By Dianne Lipson
Lauren Salzman continued her testimony on the afternoon of Tuesday, May 21st. She wore a white, long cardigan over a white dress shirt and black dress pants. Her clothes were flowing. You could see she was thin, but it was hard to tell just how thin she was.
Direct examination by the government continued and Lauren provided more information about Daniela, the Mexican woman who was confined in a room in Clifton Park, N.Y. for nearly two years.
Lauren said Daniela is now in Mexico. [She is expected to testify during this trial in Brooklyn.]
Lauren spoke of Daniela going to Mexico after she left the room. She was driven by her father from New York to Texas and left at, or near, the border. Her father, also a member of Nxivm, gave her $200, then left her without identification papers, birth certificate, or passport.
Keith withheld these documents from her as part of her punishment.
Daniela began to try to find work and a place to live in Mexico. But Keith had more punishment in mind. To atone for her ethical breach, Lauren testified, and to worm her way back into his good graces, Keith gave Daniela a series of lengthy and time-consuming book report assignments.
Daniela said she didn’t have time to do these reports [for which Raniere likely had little need for – other than to make work for her.]
Her family, however, who were all brainwashed by Keith, thought Daniela was just making up stories, and lying about not having time to do these [important] book reports. [It had to be important since Keith himself assigned them.]
Daniela was told to submit a book report every seven days or it would demonstrate a lack of character on her part. If she did the reports, she might be permitted to return to Clifton Park and rejoin her family and serve Keith.
[Her two sisters and brother were living in Clifton Park. Her parents came and went. Years before, they had dropped their children off to be mentored by Keith. He wound up sleeping with all three girls – Daniella, Mariana, and Camilia.]
Lauren testified that Daniela was claiming, “I’m trying to find work and a place to live. I don’t have time to do this book report.”
[Remember, Daniela had been kept in a room for nearly two years, then was left in Mexico with no papers and no money. Keith was withholding her papers.]
Lauren went along with the whole thing, agreeing with Keith that “Danielle is just making up stories again.”
There were exhibits offered in evidence to support the incredible cruelty of Keith and [cooperating witness] Lauren and the mindlessly stupid father of Daniela. The father agreed that his daughter, Daneila, was “still playing games.”
[He was evidently unaware that the fight between Keith and Daniela was really over her not being willing to be part of his harem. She did not tell him that. Nor did Keith reveal the reason for Daniela’s punishment.]
Daniela emailed, requesting they send her her legal documents. She said she won’t have the book report ready. She’s just started the report. She had no money. Without papers, she can’t get a visa to go back to Clifton Park anyway. She can’t get a visa without her ID and other documents.
She wrote, “Why won’t you send me my papers?” She wasn’t asking for money. She couldn’t renew her passport or open a bank account without papers. It was hard to get a job.
“What am I supposed to do? What do you want me to do?” she wrote, begging to get her papers back from Keith and Lauren.
Lauren testified that they refused to give Daniela her documents.
In an email, Lauren told Daniela that she had not offered a word of apology for what she did. She was just making requests and demands. That Daniela was not being proactive. She was asking other people to do things, [return her papers, for instance, that she was legally entitled to possess]. But she wasn’t being proactive.
Lauren thought Daniela was not committed enough to Keith.
Lauren [now that she is testifying before the judge who will sentence her] now thinks these emails to Daniela were incredibly abusive and horrendous.
Lauren now says that Daniela did what she was supposed to do, but was always shut down. It was never good enough for Keith. She was always considered manipulative.
“Nothing she could do was the right thing,” Lauren said.
Because Keith said Daniela was manipulative, Lauren and Daniela’s family came to see it that way.
[Again, keep in mind that at the time Keith was punishing Daniela, he was having sex with both of her sisters, Camilia and Mariana and the parents didn’t know. Keep in mind that the punishment of Daniela was solely because she would not join Keith’s harem and wanted to date Ben Myers. The initial fight was over Keith wanting her to “take a nap” with him and her own sister Mariana {knowing Keith, the nap would not likely have been very restful, but much more likely to have been a sex romp with the two sisters.} Keep in mind that Keith started having sex with Daniela’s youngest sister, Camilia when she was 13, according to Camilia’s abortion records].
But Daniela was the one, Keith said, who was manipulative.
After completing her testimony about Daniela which included ample evidence of one of Lauren [and Keith’s] crimes – withholding Daniela’s legal documents [document servitude] – Lauren next discussed “shunning.”
She said she shunned her own father for nearly a decade on Keith’s orders.
Keith told Lauren and her sister, Michelle, to shun their own father [Dr. Michael Salzman] and they did so.
MK10ART’s beautiful painting of Susan Dones – the hero of the Nxivm 9, who led the women out of Nxivm in 2009 which began the cratering of Nxivm.Lauren talked about the circumstances behind that: One of the Nxivm 9 [the group of nine women led by Susan Dones who left Nxivm in 2009] had been working in her father’s office for some time. The woman – Nina Cowell – was now a defector. Keith wanted her fired. Dr. Salzman, who was not a serious Nxivm member [he had taken a few classes], refused to fire Nina.
Lauren and her sister Michelle were then ordered by Keith to shun their father – so they never spoke to him again or saw him [that was in 2009].
To give a little more flavor of life in Nxivm, Lauren testified about other things such as that Rick Ross was considered a criminal by Keith and was told he had kidnapped people out of a religion.
She spoke about the Ross lawsuit, and how Stephanie Franco took Nxivm courses and gave confidential Nxivm material to Ross who put it on his website, which was the genesis of the lawsuit against Ross and Franco. That was, of course, a terrible thing to Keith and Lauren at the time.
There was discussion about Barbara Bouchey, one of Keith’s harem members, where we learned [and it is no surprise to Frank Report readers] that Bouchey’s nickname was Ya. [Keith claimed Bouchey was a former top Nazi in a past life – Reinhard Heydrich].
At one point, Nikki Clyne was living about a mile away from where most of the other Nxivm people were living, and she was told she should move closer.
Keith ordered the spying on Robbie [son of Nxivm inner circle member Esther Chiappone Carlson]. Robbie’s conduct – according to Keith – was seen as a potential liability. [Although there had been a New York State Police investigation into alleged child molesting, no charges were brought against Robbie. Another instance where the New York State Police protected NXIVM and its members from prosecution for crimes].
Because of this, Robbie was required to report all his activities to Lauren, everything that he did, every day – which she, in turn, would report to Keith.
Keith said that Robbie was lying to Lauren and not telling her everything that he did. Keith decided that they should do a setup. For this, they used Nicole – the DOS slave [and actress] who, readers may recall, was blindfolded and tied down while Keith had someone unknown to her [Camila] give her oral sex.
Nicole was assigned to spy on Robbie. The plan was for Robbie to ‘accidentally on purpose’ meet Nicole, who he did not know. Nicole, a striking brunette, was to meet Robbie somehow, some way, but to not let on she was part of Nxivm or that she was spying on Robbie. She was basically posing as a random woman and was ordered to ‘seduce’ him, but not actually have sex with him. They wanted to see if Robbie reported his interactions with Nicole to Lauren [and hence to Keith.]
Nicole gave him a false name and created a false Facebook account and she met Robbie repeatedly.
Lauren was concerned about Nicole spending time with Robbie since he was – according to Keith – dangerous and she was worried that Nicole was spending all this time with him.
Things got more complicated when, evidently, Nicole appeared in a promotional video for Nxivm and Lauren, alarmed, asked that Nicole be edited out of the video just in case Robbie might see it and find out that Nicole was in Nxivm and was a spy. Lauren thought that might put Nicole in danger because Lauren thought Robbie was a danger to women.
It was not clear if Robbie reported back to Keith about his meetings with Nicole.
In reference to her role as a cooperating witness, Lauren testified that she asked for a meeting with the government and met the FBI on more than one occasion with her lawyer. She ultimately signed a cooperation agreement. She told the government about crimes that Keith and others committed and her own crimes. Her cooperation agreement was entered into evidence as an exhibit.
In it, Lauren promised to provide truthful and complete information or the cooperation agreement would be voided. In return, she hoped to get a letter from the government regarding her cooperation which might be helpful in advising the judge on sentencing her. The government made no other promises to her besides providing this letter. Her sentencing is set for September 11th.
We learned that both India Oxenberg and Allison Mack gave the government thumb drives [which evidence their cooperation]. These were admitted into evidence as exhibits. And part of the afternoon was devoted to playing audio of meetings with first line DOS slaves. The prosecution played long stretches of these meeting. This took over an hour.
In one audio, Keith is talking about collateral and committees. He uses the word “craft” to mean committees – groups of people who are responsible for some aspect of the DOS work.
In these meetings, they are laughing and joking around, like they were planning the office picnic instead of talking about very disturbing things such as branding women.
There was to be a craft that dealt with challenges, a craft to deal with punishment. This was at the early stages of DOS. The second meeting discussed the brand and it sounded like it took place before the branding actually happened.
This was at times incredibly boring to listen to. Keith does not have a compelling speaking style. Everybody around me in court was shifting in their seats. I was fighting to stay awake. But there were a few gems.
I think the purpose of showing this was to reveal how involved Keith was in DOS.
In one meeting Keith said the brand is his initials. Keith says the brand is K -A – R for his initials.
There was some discussion about having a tattoo above the brand to indicate who the slave’s master is [her lineage] and some kind of numbering system for slaves.
There was also discussion about getting a machine to do the branding. And a discussion about where to put the brand on women’s bodies. They finally decided to put it on the right side, above the pubic hair [not below] so it could be seen. The size of the brand was discussed.
The brand was supposed to be one inch by one inch. Lauren’s brand is about two and a half inches by three inches. And that was a mistake. It was supposed to be smaller.
There was also discussion about the branding being seen by non-DOS members. Keith wanted a million women branded with his initials. There would, obviously, be men, sleeping with various women, who might see different women with the same brand. Doctors would also see different women with the brands and husbands would see their wives branded. So Keith [the genius] knew they couldn’t really keep the brand itself secret.
Eventually, the brands would be leaked to the media and more people would see it and eventually it would be popular.
As DOS grew, Keith thought it would become fashionable to have the brand [with Keith’s initials on the pubis].
The world’s smartest man.
Keith also talked about the size of the circle of slaves and how a circle might be 10 or 12 people or maybe, he thought, up to 500.
There was also discussion about video cameras installed on the outside of homes in Knox Woods [where Keith and many of the Nxivm members lived].
Camilia wasn’t at a meeting where a lot of discussion about bringing her into the inner circle occurred. Loretta Garza felt Keith always took Camilia’s side. Loretta was Camilia’s boss at Rainbow Cultural Gardens. Loreta felt that Keith gave preferential treatment to Camilla [maybe he did; he started having sex with her when she was 13]. Keith was urging them to agree to bring Camilla into DOS.
Keith said, ‘I’m doing this by a democratic process. If I were a different kind of Master, I could just order you to take her in. But I’m doing this democratically.”
Even though Keith said he was doing it by a democratic process, he was definitely pushing against opposition to get what he wanted. He said it would be so much easier to deal with this if he were talking to men.
Lauren will be cross-examined on Wednesday and a new witness [unknown] is expected to be called.