I was quite a naive child at the time. I was in my mid-50s then.
- [57:49]
A
Just a boy.
- [57:50]
B
Just a child, really. A good boy. With optimism and the thought that there's an honest system.
- [57:56]
A
I see.
- [57:58]
B
And so consequently, what happened was I knew it was bullshit, that the Profman's were lying. They had actually perjured themselves in front of the grand jury. They lied about a contract that they never signed. They used this unsigned contract as the evidence that I had defrauded them. But they never signed that contract. It wasn't a valid contract, but the prosecutors didn't really care. There's one thing you have to know about the FBI and the US Attorneys throughout this nation. Innocence or guilt is largely irrelevant. It's conviction stats that count.
- [58:46]
A
Hmm. So now when do you start making your journal and actually publishing work on the organization? Does that happen after the lawsuit is filed against you?
- [58:57]
B
Well, it wasn't a lawsuit. First, it was a four year investigation by the FBI. They found they had a little difficulty finding a case, but if you keep looking long enough, you can exaggerate things. And then they had a stroke of luck. My partner died. And while he had told them that I was a great partner, even just before he died, they wanted him to be a victim so they'd have another victim besides Claire Bronfman. And so after he died, they included Bronfman and my late partner in an indictment. And in 2015, I was indicted on 19 felony counts that would have put me, if convicted, in prison for the rest of my life.
- [59:54]
A
I mean, that is crazy. And when that comes across your desk, when you find out that you're facing 15 accounts. What. What are you feeling then.
- [60:07]
B
Clarence Sarah Broffman were on every single count of the indictment. That in my deceased partner who. Whose lawyer came forward and wrote a letter saying his lawyer of 35 years old lawyer said, you know, he's not. Frank didn't defraud his partner. He thought his partner was a great partner. They made a lot of money. There's no fraud. There's. So I realized that Bronfmans were at the bottom of this whole thing. And then it finally hit me. I always thought they wouldn't indict because there was no evidence, but they went ahead and indicted. And that's when I had a realization that the prosecutors today have so much power that they don't have to worry about innocence or guilt. So I started a blog called the Frank Report, and I started to expose both the prosecutor and the Brafmans.
- [61:06]
A
I see now my. When I was a kid, I always assumed a grand jury is a much more difficult, you know, legal situation to be in. I've always heard like, you know, juries and grand juries and a grand jury, that's a big one, that's really important. That's going to be the most, you know, scrupulous, you know, sort of process of justice. But from what I've read and kind of different people I've spoke to, grand jury seem slightly easier to manipulate. Is that fair to say? Like, prosecutors can kind of get juries to believe certain things in a grand jury versus a regular jury. Is that a fair assessment?
- [61:40]
B
I think it's a very fair assessment. A grand jury once had a historical purpose, which was they were a group of citizens who were to keep an eye both on the prosecutors and the potential abusers of society, criminals and potential criminals. But they also knew that human beings being what they are, prosecutors included, can do things for political purposes. So at one time, the grand jury had a very important role. But back in around the 1940s, the federal laws changed and they eliminated the power of the grand jury. It lost its independence, and it became just a tool of the prosecution. It's almost a joke. And when I write a story, I never write that a grand jury indicted somebody. I always say the prosecutors indicted because grand juries don't indict anyway. They just do what they're told, right?
- [62:38]
A
And the prosecutors have a lot of power in a grand jury.
- [62:41]
B
When I was on the throes of indictment, I told the prosecutor, I want to appear before the grand jury in federal cases. You don't have an absolute right as a defendant to appear before a grand jury. But I told the prosecutors I wish to appear, but I want you to be dismissed. I want to talk to them alone. You put on your website at the Department of Justice that the grand jury is an independent body, and you know that's not true. And I will come and I will tell them that I want you to dismiss. It's up to them. They're independent. I'm going to tell them that they have the right to dismiss you. And then I want to talk to them for three or four days alone and present my evidence. And I got a call on November 20th in the morning that said if Frank wants to appear before the grand jury, he has to be there in half an hour because we're going to indict him today.
- [63:43]
A
So what'd you do?
- [63:45]
B
I tried to get ready. I was more than an hour away and before I could get ready, I was indicted.
- [63:52]
A
Wow. Now, why the Bronfens specifically? Why are they coming for you? Why is it not Ranieri? Why is it not other people in the group? Why do these two women who seem to be independently wealthy and have tons of funds and resources, a million dollars to them is, you know, a large sum of money to most people and objectively a decent chunk of cash, but for people like this, it's not that much. Is this the same situation where they want to destroy you entirely? What is your theory or speculation as to why that is?
- [64:22]
B
They did whatever Ranieri told them to do.
- [64:24]
A
So you think it came from him?
- [64:26]
B
Absolutely came from him. There's documentary evidence that shows that he from. For the simple point that you have to be fully ethical. If they wanted to be ethical, they had to pursue these charges because I was in fact working in tandem with the Illuminati.
- [64:50]
A
Oh, wow. And were you working with the Illuminati?
- [64:53]
B
I wanted to.
- [64:55]
A
They wouldn't return your calls, though.
- [64:57]
B
I couldn't even get to even the lower level Illuminatis.
- [65:01]
A
Yeah. Really? The secretary wouldn't even pick up your phone call.
- [65:04]
B
Didn't get any respect.
- [65:05]
A
Oh, that's tough. That's probably because you're from Niagara. That's what it is.
- [65:08]
B
I think it's because I'm Italian.
- [65:10]
A
I think Sicilian specifically. I think if you were like Venetian or from the north or even Florence, I think they'd probably give you a shot. But these lower level Italians, I mean, what are the. It's nice in the summertime, but come on, the rest of the year, what are we talking about? That's a wild thing. So he basically was like, we're kind of come for him specifically, and then used these women as sort of a mediator to kind of give him some distance from the case. Was he ever brought up in any of the indictments or anything like that against me? Yes.
- [65:40]
B
No.
- [65:41]
A
I see. So he was savvy enough to create a little bit of separation.
- [65:45]
B
Yeah, he was savvy.
- [65:47]
A
Yeah. So now in your report, when you start actually publishing, you're speaking about the prosecutors, speaking about the Bronfmans. Are you speaking about Ranieri and the whole organization immediately, or does that come later?
- [65:58]
B
Right away. Right away, I determined I'd do two things. I'd expose the prosecutors, and I expose the Nexium organization. So I took out ads in my own newspapers with pictures of the prosecutors and saying, if you've been falsely charged by these men, you know, contact me. And I got a slew of calls. And then I began writing about Ranieri. And I learned a lot of things. I wrote thousands of stories, and I uncovered certain crimes that he committed, which led to the New York Times picking up my story, crediting me for it. And then beginning Shortly after, the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of New York, that's Brooklyn, began an investigation based on my stories and my information into Ranieri, which led to his arrest and Claire Broffman's arrest and four others. And the tables got turned. The headlines in the Buffalo News, my local paper, were that Clare Broffman, the heiress, went from accuser to accused. And the charges against her were far more serious. She was facing like ay life in prison, but the unfortunate local office that was indicting me, they had to then change their indictment. They had to drop the Bronfman charges. They had to rewrite the entire indictment. Now they were stuck just with my now long deceased partner. And they threw in an attempted tax evasion charge. Not actual tax evasion, but attempted. I didn't actually not pay taxes. I paid all the taxes that were due, but I had planned to not pay them.
- [67:55]
A
Well, everyone does that. Every time I get a tax bill, I'm like, I really should just go to Puerto Rico and not pay. Everyone thinks about it.
- [68:03]
B
You know, you could be probably charged for that if you thought about it. If you talk to your wife about.
- [68:07]
A
It, oh, I'm guilty. I should go straight to jail. I mean, that's just what taxes are. You look at it and you go, fuck this. And then that's. That's attempted tax evasion.
- [68:16]
B
More or Less so.
- [68:18]
A
This is just bullshit. They're trying to find anything. They have this original thing that gets scrubbed off and then the tacked on things. Now they're kind of stuck with, and they're like, all right, I guess we go forward with this, and the states and the people in that prosecuting district still have a little bit of a vendetta against you.
- [68:34]
B
More than a little. Plus, they have the honor of the core, you know, the reputation at stake, that we are infallible.
- [68:41]
A
Right.
- [68:41]
B
It was bad enough being spanked in the media that they had me down for cheating the Bronfmans, and they had to drop that after I caused her arrest. She's still in custody. I never spent a minute. Ranieri's in custody. So the two people that architected my demise are perfect examples of the adage, if you planned to dig a grave, dig two. But in this case, one guy might not happen to it. So I avoided the grave so far. And ultimately they dismissed all of the charges against me, and we were ready to go to trial. And then the prosecutors came up with an offer of no jail. Essentially no jail. And I would plead guilty to failing to file a form, a tax form, 12 years earlier in the sum of $19,000. It wasn't tax evasion. I had paid the tax on the money. I had merely neglected to inform the irs, as required by law, that the money came in cash. That is, I reported the cash as income, but I didn't tell the IRS that it came in cash.
- [70:02]
A
Wow.
- [70:03]
B
And that was the result. No jail time. And from stealing millions to failing to report $19,000 was the resolution was either that or go to trial.
- [70:17]
A
Well, I'm disgusted by your behavior. Okay. For one, you're not off the hook with me. Okay. The fact you didn't say it was cash. I mean, shame on you, Frank. That's reprehensible. But as long as that. You know, I trust the judicial process in this regard.
- [70:31]
B
Oh, yeah, we learned to trust.
- [70:33]
A
So it's strange, actually, because now you're in between two egos and power structures. You're through the power structure of this organization and Ranieri, at the behest of the Bronfmans, to prosecute you for going against their power. And you're also against the power structure of the Western District of New York for going against their power. So now it's basically two power structures that are trying to get you. One of them gets mitigated by your efforts with the Frank report. The other one now has to kind of dwindle what their original assault on.
- [71:04]
B
You was, it dwindled to what started as a mountain became a semi molehill.
- [71:12]
A
Yeah. Now, when you start doing the Frank Report, at the time when you were a consultant for nxivm, you're seeing some maybe unethical financial movements. You're seeing some interesting things happening with this leader. But I don't know if the nature of the criminality is exposed to you at the time as a consultant, especially to the degree that we know of now, including sexual extortion and blackmail material, branding, ritualistic abuse. So how do you uncover these things and then how do you move to basically report this to your report and then to larger newspapers and media companies?
- [71:51]
B
The nature of Relentless publishing is that you develop sources. People call you and they want to tell you things. And I had written quite a bit about Ranieri. And one day I get a call from an actress by the name of Katherine Oxenberg. She had once appeared as a major star in a television show called Dynasty. And she called me to say, my daughter's been branded. She's in a master slave relationship called Doss, and her name is India, and she's basically being starved and coerced to do things, but she doesn't believe it. She likes what she's doing and she's proud of it, but she's been branded. When I heard this from her, I knew that I had him at last.
- [72:47]
A
Wow.
- [72:47]
B
Not that branding per se is illegal. And the location of the brand, by the way, also buried him. If he had branded these women on the butt, the shoulder, the abdomen, he could have survived. But he put him his brand, which were his initials, on their pubic area.
- [73:08]
A
Oh, wow. The location of the brand actually affected the criminality of it.
- [73:13]
B
Yeah. It's not a crime. You can get a brand. That wasn't the crime. But I knew that you don't have to necessarily have a crime. You have to have the thing that shocks the conscience to make people believe a person's dirty than you find the crime. It's the exact process that the government uses.
- [73:33]
A
Oh, wow. So you're even just tapping into the human psychology to say when people find out not necessarily the brand, but where it is, this is going to wake up America to the evil nature of.
- [73:43]
B
This person and also the fact that it was women being branded. If men had been branded, it would have mattered.
- [73:49]
A
And does the consensuality of the brand matter at this point? Do you know that these brands are done without consent, or did that part not come up in the.
- [74:00]
B
They were Done with consent. So called consent was to be part of the sorority. But I knew from a psychological standpoint, there's two things that are part of society. One is the nature of the brand with his initials, which was actually a bit of fraud because he didn't tell these women that they were his initials. They told the women it was a symbol of the four elements. But if you turned it counterclockwise 90 degrees, you could then see very clearly K A, R. Keith Ellen Ranieri.
- [74:34]
A
We'll put the image on the screen now so people can see it. It's a pretty disturbing element of this entire story. So you get this call or an email from this woman, a phone call, a phone call that my daughter's now in this group. What is your initial action? Do you go meet with her? Do you try to find other stories of other people? What happens next?
- [74:52]
B
Well, I had to confirm it because Keith was not averse to me being his enemy and under indictment on his work. I had to make sure this wasn't a plant, a phony. I didn't want to write this and then get sued. So I had to independently verify it. And I was able to do so. On June 5, 2017, I wrote the first story about the branding and named Alison Mack as the actress as top lieutenant. The story became most effective. Within a few weeks and a few more stories, 75% of his organization left.
- [75:37]
A
Wow.
- [75:37]
B
Because he didn't tell people this was secret. Yes.
- [75:40]
A
The women, the branding element happened specifically within dos.
- [75:43]
B
Right.
- [75:44]
A
Can you explain what DOSS is?
- [75:46]
B
It was meant to be a secret society to empower women with a brand new kind of power.
- [75:53]
A
Brand new, pun intended, brand included.
- [75:57]
B
And the idea of empowering women in Ranieri's mind was making them all slaves to him. So he was the only man in the sorority. There were 105 women and they were in a hierarchy. And Allison Mack was one of the leaders. And I knew that would be helpful because she's a names make news worthy figure. And so I started writing and the major media started looking at it, but they thought I was just making this up. Nothing could be this crazy. But finally a New York Times reporter contacted me and we were able to persuade him or together. We worked in tandem so he could understand the truth of it. He talked to people and verified that this was true. And he wrote a story about it that he thought for the longest time wouldn't even be a very important story. They were much more in the New York Times. They have a fascination with Donald Trump. And at that Time they were far more interested in his doings. Right.
- [77:08]
A
This is 2017.
- [77:10]
B
Yes, 2017 makes sense. And so consequently, they finally were persuaded, with my assistance, to finally publish the story with the simple explanation on my part that if you don't publish the story, the Albany Times Union will be publishing it within 24 hours. Which was true.
- [77:32]
A
Right.
- [77:33]
B
Because they had contacted me also.
- [77:34]
A
That'd be embarrassing if the New York Times lost out on a story to the Albany Times and they had been.
- [77:39]
B
Working on it for four months.
- [77:40]
A
Wow.
- [77:42]
B
They picked it up almost immediately after I published the first report. But that took him four months to.
- [77:47]
A
First of all, verify it, corroborate everything.
- [77:50]
B
And then secondly, Trump was always upstaging a simple case of a guy in Albany, Brandeen women.
- [77:58]
A
Right. Wow. So now once it gets picked up by the New York Times, now it's a national story.
- [78:06]
B
Oh, yeah. It spread wildly around the world.
- [78:09]
A
And what were the main points of Ranieri's malfeasance that you uncovered that got sort of the most fanfare, obviously, the branding, the inappropriate and sort of hierarchical sexual relationships with many of the women in leadership. What else came up in sort of disorganization that people found the most abhorrent?
- [78:28]
B
Well, that was the abhorrent thing. There's two things. There's the law, and then there's dirtying up a person and the government. Now, the Department of Justice, their main interest now is if they don't have the law, they dirty up a person and a jury will dislike the defendant enough that they'll convict him on anything. The charges were racketeering. I wrote a dossier that I gave to the government, which pretty much they mimicked in their indictment. It's not illegal to brand somebody. That wasn't the crime. But the course of the extortion, the fraud, not telling these women that it was Ranieri's initials, racketeering, financial crimes. Everything that I had written out and prepared for them wound up in the indictment. But they took it to new extremes. I saw these as a different kind of crime than the government did, but Brooklyn wanted to push it, and they created a brand new kind of sex trafficking and were successful in prosecuting Ranieri for sex trafficking and forced labor conspiracy that were, in my mind, really more like state law, extortion and fraud.
- [79:48]
A
Wow. Now, when this comes out, does Ranieri go into hiding? He sees this New York Times article. This is if I'm him. This is a big deal. This is a bad one.
- [79:59]
B
Yeah. He split.
- [80:00]
A
Where does he go?
- [80:01]
B
He ran off to Mexico where he had many followers and powerful friends. Yeah, lamentably, he had some wealthy friends. And he snuck off and was down in Mexico. And a billionaire father of one of his dos slaves, really a brilliant man by the name of Alejandro Hunko, who is the largest media magnate of Mexico. He came to me and said, you know, we got to get my daughter out. And here's a little tip for you. I've been hiring investigators. Here's where Ranieri is. Here's a photograph. Publish it.
- [80:45]
A
Wow.
- [80:46]
B
He couldn't do it himself, but he sent me the picture. I published that Ranieri was in Mexico. The FBI read my publication, as they admitted in my. In their filing for a search warrant. They went down there and they found him, had the Mexican federal police arrest him. They deported him within hours. And he was then arrested in Texas, arraigned and sent up to Brooklyn, where the prosecutors took the lead on this case. And he never got out of jail since. That was March 26, 2018, and he has 99 years to go.
- [81:34]
A
Wow. Now, who all was charged in relationship with your reporting and what were their charges?
- [81:41]
B
Six individuals were charged. Keith Ranieri, Claire Broffman, the one who filed the criminal complaint against me, Nancy Salzman, his lieutenant, who was the technically the president of nxivm, their hapless bookkeeper, Kathy Russell, the actress Alison Mack, and the daughter of Nancy Salzman, who is the Director of education. Her name is Lauren Salzman. She became a cooperating witness.
- [82:16]
A
And what happened to all the money from nxivm? I mean, there must have been millions or hundreds of millions of dollars in random trusts and funds and accounts. Where does all that go?
- [82:26]
B
That's a good question.
- [82:29]
A
Is there any official story as to what happens to it?
- [82:32]
B
Well, if you hear Keith Ranieri tell it, he didn't have any money. The Broffmans admitted they had money, but they were able to buy their way out of more seizure by paying, I believe, a $6 million restitution payment, which the government kept most of it. And they made restitution to some of the so called victims of a portion of that money.
- [83:03]
A
Wow, interesting. And how many, you know, are there relief efforts for these victims in terms of, like social groups and, you know, therapy or anything like that for any of the people that suffered psychologically at the hands of Ranieri?
- [83:17]
B
Well, they got some money for therapy. How much? The victims began to exaggerate their victimization, you know, and this is a standard thing. They are suing Bronfman, the Bronfman sisters now. And so their Stories of victimization grew and grew and grew. I see some of them were abused and some were exaggerated.
- [83:47]
A
Their abuse, I see probably also at the hands of lawyers. I can imagine that attorney gets in their ear and is like, are you sure this happened to you? What if this happened to you? Because it's the difference of a million dollars. And not to say that the victims themselves are aggrandizing their trauma, but I could also see people within, in their corners trying to get a little extra percentage gone.
- [84:07]
B
Well, yeah, the attorney lays out hypothetical scenarios and he said, if you remember this, you'll make $5 million, but if you don't remember this, you'll make $100,000 or nothing at all. And the victim thinks for a minute. Oh, I think I remember.
- [84:25]
A
Yeah. It's interesting, almost planting a false memory. I mean, this is. We've heard of things like this with like hypnosis and sort of malevolent forms of NLP and things like that. It's interesting, interesting behavior. Now, were there any people, and you don't necessarily need to say by name, but were there any people that weren't indicted or criminally prosecuted that you felt were in some way involved or should have been investigated? Or do you think the prosecution did a thorough and fair job?
- [84:55]
B
They could have indicted more people. That was their discretion. I don't think they wanted to indict anymore. They had a nice medley of people. They didn't need any more. They could have indicted 100 if they wanted, but they chose six because that was how they felt they put their case together.
- [85:17]
A
I see. Now, without the leader, does the organization disband completely or do any of the other high brass that weren't prosecuted sort of create defaction or factions or sort of create other sects of the organization and still continue the teachings? Like, what is the nature of nxivm?
- [85:35]
B
Today it has a few ragtag people that still believe in it, maybe a dozen or so. They still get together annually for Vanguard Week, a 10 day celebration of the nativity of Keith Ranieri.
- [85:50]
A
I see. Now, I imagine these people are not fans of you.
- [85:55]
B
No. Although we've come to an interesting reconciliation. And so that I've become to know them and they've come to know me. We've spent some time together.
- [86:06]
A
Interesting. And I wonder, do they have any respect for your work in the sense that they acknowledged that what Rhaenyra was doing was wrong, but the teachings were actually good?
- [86:16]
B
No, no, they don't respect the work I did to take down Raniere. I was the enemy number one. But they respect the fact that I might be able to show a piece of the case that was completely in doubt, very skeptical part of the case, and that is that the FBI may have planted evidence in the case to ensure his conviction.
- [86:42]
A
Interesting. That's what they believe.
- [86:44]
B
They believe it. And there's reasonable doubt there. There is the possibility that evidence was planted to ensure the conviction.
- [86:55]
A
What would that evidence be, hypothetically?
- [86:58]
B
What I think it is is very specifically 22 photographs taken of a woman by the name of Camila, Mexican woman, when purportedly she was 15 years of age. His girlfriend, his long standing girlfriend. And the pictures are. And I've never seen them because they constitute child porn, but I read the descriptions and those 22 photographs appeared on Ranieri seized hard drive a few days before trial when there were six defendants. Heretofore it had been a case of adults and the defense was going to be consenting adults. Now they introduced a child. It was a late innings discovery, quote, unquote, by the FBI of these 22 photographs, with the net result that the other five defendants all took plea deals within a few weeks. Trial was delayed slightly. Everybody got out of the case and Ranieri stood alone.
- [88:12]
A
Wow. Now, is the suggestion that these photographs are don't exist and that they may be fabricated, or is it that they somehow acquired these photographs of his. The woman is now his girlfriend, or at the time was his girlfriend.
- [88:28]
B
Yeah.
- [88:28]
A
That they acquired these photos at some later date and then planted them? Like, I guess. How would you acquire photographs like this if you were to plant them?
- [88:39]
B
The key to the photographs. And I would, if I were to guess, I'd say he did take the photographs. The date's a little unclear because the mystery around the metadata is confusing. It has a creation date of 2003, which was a year before the camera was manufactured. But the EXIF data shows that it was taken on two dates in 2005, when she was 15 years old. But then there's additional metadata that suggests a 2009 date. So there was contradictory metadata that looked along with some of the other pictures in the file, like someone had clumsily manipulated the metadata. If I were to guess if it was illegally obtained, I think what happened was her sister, who was a cooperating witness, or not a cooperating witness, rather a witness for the prosecution, provided those photographs to the FBI and they planted them on Ranieri's hard drive.
- [89:48]
A
Wow. Was this brought up by the defense at all or was it not? Did the jury not hear this at all?
- [89:53]
B
The jury did not hear it because it wasn't discovered till after the conviction.
- [89:59]
A
Wow.
- [90:00]
B
Which makes me believe that he did, in fact, take the pictures. But there's a point here. He may have taken those pictures, but if the FBI didn't obtain them legally, it's tainted evidence and he should not have been convicted of that charge.
- [90:17]
A
Right. Would that have lessened his sentence in any significant way?
- [90:21]
B
Well, not really. However, it was the game changer in the entire case because up until that point, you had six defendants and 27 lawyers that were going to appear in courtroom at a trial. And each one of those lawyers, or for at least for each of the six, would have had an opportunity to cross examine. It would have been a very unwieldy scene. But when they found the child porn, that changed the entire game. And everyone vamoosed.
- [90:53]
A
Wow.
- [90:54]
B
With the exception of Ranieri.
- [90:56]
A
Did any of them testify against Ranieri?
- [90:58]
B
Not at the. Yes. One of the defendants, Lawrence Salzman, was the star witness.
- [91:05]
A
Oh, wow. And completely exposed everything. Do you think she was keeping some secrets or did she completely sort of open the book on Raniere and his misconduct?
- [91:17]
B
Well, she'd been clearly coached for days by the prosecution, and she was most persuasive. And an interesting thing happened that told me a lot about the way the Eastern District conducts itself. The judge stopped her cross examination at a critical time. Just when she would have unraveled her plea deal, he halted her cross.
- [91:47]
A
And he's allowed to do this?
- [91:49]
B
Well, it was brought up on appeal. The appellate court did not feel it was outside the boundaries of his trial judge discretion. They then attempted to appeal it to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court denied to hear the case.
- [92:04]
A
And what is the benefit of halting her testimony?
- [92:08]
B
Well, he said that she was having a breakdown and that the attorney for the defense was questioning her too hard and that he was badgering her. And yet the question that he halted the cross examination on was a question that was objected to by the prosecution, which he specifically said the judge, that she could answer. When she answered it and started to cry, he said, okay, that's it. It's over. You're done. And he shouted it at the top of his lungs at the front of the jury in to the defense lawyer.
- [92:51]
A
And what was the question?
- [92:53]
B
Question is, did you intend to do harm when you were doing these various things in das? And then she started to blubber out an answer along the lines of, no. My intentions were to do good. I wanted to live up to what Keith Ranieri thought of me. And then he saw I think the judge saw that she was about to unravel the plea deal because her plea deal specifically said she admitted that she knew it was wrong, what she did was wrong, her intent was bad, and now she was undoing her intent.
- [93:29]
A
Ah, I see. Interesting.
- [93:33]
B
Now, the judge said it was because she's a broken person and that she was having a nervous breakdown or a breakdown. So he stopped it out of the compassion that goes beyond being a judge. He says, I'm a human first and a judge second. But actually what I think I'd rather have is a judge first, a neutral, impartial judge if I was being tried.
- [93:56]
A
Wow. And she ended up getting sentenced to probation. Was that two years? I think.
- [94:03]
B
I don't recall if it was three years or what. She became a dog groomer. So she went from a couple hundred thousand dollars a year salary to grooming dogs. I see her a little like the character in Psycho at the very end of the film where he says, look at me. If I hope they're watching, I wouldn't even hurt a fly.
- [94:23]
A
Now why you? I'm sure they've gone after many people. They've tried to fuck over probably dozens, if not hundreds of people throughout, you know, since the 90s until 2006 or 7. When you get involved, why did no one else try to stick up? Or why did no one else try to get out in front of this? Or did people try to expose the organization when they were getting fucked with?
- [94:44]
B
They, almost all of them got indicted or destroyed, bankrupted. Anybody that complained, you know, at one time he had all of his enemies indicted.
- [94:53]
A
And how did you evade it? Like, obviously they came for you, but how? Like, what was it about you and your work that made you impenetrable to his assailants?
- [95:08]
B
I think that as an investigative reporter, I was able to expose the falsehoods and cut between truth and falsehood. And so it worked out very promisingly for me because once I did that, I became very much in demand on a more national level, both from people who are guilty of things and. But people who are falsely accused. And then I discovered now the Ranieri case had a lot of hair on it. He was guilty of some things, but he was, I think, way over sentenced at 120 years. The average murderer, I think the Department of Justice issued some statistics that suggest that the Average murderer gets 17 and a half years of incarceral time. Ranieri got 120 years, but no one was murdered.
- [96:00]
A
Yeah, but this is also, if you count the social context of the MeToo movement. And I also think by and large, the Trump presidency probably played a large role on, I think the sentencing, the judge at the time, and also the social attitude, which I don't know if that necessarily should factor in, but I think it certainly did.
- [96:18]
B
Well, he did it cleverly. He didn't sentence him to life. He, he broke down the different charges and gave 40 years here, 20 years there, 30 years there, so that if anything was appealed and overturned, he'd still spend his life in prison.
- [96:32]
A
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- [99:48]
B
He sentenced him to life, in effect, and maybe he deserved it for things that he wasn't convicted of. But if we're sticklers to due process, he should only be sentenced to what he was actually convicted of.
- [100:04]
A
And what would that sentence hold based off of what his actual convictions should have been?
- [100:10]
B
Well, it was what's in line with the convictions that the prosecution was able because they stretched new boundaries with sex trafficking, they created a brand new precedent that makes probably every one whoever has sex in America potentially guilty of sex trafficking. They changed the definition by changing the jury instructions. In the Ranieri case, they diluted the definition of commercial sex. And commercial sex is an element of sex trafficking. That is, you can't sex traffic unless there's some commercial profit to somebody, the sex trafficker or someone involved in the scheme. And in this case, there was no money that changed hands. It was a single incident. And they diluted the sex trafficking to a jury instruction that said all somebody had to do is to be commercial sex to get something of value.
- [101:15]
A
Hmm, I see how that could be open to interpretation if that's all it says.
- [101:20]
B
Well, the example that was given is, let's say you're a boss in a company and I set up a girl for you to be intimate with, and because of that, you're pleased with me. That's sex trafficking.
- [101:40]
A
Right. But there would have to be some type of exchange in that hypothetical.
- [101:46]
B
The exchange is just your pleasure. You were pleased with me because that's the only commercial benefit.
- [101:51]
A
And that would be considered something of value by an attorney. Interesting. Hmm.
- [101:57]
B
And it slipped in between the hatred of Ranieri because no media would defend him. So that we've changed the sex trafficking law into one that is now so much different than what was intended by Congress that you have now the potential that anyone could be guilty of sex trafficking, even if there's no commercial. Typically understood to be commercial sex.
- [102:22]
A
Now is the new definition. Has that been brought up in any cases since then?
- [102:27]
B
It was used in other cases like R. Kelly and other cases where money didn't specifically change hands. It's become the new tool of prosecutors. Similarly, they're in the Carlos Watson case. They've tried to expand and successfully so far, the definition of wire fraud. In the Onetaste case. It's all coming out of Brooklyn, too. They are attempting to expand the definition of forced labor conspiracy.
- [103:00]
A
And what would fall under that in some type of hypothetical?
- [103:04]
B
Well, in the Oneties case, you got something extraordinary going because you have a standalone charge against two women, Nicole de Donan, Rachel Churwitz, for forced labor conspiracy without the typical accompanying charge of forced labor. In other words, they conspired to force people to labor but were unsuccessful. And that's the first time in U.S. history that anybody's been charged with just simply forced labor labor conspiracy.
- [103:39]
A
It's interesting. It's interesting how these overcorrections can potentially cause more problems and that you hope that eventually We've reached some type of equilibrium where certainly there's misconduct. In this workplace. Example, there are people that are using their power as a means to have inappropriate relationships with people that they have power over. That shouldn't happen. But when the overcorrection is so broad and vague, that opens up new issues legally and that hopefully we can reach some type of common ground and some type of reasonable understanding in the middle. Some type of Hegelian dialectic, possibly that.
- [104:14]
B
Would be essential if there was anyone that would be willing to even read Hegel for two minutes. We have a prosecution in the United States, the federal prosecutors that have almost unlimited power. And it's gotten to the point where find me the person and we will get you the crime. Show me the person and I'll get you a crime. And reverting back to the One Taste case, extraordinary case of prosecutorial misconduct. Their indictment alleges that these two women, Nicole Dadone and who founded One Taste, a San Francisco corporation, and her head of sales, Rachel Chyrwitz, conspired to force people to labor. But they never succeeded. And as the U.S. attorney said, we don't need any victims. All we have to show is that they conspired to force people to labor. Now, it becomes laughable when you realize that in the indictment itself, which has no victims, no names, no spec specific dates of anything, just that they conspired. They conspired for 12 years.
- [105:35]
A
And why these? Why these people? Why do they want to get these women?
- [105:40]
B
It's a very good question. It's a fundamental question. Good headlines. Remember, prosecutors are not justice driven. They are conviction stat driven. And for some unknown reason, people believe that prosecutors are ethicists. They are people above the temptations of presidents, senators, congressmen, mayors who could be corrupt prosecutors. They believe because they get the bad guys or girls in this case are above corruption. So we don't need checks and balances on their unlimited discretion. At one time, we had something called a grand jury and no longer exists.
- [106:21]
A
Hmm. Do you think Ranieri was working solely on his own as some type of malevolent dictator within the organization? Or do you think that he had any connections to other people, whether it's in politics or other billionaires, that he was somehow using his power and leverage amongst this cohort of valuable and wealthy constituents? Or do you think it was just a lone wolf that was crazed with power?
- [106:47]
B
I've heard the allegations that he was connected to Epstein or to Branson or other people. I've seen no evidence of that. And when I was there, My impression of him is he was too egotistical to really be able to work with anybody. And his lieutenants, because he didn't talk to many people. His lieutenants were not competent to arrange sophisticated networking with underground traffickers or anything close to it.
- [107:26]
A
I see.
- [107:26]
B
They actually thought they were doing good.
- [107:28]
A
Right. Which is maybe the most evil component of all the real 1984 situation. I'm curious if you, in all of your sort of reporting on this case, do you have any regrets in hindsight about how you did the reporting? Any of the nature of the conduct? Is there anything you would have done differently going forward? Or do you feel like things resolved in a way that you're completely happy with?
- [107:54]
B
I'm sorry for the fact that my reporting wound up changing the sex trafficking law in the United States. I'm not saying that sex trafficking should be at all tolerated, but some things are sex trafficking and some things just aren't. They may be some kind of prostitution, they may be some kind of abuse of power, but sex trafficking comes with a mandatory 15 years. And for what Ranieri did with this one woman, that's not a. I think he got 40 years for that. That isn't 40 year sentence. And there was a lot that wasn't told. However, I was in the fight for my life. Ranieri was trying to put me in prison for life. So I had to throw some wild, heavy blows. And if it hurt some of his supporters, that was the price of being his supporter. I tried to warn Ellison Mack, leave him. I tried to warn the others to go away, don't fall with him. I'm taking him down. And I'm sorry that they had to be prosecuted. I was only going after Clare Broffman and Keith Ranieri.
- [109:07]
A
Hmm. Were there any other types of intimidation that was done by Ranieri or any of his henchmen to you or any of the people that, you know, outside of sort of the legal framework, was there any type of physical intimidation?
- [109:19]
B
I don't think so. Although, you know, I got death threats.
- [109:22]
A
But is that from him or is that from Anonymous?
- [109:26]
B
You know, from various people, Mexican based, but that. I don't know that he pulled the trigger on it. I think his lieutenants were not violent people. They thought they were doing good. They believed in him. I don't think Allison Mack thought she was doing anything evil. She probably thought she was doing good. May have been a little selfish, was a little stupid, but her intent wasn't to hurt the people. It was to. She thought she was promoting Ranieri's Magnificence.
- [110:01]
A
I see. Do you have like 15 more minutes? Is it okay if I, I want to just kind of pivot a little? Just to speak about the nature of media. I'm curious what your thoughts are. If someone is accused of say something that is, you know, against their character, whether rightly or wrongly, how would you counsel them to fight the allegations? Let's say there is, oh, this person defrauded someone, or this person did this type of sex crime and let's say it's completely bullshit. What should they do? Should they just get an attorney immediately? Should they fight it with truth? Should they countersue? What do you think is the best way to handle that situation?
- [110:41]
B
The game has changed dramatically in the last 20 years, and it is serious now. They used to say that a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich. I would say now you could say a jury, a federal jury will indict a bologna sandwich. Doesn't matter what the evidence is. The rules are so cocked up in favor of the government that federal prosecutions are no longer a quest for truth, but rather sentencing advocacy. It's about securing a plea deal on the bluff that you could go to trial. What I would advise someone who has been targeted by the feds to do is to obviously, if they're innocent, which many people are, they need a many fold strategy. One, you know, would be the legal side of it, but the other is they need to explain themselves to the media. The reason I think I avoided prison was that I spun every story and won every spin. Every time the government thought they had a story to smack me down with, I spun it to make them look dubious.
- [112:02]
A
Could you give an example of an effective spin?
- [112:05]
B
Yeah. In the case of the initial superseding indictment where they dropped the Bronfman charges, they put it out as a press release that they were indicting me on new charges. That was the story they wanted. And I said, wait a minute, buster, look who's not in the new indictment. They didn't mention that. Look whose name Whose initials aren't in the new indictment. And so the runaway headline was Bronfman's. After four years of being charged as a defrauder of the Bronfmans, they're now out of the indictment.
- [112:41]
A
Accuser becomes the accused.
- [112:43]
B
But because I spoke, my attorneys told me, don't speak to the media. So you want to bury me. I have to speak to the media.
- [112:52]
A
Wow. Now why is it important to get the public opinion on your side? How much does the public sway actually affect the way that a jury will.
- [113:00]
B
Go, it's not the jury. Juries have become neutered. It's the way the judges handle this. The judges are pretty much now almost useless appendages. The prosecutor has all the authority in a criminal case. Federal prosecutor, and to a large extent state as well. Judges are essentially fourth prosecutors. They stand in as prosecutors. And most of the role today is just sentencing plea bargains. And many innocent people take plea bargains because the penalties for going to trial is so severe. So we don't have justice in the federal system. Whatever the prosecutor says is going to wind up being the case in almost every instance. Now, if you have a lot of money, you have a chance of escaping the injustice. If you're falsely accused, if you don't have money, there's very little chance of escaping conviction whether you're innocent or not. And this, like Lord Acton said, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts. Power corrupts absolutely and absolutely. It is true that prosecutors have absolute power. They have managed it. First they got rid of the grand jury, their first check and balance. And then by Congress enacting such severe penalties for federal crimes and through their habit of overcharging people, they've eliminated the judiciary and the criminal justice system. Now it's just prosecutor alone with a defense lawyer and it's sentencing advocacy. It's going for a plea bargain unless you have the talent, as I did in my case, or you have the money to hire talent to bring it in front of the public and undress the case.
- [114:57]
A
Now, why did you go through traditional news apparatus? Did you try to do social media or things like that? Did you try to influence Twitter? Was that of any need for you?
- [115:09]
B
I didn't use it myself. I know some people do use it. I used my own blog, which got accredited as a news site by Google News and is accredited because it is, it provides news. Broke a lot of stories and because of the mainstream media. And the only thing that could slow down a train that's going to head to run you over was the media. That was the only chance of anybody being saved from a system that is not interested in justice. You can't go to federal trial because the rules are all cocked up against the defendant. You know, the jury sits here. The defendant sits here. The prosecution sits here. This is by design. Jury here, prosecution here, defendant. You can barely see him. And jury can smell the cologne of the prosecutor. And when somebody says something they don't like, they go, oh, look at that liar. And they shake their head or they'll flash a picture. They'll all pretend this doesn't happen. Legal fictions. But they bond with the jury. That's just one of many things. Let me ask you a question, please. There's opening and closing statements, right? And trials. And what's your impression? How does that work? Do you know?
- [116:29]
A
I have no idea. But if I had to guess based off watching one OJ Documentary, I would say the opening is why you are sort of proving, depending on whether you're prosecution or defense, basically proving the motivation of the criminal that you're prosecuting or effectively trying to lay out the truth of the matter. And then the closing would basically be summarizing all of the events that took place and why your defendant or why the. I guess the person being prosecuted is either guilty or not guilty.
- [116:59]
B
And what's the order? How does it go? Do you know what the order is? Prosecution, defense, how does the. How does that work?
- [117:04]
A
If I had to guess off the top of my head, my brother's an attorney. He'll be very frustrated that I got this wrong. But if I had to guess, I think it's probably. You're leading me here a little bit. I think it's probably the defense. And then the prosecution closes.
- [117:18]
B
Here's how it works. Prosecution opens. So the first impression the jury gets is from the prosecution. Then the defense makes a opening statement, which is fair because the prosecution has the case, defense wants to rebut it. But the closing in federal is different than most states. At the closing, after all the evidence, much of it way beyond a jury or boring a jury, the prosecution makes a closing, then the defense makes a closing. And then here's the dirty little secret. Prosecution gets a second closing, really, to rebot everything the defense just said. So they have primacy and they have recency. They have the first impression and they have the last impression.
- [118:04]
A
That's a huge advantage.
- [118:05]
B
Huge advantage. Very few people know that. You think if you watch Perry Mason or any of these law shows, the defense gets the last word? No, not in this case. Not in federal.
- [118:16]
A
Wow, I did not expect that. And why is it that way? Is that in order to secure convictions, in which case it helps the prosecuting.
- [118:23]
B
The da, it helps to defer trials, or the system is so cocked up against the defendant that it encourages plea deals, and this encourages the criminal justice industry by. If you had to try all these cases.
- [118:43]
A
So expensive, so much time.
- [118:44]
B
So much time and so few people would go to prison that you couldn't even keep the industry moving. Right now we have a Big industry in putting people in prison. And we don't want to lose that. And the best way to do that is to put innocent people along with the guilty in jail by going through the legal fiction of a plea bargain. And I'd like to take, if I could, just a minute to talk about this One Taste case, which I'm handling. Because it's a very serious thing that Brooklyn is doing. Again, trying to move the ball further into a police state territory. Do you know anything about the One.
- [119:21]
A
Taste case other than what you've mentioned?
- [119:26]
B
A woman started a group. It's a sexual wellness company or a philosophical company. One of the things they do, and I know it may sound terrible and scandalous and I don't practice it myself, but I believe they should have the right because it is legal. They do a partnered meditation. And their partnered meditation is involving a stroker and a strokee. A stroker dons a rubber glove and he then strokes the clitoris of his partner, a woman, for 15 minutes. It is billed as a meditative practice, and there is a great. A good deal of literature around it that it has a certain effect on the meditative or intuitive qualities of the woman and the stroker, who is usually a man. And this practice began to take off. It was in San Francisco. And a number of people became very enamored with it. And what they tried to do is NEXIVM 2.0. They wanted to turn this. The Brooklyn prosecutors wanted to make this into their next high headline NXIVM cult case. And yet there are some tremendous differences in the two organizations. And yes, the practice may seem repugnant to some, but it's not illegal. And these are all consenting adults who was never a breath of anyone sane. That there were anyone under the age of even 21, I don't think that ever attended. And there were 16,000 people who did this, took some kind of course where they teach this practice. So right in class, you know, it sounds shocking. Maybe came out of San Francisco, so it's maybe not so strange. Will women take their pants off and they lie down right in class and a man will go next to him, put on a glove and stroke her clitoris for 15 minutes with certain teachings that are devised to raise awareness. Does it? I don't know. I've never practiced it. But I will fight for the right to be able to practice this. Because every philosophy was met with repugnance and with certitude that it was evil that ever was introduced to the world.
- [122:04]
A
And who's prosecuting the case. And for what reason?
- [122:08]
B
The Eastern District of New York, here in Brooklyn, same people that prosecuted Ranieri. And they're taking this case on brand new territory. Forced labor conspiracy without any forced labor. They're basically trying to say that this was a cult and that the two leaders conspired to force people into labor, laboring for free, either sex or free labor, but they never succeeded. On its surface, it's ludicrous. How did two women conspire for 12 years to force people to labor and fail? I mean, you and I could conspire to make somebody do labor. We could do it in probably three hours. Wouldn't take us 12 years and fail. Now, I know they're women, not as good at forced labor, but they failed.
- [123:03]
A
Now, were these women that were going to these meditations, were they free to leave at any time?
- [123:09]
B
Absolutely.
- [123:10]
A
Were they checking identification when they were coming into the room?
- [123:13]
B
Just for age. Just for age, Right. What I found fascinating was there was never a charge of sexual harassment, never a legal charge of rape or any accusations. For 18 years, this company was in business. When you look at their records, the educational level of the attendees, particularly the women, their educational and income levels are higher than the average. A higher number of college educated people, higher medium income than the national average.
- [123:43]
A
Were the advertising materials misleading?
- [123:46]
B
I couldn't see it, no. The government said that they explored or tried to recruit sexually traumatized women. But I can't find one single advertisement that ever suggested that. The government started this case based on a media report. Much like in my case with Ranieri. They came off of a Bloomberg story that was very speciously and dishonestly written. And what they thought they had was sex trafficking. And they went into a five year investigation. And if you know anything about the FBI, they can't afford to spend that kind of time without coming up with something. It's not about justice, it's about conviction stats. And so they had to charge him with something. So they came up with the flimsiest of all charges. Forced labor conspiracy, two women trying for 12 years and failing. And of course they look like dumbasses. And what we're doing is I'm showing this case to be what it really is, a naked aggression against people because they felt they could get the headlines. They blundered because they're not getting the headlines and now they're backtracking.
- [125:03]
A
Interesting.
- [125:04]
B
It's the headlines that are saving. But the media is in goose step, is in lockstep with the prosecution almost invariably.
- [125:15]
A
Yeah, I mean, without knowing more about the case, I'd probably defer comment. But it is an interesting situation, and I do fully believe that there are these cases where you have government agencies that are looking to get convictions and they go down a road and there's some cost fallacy that goes along with that to say, we've already invested this much, what can we get? And, yeah, no question that happens. I'm curious, as someone that lives in New York, did you see, I guess, what are your thoughts, or if you have opinions about the case against Trump, would you be comfortable discussing that or any of the charges that were brought against him? Do you feel like that was a similar thing where they're trying to get headlines and trying to get prosecution?
- [125:58]
B
Well, I don't know enough about the case as I'm pretty absorbed with my clients and the cases that I have defending people in real serious trouble. But I do know prosecutors have almost absolute power, so I expect absolute corruption. I don't know the details of. Of Trump's crime, and, you know, I'm not really able to speak about it, except that a prosecutor can get anyone indicted, and at least in the federal system, anyone convicted. Juries are now neutered. They don't know their. They don't know their rights. Juries don't know why they were put on earth. Why the founders, why in Magna Carta, jurors were established, which is not just to judge innocence or guilt, but to judge the law, to judge the prosecution. They can judge everything, and they don't have to follow the law.
- [126:57]
A
What do you mean they don't have to follow the law?
- [127:00]
B
The jury is a law unto themselves. And this is by absolute design. You know, when Thomas Jefferson was asked, what would you rather have the right for people to vote if you can only have one, the right for people to vote or the right for people to have a jury? And he said, I'd give up voting in a second. I'd go just with the jury. Because anyone can make a law, but only a jury can enforce a law. Now, what did he mean by that? What he meant was, you can't overturn an acquittal. A judge does not have the power to overturn an acquittal. So if you are charged with, say, for example, helping a fugitive slave escape, that's against the law. At least it was in 1850. But juries refused to convict people on that. They didn't follow the law. They made their own law and say, we don't think that should be a crime, helping a human being escape so they hung juries and they acquitted people who were criminals who actually helped slaves escape. This is what they did. During Prohibition, juries acquitted or hung on more than 50% of the cases. So finally, they couldn't enforce prohibition. They had to undo the constitutional amendment. This happens from time to time. But now today, juries don't know when they see a crazy prosecution. They're intimidated by the judges, they're intimidated by the prosecution who they practically sit on their laps and consequently, they vote to convict when they don't even understand what's really going on.
- [128:45]
A
And how do you ameliorate these juries? Lack of knowledge?
- [128:49]
B
We have to teach them. They are in charge in that courtroom because if they acquit, nobody can undo it and a jury can't be punished. They don't have to say why they acquit. They could just feel that the guy did sell marijuana. He did. He absolutely sold it. But I don't think marijuana people should go to jail because they sell marijuana. I'm going to just hang this jury and I'm not even going to say why. If they stand up to the other 11 now, the judge, of course, will tell them, you must, if you feel that they broke the law. You can't judge the law. But that's not true. The whole purpose of the jury was to judge the law. It was to prevent the king from putting anyone he wanted in jail. He had to get the consent, unanimous consent of 12 people.
- [129:43]
A
Wow, that's so interesting. I never knew this. I always thought, like, if I was called to jury duty, I would say, look, this law is bullshit. But this person did break it. They knew that they were breaking it, therefore they're guilty.
- [129:54]
B
That's not your job as a ju. Job is to judge the law.
- [129:57]
A
Wow.
- [129:58]
B
That's what prevents a tyranny. And that's why Jefferson said, I don't care about voting as much as I care about a jury. Because a jury knows, at least it was at that time, well known, that the jury has the absolute say about any law. Government can make a law. Only the jury can enforce the law. And that means unanimous consent of 12 people. This is trial by the country instead of trial by government. When you take the jury away, you have trial by government. And this is why the jury was put into the Constitution. Jefferson was well aware of the case of John Peter Zenger, where he published falsehoods or truths, depending on how you look at it, about the government. But he criticized the government. It was illegal at that time, colonial time, to criticize the colonial governor of New York. He went to trial, and his attorney persuaded the jury that they had the right to nullify that law because he published the truth. And the jury defied the instructions of the judge because he broke the law. Zenger broke the law. He wrote bad things about the government. But the jury said, we don't care if he wrote bad things. We don't think that should be a law. And the jury gave the people freedom.
- [131:18]
A
And why don't defense attorneys tell juries this while they're actually going through hearings?
- [131:23]
B
Would you believe that the federal government made it illegal to tell in 1895? They saw this was happening. They made it illegal to tell this if the judge won't let them. So it's not illegal that the jury can nullify the law because you can't overturn the verdict. That's just logic. Fact. But a judge can prevent a lawyer from telling the jury their power.
- [131:50]
A
On what grounds? I mean, we have Miranda rights for people that have been arrested.
- [131:55]
B
The case was Sparf USAV Sparf, 1895, where the Supreme Court acknowledged that juries do have the right to nullify the law, but the judges have the right to prevent the defense attorneys from telling the jury this in the courtroom.
- [132:14]
A
Wow.
- [132:16]
B
One more case to hammer at home. William Penn. You've heard of him? Sure. Pennsylvania is named after him. He was a Quaker. And it was illegal in England to have public assemblies and preach Quaker Quakerism. He was arrested, of course, and tried, and it was clear he broke the law. Everybody saw him. He preached Quakerism to a group of people. He was arrested. The judge said to the jury, you must find him guilty. 1640 or 1650, you must find him guilty because the evidence shows that he did break this law. You don't have any right to do anything but find him guilty. And this one juror enshrined in people's hearts who love liberty. Edward Bushnell. He said, no, I don't think it should be wrong to preach Quakerism. I don't think it's wrong for people to get together and say what they want. And so he hung the jury. They put him in jail. He and four or five others who insisted that they weren't going to find a man guilty because he taught Quakerism. They put him in jail. He was there in jail, and an uprising occurred. Wait a minute. This is undoing Magna Carta. You can't punish a jury for its verdict. You can't force a jury to find a man guilty. Even if he did break this law and ultimately they let Bushnell out and Penn went free and the jury established freedom of religion.
- [133:54]
A
Wow, that is fascinating. I knew nothing about this. I feel much more well informed now.
- [134:02]
B
I know it's something that people don't know. I wish it could restore liberty to this country.
- [134:07]
A
Yeah.
- [134:07]
B
If we're in danger of losing it. This was the remedy. Not the Second Amendment, but the Fourth Amendment. The right of a jury to stop tyrannical prosecutors and tyrannical laws.
- [134:20]
A
So a couple points to wrap up. Juries can sort of nullify laws that they see as unjust. In the case with nxivm, absolute power corrupts absolutely. As with the courts as well. And I guess lastly, don't fuck with Frank. That's something I learned.
- [134:38]
B
Well, I think if I could just bring back one taste for one second, please. Just because women get together and have a different sexual kind of teachings shouldn't be grounds to railroad them into prison. And I'm going to fight that. And I think you'll see in the next month or two a very embarrassed prosecution.
- [134:58]
A
I'm curious about this. Keep me updated with this. I'd love to learn more.
- [135:02]
B
I'd be delighted. And I appreciate your time. And thank you.
- [135:05]
A
Of course. Thank you so much. Appreciate.