Nine victims of Nxivm spoke with emotion about how their lives had been destroyed by Ms. Bronfman, leaving behind ruined marriages, careers and reputations. Some of them said Ms. Bronfman sued them relentlessly, drove them into bankruptcy and even persuaded local prosecutors to initiate criminal charges against them....Is this an unfair sentence? Bronfman pleaded guilty to "two charges related to identity theft and immigration fraud."
Nxivm... became known as a “sex cult” after trial testimony showed that [its leader Keith] Raniere had groomed a group of women in the group to be his sexual partners. During a secret ritual, the women were branded with his initials near their pelvis while saying, “Master, please brand me, it would be an honor.”...
Ms. Bronfman, who was not herself a member of the secretive women’s group, pleaded guilty to two charges related to identity theft and immigration fraud. But as he gave Ms. Bronfman a sentence that was even longer than prosecutors had requested, Judge Garaufis said Ms. Bronfman had willfully ignored the uglier side of Nxivm....
Since Mr. Raniere co-founded Nxivm in 1998, around 18,000 people have taken its courses, which cost thousands of dollars apiece.... How did so many wealthy and highly educated people become trapped in a group that required them to bow, wear sashes, call their leader “Vanguard” and greet him with a kiss on the mouth? Former Nxivm members said Ms. Bronfman’s pattern of punishing dissenters made them feel incapable of leaving or reporting their abuse to law enforcement.
October 1, 2020
"I don’t know how many other multimillionaires are out there, ready to devote the limitless resources at their disposal to supporting pyramid schemes run by dangerous criminals."
Said Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, quoted in "Clare Bronfman Is Sentenced to 81 Months in Nxivm ‘Sex Cult’ Case/'Will you never stop?' a former member of the group asked Ms. Bronfman, a Seagram’s heir, who used her family fortune to intimidate critics of Nxivm, prosecutors say" (NYT).
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38 comments:
Epstein STILL didn't kill himself.
details, please; how DO you get women to
a) give you large piles of money
b) GLADLY allow you to brand them (with hot irons)
and
c) become a willing sex slave, while
d) recruiting OTHER women to do parts a-d
asking for a friend
Sounds like critical race theory indoctrination.
"limitless"? I don't think that words means what you think it means. Unless the Judge was referring to the ability to "persuaded local prosecutors to initiate criminal charges". Those local prosecutors have access to taxpayers pockets. If those prosecutors initiated criminal charges on innocent people, shouldn't the Judge be calling out those people?
How did so many wealthy and highly educated people become trapped in a group that required them to bow, wear sashes, call their leader “Vanguard” and greet him with a kiss on the mouth?
How did so many people come to accept a theory of "systemic racism" that requires them to call themselves sinners, and accept discrimination against their group?
Mordecai Richler's 1989 novel Solomon Gursky Was Here is a thinly-veiled history of the Bronfman family, and is regarded as Richler's best work by those in the know about CanLit.
Good. Her personal vendetta against former members deserves harsh punishment. I hope the eBay vendetta group are next.
"I don’t know how many other multimillionaires are out there, ready to devote the limitless resources at their disposal to supporting pyramid schemes run by dangerous criminals."
The answer is: Many.
Look at George Soros for one, using limitless resources to prop up socialists and extreme District Attorneys from coast to coast- just in this country. He's blown out entire economies of other countries previously.
Not exactly pyramid schemes, but Soros and people like him or with him do use their limitless resources to finance dangerous schemes run by dangerous criminals. Unless you think enabling a coup of a US President is not a dangerous thing and that those doing it are not criminals.
So- just "How did so many wealthy and highly educated people become trapped in a group that required them to..."
bow to BLM and Antifa?
There's a lot of shit going on by our wealthy and 'highly educated' class.
The HBO series about Nxivm is very interesting.
Billionaires have to find some way to use their money. And being a saint is usually not their first choice. Destroying people for fun is one way they can prove their status and enjoy doing it. Choices, choices.
"Raniere had groomed a group of women in the group to be his sexual partners."
I know \sarc is frowned upon here, but: clearly, another victory for feminism.
"How did so many wealthy and highly educated people become trapped in a group that required them to bow, wear sashes, call their leader “Vanguard” and greet him with a kiss on the mouth?"
Well, progs are into submission and want to trap everyone. Look at how the eager application of Critical Race Theory traps highly educated white people in a group that requires them to bow to the likes of Ibram Kendi, and pay him thousands of dollars for the privilege.
"Is this an unfair sentence?"
Yes. Now, explain it. Since justice is beside the point, what function does it serve?
“ Some of them said Ms. Bronfman sued them relentlessly, drove them into bankruptcy and even persuaded local prosecutors to initiate criminal charges against them.” Regardless of what her motives were and whether she actually did this, why isn’t it a big problem that this is even possible? For my entire life this sort of abuse of process has existed. I’ve seen crusading lawyers and politicians with law degrees fight against every sort of abuse you could imagine, often very effectively, and yet abuse of litigation process never gets fixed.
Apparently starting a sex cult was the way to go. I wish that they'd told me this back when I was in school, instead of convincing me to go to college.
"and even persuaded local prosecutors to initiate criminal charges against them...."
This is not uncommon. People or organizations do try to drum up or initiate criminal charges against those with whom they have a dispute or feud which is essentially civil in nature. It's up to the prosecutors to properly investigate to only intervene in those rare cases where it is appropriate.
The sentence is troubling in relation to the fairly trivial crimes to which she pled guilty. The various harms associated with malicious prosecutions of those who left the group seem to me to be civil matters that cast a wide net of culpability over the leadership of the group, as well as the lawyers who probably knew what they were doing when they greedily scooped up Bronfman and nxvium money.
Her lawyer owes over $1 million in back taxes.
Now he gets to appeal her sentence and pay what he owes.
The judge knows what he’s doing.
It’s probably an unfair sentence. It reminds me of OJ when he got busted in Vegas. He was clearly being sentenced for past crimes.
I woulda thunk that "nxivm" was a Linux program, like inxi or unxz.
Now do Bezos.
"Raniere, a self-styled spiritual guru, was convicted last year on a string of charges that he created a secret master-slave group within Nxivm called DOS."
Nxivm must be a DOS command, something to do with servers.
Wow, who the fuck cares?
The sentence is much too light. How about some restitution for all her victims?
81 months = 6 3/4 years.
Some crimes are more equal than others.
Sex Trafficking and Child Pornography are beyond the pale.
As well as holding two parties in Maryland (1 year Prison Sentence). I guess this sentence is equivalent to holding 13 parties during Coronavirus.
If an artist paints someone or something - that isn't necessarily a mark of approval of the subject. All sorts of subjects are painted for all sorts of reasons. The idea that the woke-mob must shield us from history and tell us what the meaning is behind any particular work (even if they are wrong!) is demeaning. but that is their point. Like democrats, we are all globs of the state, too stupid to think for ourselves. We might slip into some mindless impression by merely peering at an unapproved image.
If you look at an image of some KKK hats, you will probably want one too. or something... You're inner racist will come out and you will start burning down buildings in Portland or something.
What is Nicole Hong trying to say here?
"In the course of the next 15 years, she became part of the group’s executive board, even as Nxivm faced mounting criticism that it was an abusive cult that coerced women into sexual slavery."
What is the particuar meaning - nuance, if you will - vice writing as two separate sentences?
"In the course of the next 15 years, she became part of the group’s executive board. During that time Nxivm faced increasing criticism that it was an abusive cult that coerced women into sexual slavery."
Did Hong intend to subliminally convey a cause-effect relationship? Was it done simply to stay in form for the annual journalism "Most Separate Ideas Jammed Into a Single Sentence" award?
Next question, why "mounting?" Chosen because of the sexual connotation?" "Increasing" is a simpler more direct word, without pointlessly summoning scenes of craggy vistas.
The writing was too obfuscatory for continued reading.
I read the title of your post and assumed it was going to be about members of congress and the social security system.
How did so many wealthy and highly educated people become trapped in a group that required them to bow, wear sashes, call their leader “Vanguard” and greet him with a kiss on the mouth?
Human beings are tribal creatures. Most will try to fit into whatever group they're part of. The key is to bring the new recruits in slowly, so that by the time you introduce the really weird shit they are too committed to leave. It probably helps that it all had a veneer of secret knowledge for only a few "elite".
Former CEO of Twitter tweeted this out:
dick costolo
Replying to @pt @Jason and @coinbase
Me-first capitalists who think you can separate society from business are going to be the first people lined up against the wall and shot in the revolution. I'll happily provide video commentary."
As foul as Bronfman is, her sex cult is small potatoes compared to what Costolo and Soros have planned for us.
Say what you will about the 19th century robber barons, but at least they weren't stupid enough to fund anarchists.
To hell with an Althouse podcast. Let's start an Althouse sex cult!
Only problem, in the words of Hugh Hefner: "Too many dudes".
how DO you get women to
a) give you large piles of money
b) GLADLY allow you to brand them (with hot irons)
and
c) become a willing sex slave, while
d) recruiting OTHER women to do parts a-d
It's nuanced. #HerToo #SheProgressed Throw another baby on the barbie for social progress. A Twilight faith. A Pro-Choice selective, opportunistic, relativistic quasi-religion ("ethics"). An ostensibly "secular" forward-looking progressive liberal ideology, which in principle and practice is actually monotonically divergent.
Oh, for fuck's sake.....
"How did so many wealthy and highly educated people become trapped in a group that required them to bow, wear sashes, call their leader “Vanguard” and greet him with a kiss on the mouth? Former Nxivm members said Ms. Bronfman’s pattern of punishing dissenters made them feel incapable of leaving or reporting their abuse to law enforcement."
Notice the work that the word "trapped" is doing there. They weren't trapped by all the accounts I have seen about this cult. That they felt like they were trapped is a completely different thing. That Bronfman alledgedly pursued them with frivolous lawsuits and managed to get district attorneys to pursue criminal investigations against them is what should have been targeted here- and yet it seems that none of these DAs are on the chopping block- curious that.
Is the sentence appropriate? If the penalty guidelines to the statutes Bronfman confessed to allow it, then it is fair in a legal sense. I have no idea if it is fair in a moral sense since so much of what I would need to judge this hasn't been disclosed by any unbiased party.
Nine victims of Nxivm spoke with emotion about how their lives had been destroyed by Ms. Bronfman, leaving behind ruined marriages, careers and reputations
Fair sentence? Not hardly! Hanged by the neck until dead would have been much more equitable.
gilbar said...
details, please; how DO you get women to
a) give you large piles of money
b) GLADLY allow you to brand them (with hot irons)
and
c) become a willing sex slave, while
d) recruiting OTHER women to do parts a-d
asking for a friend
You target lost souls. Some people can't develop or maintain relationships easily but most still need the connections. This makes them easily manipulable. Essentially all extremist groups follow this pattern. For example this is why feminists emphasize community and why the left's "the personal is political" mantra is so popular. Using politics to create community creates a nearly unbreakable loyalty.
"The key is to bring the new recruits in slowly, so that by the time you introduce the really weird shit they are too committed to leave."
Thus, the Resistance's acceptance of Biden-Harris.
Now do Scientology...
These weak-minded individuals volunteered for this treatment.
Money for nothing and the chicks pay you.
You’d have to see the pre-sentence report to be able to comment on the sentence. Judge Garaufis has been a judge for a long time, and like any good judge, tailors the sentence to the particulars of the person being sentenced, while still taking into account the sentencing guidelines. I assume the pre-sentence report showed Ms Bronfman to be a terrible character with quite a history —someone with no remorse, who acted out the “ law is for the little people” shtick —even if she had no priors. In my experience judges often deem people with that attitude to be slow learners who need a little extra time in the pokey. Just my guess, of course. The pre-sentence report is not a public document.
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