Prosecutors involved in the Nxivm sex cult investigation messed up big time as they had to admit in court last week about how they replicated child pornography, the New York Post reports. It is always a crime to have child pornography.
After the leader of the cult told a federal judge about a “technical issue” that arose during the discovery process, it became clear that prosecutors accidentally included a bunch of child pornography, something which leader Keith Rainere stands accused of manufacturing.
“There was an issue regarding one of the discovery devices,” defense attorney Marc Agnifilo said to the court, and then he turned his time over to Assistant United States Attorney Moira Penza.
“We did not know there were child pornography images on the device,” Penza said. It wasn’t clear what device it was. “We reproduced the device,” she said.
“The FBI is working to create a new device,” she said as she tried to downplay the severity of what happened.
Brooklyn federal court Judge Nicholas Garaufis had already nixed a plan proffered by leader Rainiere that reportedly included his being guarded by former agents of the Secret Service.
“Raniere is now trying to convince the judge he deserves to be out based on a nearly two-page explanation of Nxivm’s teachings, complete with a bibliography and YouTube links, the New York Post reported a few months ago.
Raniere’s reported conditions are said to include a $1 million bond secured by three properties and their anonymous owners, home confinement and electronic monitoring.
“Just as Socrates challenged the young people of Athens to question sacrosanct beliefs of the time, and indeed was executed for his disruption of a closed-minded system of government, Nxivm challenges participants to question, rather than blindly accept, the fundamental content of their lives,” one paragraph in the legal document said.
“Why, for example, are we practicing the religion we are? Do we really believe its precepts or is it just easier to not disappoint our parents? Do we have the relationships with our parents or our children that we really want? If not, why not? What can we do to have better relationships with the people we love?”
Britain’s Daily Mail reported in October that rare audio of Raniere telling members of Nxivm about how men need constant sex and will ‘do it with anything’ had come out in the wake of his arrest of federal sex trafficking charges. The audio was featured in the CBC podcast Escaping Nxivm and offers a glimpse into the man who went on to command at least 150 ‘slaves’ in the cult’s sex group DOS.
NXIVM is a multi-level marketing company based in Albany, which offers personal and professional development seminars through its “Executive Success Programs”. The group has been branded a pyramid scheme, an alleged sex-trafficking operation, and an alleged sex cult. A report for the Ross Institute described its seminars as “expensive brainwashing”. It has also been accused of being a recruiting platform for a cult operating within it in which women were forced into sexual slavery and branded.
Earlier last year, NXIVM founder Raniere and associate Allison Mack were arrested and indicted on federal charges related to DOS, including sex trafficking.
