BROOKLYN (CN) — The woman imprisoned for her role co-running NXIVM, the Albany-based cultish self-help company with a secret sex ring operating within, asked a federal judge on Monday to release her to home detention amid a breast cancer scare and inadequate medical care in prison.
Nancy Salzman had two previous bouts with breast cancer in 2011 and 2018, her attorney said in court. When the 69-year-old had an ultrasound in March 2023 that produced a “worrisome finding,” doctors at the Bureau of Prisons recommended an MRI and meeting with a breast surgery consultant. Neither have been scheduled.
“Our client has been waiting for 16 and a half weeks with nothing done,” said attorney Robert Soloway.
Given Salzman’s medical history, which includes a right radical mastectomy in 2018, and a family cancer history, timely treatment could be lifesaving, Soloway argued.
“The medical powers that be at the BOP have failed to do the things that need to be done to protect her life,” said Soloway, of the firm Rothman, Schneider, Soloway & Stern PC. “They have simply not done anything.”
Salzman is serving a 3 1/2-year prison term after more than two decades at the top of NXIVM (pronounced “Nexium”) which she co-founded in the late 1990s with the permanently jailed cult leader Keith Raniere. The pair charged members hundreds of thousands of dollars to take courses that promised personal and business success, but within that pyramid rested another.
Within NXIVM Raniere ran a subgroup called DOS where, at Raniere’s instruction, women were coerced and blackmailed into having sex with him and branded with his initials using a cauterizing pen, without anesthesia.
Members of the sub-cult referred to sex “slaves” and “first-line masters” recruiting them, who included “Smallville” actress Allison Mack and Nancy Salzman’s own daughter Lauren, whom Salzman had recruited into the group. Mack was sentenced to three years in prison for her pivotal role in recruiting new victims for Raniere, but was released early on July 3, according to BOP records.
Though Salzman denies that she knew about DOS while co-running NXIVM, Raniere’s victims say his widespread abuse would have been impossible without her at the helm.
On Sept. 7, Salzman will become eligible for placement at a residential reentry facility or under home confinement under the federal First Step Act, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanya Hajjar.
With that in mind, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis declined to immediately release Salzman but told a BOP physician who attended the hearing remotely to ensure she gets an MRI in the next 30 days.
“I’m relying on you doctor, please,” Garaufis said. “You have a special obligation to attend to a patient, as opposed to an inmate.”
The judge set another hearing for Sept. 6 to discuss compassionate release, making it clear he is “very serious” about scheduling the MRI in the meantime.
“This is a defendant with a history of breast cancer,” Garaufis said. “A 42-month sentence, which I imposed on the defendant, is not a death sentence. We don’t want to turn it into a death sentence.”
Salzman’s attorneys did not comment following the hearing.
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