Rick Ross

And then many of them would call me and say, thank you, thank you for having those papers online, that those doctors helped me to understand that I wasn't crazy. Those papers helped me to understand that I'm not crazy, that I wasn't crazy, and that this was something that was a direct byproduct of the training that I was subjected to within NXIVM.

And if I hadn't been able to read that and understand that, it would have been even harder for me to recover. So that's why Ranieri wanted those papers to be taken down, because he did not want people to know what he was doing. which was deliberate, which was methodical, which was systematic. And he had orchestrated this to break people down and control them within NXIVM.

And he did this for many, many years until he was finally arrested. And thankfully, he's now in prison serving 120 years sentence. And he's no longer able to hurt people. But during those years, he hurt many, many people through NXIVM. And he had two heirs to the Seagram's Liquor Fortune financing him, basically. And at one point, he even had the Dalai Lama of Tibet

come to Albany, New York and endorse him and do photo ops with him. And it's been said that the Dalai Lama received a very large check from the Bronfman's in order for him to agree and do that. And it certainly made me feel deeply disappointed in the Dalai Lama because leading up to his appearance with Keith Ranieri, in which he awarded him a kind of a white scarf to denote that he was,

I guess a good guy, someone worthy of praise from a Nobel Prize winner, the Dalai Lama of Tibet. And he would insinuate the Dalai Lama that Keith Raniere was being unfairly pilloried by the press when in fact, you know, he was one of the worst cult leaders in modern history. I mean, according to all the court records and his convictions.

And the Dalai Lama, by endorsing him, really disappointed me. And there were many people that shared information with the Dalai Lama's offices hoping that he would not allow himself to be used as a pawn by Keith Ranieri. But that failed, and he ended up appearing in Albany, New York, and there are many photographs showing him with Ranieri to prove that. Wow. It's...

What Keith Ranieri would do, very similar to Scientology, is he would get information on people. through the process of them being in NXIVM and confessing and emptying themselves to coaches that were over them. And this would become what he called collateral, in which he could threaten them, intimidate them, and say, I know your secrets.

If you don't cooperate, if you don't submit, I will use it against you.

There would be compromising photographs, admissions to possible, you know, things that someone had done that were embarrassing, that were humiliating, things about their personal life, their business, whatever. Keith Ranieri would gather this information and it would become his file on these individuals. Now... These people are so trusting.

That they're- Sean, you need to understand that this was a long process. Okay. That these women were in NXIVM for years. That India Oxenberg, who I met, Catherine Oxenberg's daughter, and I would work with Catherine Oxenberg to get India out of NXIVM. She was in NXIVM for years. She entered, she was like 18, 19 years old. and she was growing up as a young woman in NXIVM and isolated.

Eventually, when Catherine and her then-husband, Caspar van Diem, left NXIVM, because they thought it was strange, that there was something wrong, and they left. And she wanted India out. And she struggled to get India out. And Keith Ranieri would not let her out. And India would be one of the women who would be branded through this process in this group that was a cult within the cult.

And the women were told that this was a woman's empowerment group. and that there were women over women, and they did not realize that the ultimate authority was Keith Raniere, and that he was at the top of the pyramid, lurking, running everything. In fact, when women were branded, they were often videotaped. I mean, this was like sadistic.

So there was a woman who was a member of NXIVM that was a doctor, a medical doctor. She's since had her medical license revoked by the state of New York. But she would take the cauterizing iron and create the brand to a woman who was strapped to a gurney. It would take as long as 30 minutes or more. that would be incredibly painful, but this would be endured as a sign of empowerment, supposedly.

But in reality, Ranieri would watch this. And in my opinion, You know, he was the ultimate misogynist, wanting to humiliate, degrade women, control women. And he did this, and this went on unknown for a period of time. But because Sarah Edmondson came forward and Catherine Oxenberg was there fighting for her daughter's life, All of this eventually came out publicly.

The Southern District of New York in Brooklyn, the Justice Department prosecuted Keith Ranieri. But it was after years of abuse that had escalated and escalated and escalated until finally he was exposed and brought to justice. And I and many other people had talked about this for more than a decade before he finally was arrested.

This was a relatively small group of women. I don't know the exact amount, but they were under Ranieri's control, but they did not understand clearly that he was in control. They were led to believe this was a woman's group. Nancy Salzman, who often would put herself out as this woman icon to be emulated, she would say, yeah, you know, I'm about women's empowerment.

But in reality, it was about Keith Raniere and his sick desire to dominate and control and torture women because that's what he was doing. And again, no matter how much money, no matter how much power he had, he always had to have more. And that is the downfall in my experience over the years of cult leaders. That was the downfall of Jim Jones. That was the downfall of David Koresh.

That was the downfall of Keith Ranieri, of Charles Diedrich, who started Synanon. No matter how much power they had, they wanted more and more because these are deeply disturbed individuals, psychopaths. malignant narcissists. So they keep going and going and going until finally they just go over a bridge too far and the authorities come in.

What encourages me that I've seen in the United States and in other countries around the world is that cults are being held accountable. They can believe whatever they want, but they cannot do whatever they wish in the name of those beliefs. So when they cross the line into criminality, that's when the authorities become involved.

And I'm seeing more prosecutions of criminal cult leaders than I've seen in the past. A number of them have been convicted criminally, sent to prison. Tony Alamo who headed Alamo Ministries in Arkansas, who raped women, who raped children, eventually was brought to justice and put in prison where he died. So there are a number of groups that have had to face the criminal courts.