BROOKLYN, N.Y. (CN) – A defense attorney invoked Winston Churchill and Atticus Finch in his opening statement Tuesday on behalf of cult founder Keith Raniere, hours before a woman testified that she had been extorted into sending nude photos to the leader of the purported self-help group NXIVM.
Raniere, 58, faces charges including forced labor, sex trafficking, sexual exploitation of a child, wire fraud and violations of federal anti-racketeering law. Many of those charges revolve around a secretive group DOS that prosecutors say operated within NXIVM (pronounced Nexium). His federal trial in Brooklyn is expected to last about six weeks.
“We will defend our island home,” defense attorney Marc Agnifilo said, paraphrasing a 1940 Churchill speech before the British Parliament during World War II.
“And I will defend my island home in this courtroom,” Agnifilo continued. “And my island home is that man’s good faith. My island home is that man’s good intentions.”
The first witness in the trial, who took the stand Tuesday after opening statements by Agnifilo and Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanya Hajjar, was a woman identified only as “Sylvie.” Over the course of the afternoon, Sylvie described a years-long process by which people involved in NXIVM – particularly Raniere and his co-defendant, Seagram’s liquor heiress Clare Bronfman, who pleaded guilty last month – reeled her in through an intricate process of manipulation.
After what she described as an “enchanted” childhood in England, Sylvie left high school to pursue a career as a competitive horse show jumper. She was first connected to Bronfman through an event in Europe, she said. At 18, she moved to New York to take a job at Bronfman’s farm upstate, thinking it would help her career. She testified she quickly got involved in NXIVM courses through Bronfman, who paid for them, and though she was off-put at first, Sylvie eventually worked her way up in the organization.
At one point Raniere became her running coach, though she said she didn’t think he had any experience with running. He was “presented as able to … teach anyone in anything,” she said at one point.
Sylvie, who had struggled with anorexia as a girl, noticed early on that the other women in the community had disordered relationships with food. Her anorexia eventually returned, and at one point she said she weighed about 90 pounds. She reported to Bronfman and Raniere every day and did not seek medical help until she developed a fistula, she said, and was on the verge of sepsis.
The direct examination, led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Moira Penza, ended for the day on a tense note.
Sylvie said that around the fall of 2015 she was recruited by a woman named Monica Duran, whom she considered a big sister figure, into something called a “master-slave project,” which appears to be DOS. Duran called it an exciting new project and collected collateral from Sylvie: a stamped, addressed letter to her parents that explained she wanted to be a prostitute.
Sylvie’s first assignment in the project was to seduce Raniere.
“I was like, oh, God, this is not what I want to do,” Sylvie said. “But my understanding was this was an assignment from my master and I didn’t have a choice.”
At the time, Sylvie was married to a fellow NXIVM member named John in an effort to get a green card. Raniere had instructed the couple not to have sex for two years, she said, so they were celibate.
Sylvie sent Raniere a WhatsApp message telling him he looked hot in his glasses, she told the jury, but said that wasn’t enough for him. He asked for photos. She sent one of her face, but then at his urging, she said, she gradually started to move the camera down.