Billionaire Bronfman Arrested For Funding NXIVM Sex Cult
Clare Bronfman, the heir to the multi-billion dollar liquor fortune of her billionaire philanthropist father Edgar Bronfman Sr, has been arrested and indicted on racketeering charges along with six other individuals in connection with the NXIVM group, an alleged sex cult. The U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York announced on Tuesday that Bronfman -- along with NXIVM founder Keith Raniere, former "Smallville" actress Allison Mack, Kathy Russell, Lauren Salzman and Nancy Salzman -- have been indicted on a handful of charges including racketeering, identity theft, extortion, forced labor, sex trafficking, money laundering, wire fraud and obstruction of justice."
Bronfman was arraigned Tuesday afternoon in Brooklyn and was placed on house arrest, forced to wear an electronic ankle monitor and post a whopping $100,000,000 in bail. Raniere and Mack were charged in April with a sex trafficking and forced labor conspiracy. The unsealing of the indictment on Tuesday marked the first time prosecutors had charged Bronfman, a member of NXIVM's executive board; Russell, NXIVM's former bookkeeper; Lauren Salzman, a member of NXIVM's executive board and Nancy Salzman, the president of NXIVM.
Bronfman is being accused of identity theft for allegedly helping Raniere monitor the electronic communications of his perceived enemies and critics, and for allegedly helping Raniere charge expenses to his sexual partner's credit cards after she died in 2016. The U.S. attorney's office alleges that Bronfman helped an alien enter illegally into the U.S. She has been named before in court papers, with authorities saying she gave millions of dollars to the organization to cover expenses like private air travel costing $65,000 flight.
Raniere has called NXIVM a self-help group, but investigators allege it was a multi-level marketing scheme used as a ruse to enslave and traffic women for sex. In March, federal prosecutors said they captured Raniere making some women brand themselves with his initials. He denied the allegation. Mack has been accused of recruiting women into the group and exploiting them.
In June, a federal judge in New York denied bail for Raniere in part because of his access to Bronfman's wealth. She has financed the defendant repeatedly over the years including providing him with millions of dollars and paying for private air travel costing up to approximately $65,000 a flight. She has also paid for numerous lawyers to bring suits against Nxivm critics. Bronfman also owns a private island in Fiji, which the defendant has visited, and both Bronfman and the defendant have contacts all around the world. According to the judge's report Raniere spent his life profiting from his pyramid schemes and has received financial backing from independently wealthy women. The judge sided with prosecutors who argued he could flee with the help of his benefactor Bronfman.
According to the judge's report, the defendant Raniere does not keep any money in his name and has no driver’s license. He makes purchases using a credit card in one of his dead lover’s names. In the past year and a half, the defendant and the mother of his child have accessed hundreds of thousands of dollars from a bank account in the same dead lover’s name, which contains over $8 million dollars.
Raniere has a decades’ long history of abusing women and girls. According to confidential sources, the defendant had repeated sexual encounters with multiple teenage girls in the mid-to-late 1980s and early 1990s. In one instance, the defendant met a fifteen-year-old girl while he was in his 20s and had repeated sexual contact with her. In another instance, the defendant met a twelve-year-old girl whose mother worked for the defendant and began tutoring her. Shortly thereafter, the defendant began having regular sexual intercourse with her, including at his home where he lived with multiple adult sexual partners. He believed the age of consent was too rigid and that it should be lowered to when a child’s parent says the child is capable of consent.
Many alternative media sources are reporting that in the criminal indictment against Raniere and Mack one of the pending counts is sex trafficking of children. The example below is the alleged copy of the indictment.
Claimed Copy of Counts Against Defendent
But the actual indictment does not say child trafficking, and with some quick research, first looking at the counts they are charged with and then searching the United States legal codes, it would apper that child trafficking is not specified as a primary count against the defendants. Bronfman has not been charged with any counts of human trafficking.
