Things don’t appear to be going all that well for Keith Raniere AKA The Vanguard at his trial.
And, unfortunately for him, the same appears to be true at his current home-away-from-home, the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, NY.
Criminal trials are inherently stressful on defendants.
And the good folks who run MDC are adding to that stress for The Vanguard.
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To begin with, he’s being moved around the facility from one place to another for “security reasons”.
That means he likely has no access to the few meager items he possesses there.
The “good news” – at least from his perspective – is that he’s generally being placed in an isolated part of the prison, away from other prisoners.
Given his proclivity for hitting other prisoners’ fists and feet with his head, that obviously makes him feel safer.
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Meanwhile, his litany of medical problems continues to grow.
To begin with, his fourth pair of glasses may be the worst yet.
They’re the wrong size – which means that they’re constantly slipping down his nose.
And they’re the wrong prescription – which means that he’s constantly squinting to see things.
He also claims the glasses are giving him daily headaches.
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His orthopedic issues are also continuing to worsen.
Sitting in a courtroom for 8 hours a day – and spending an additional 3-4 hours per day in a holding cell at the courthouse and at MDC – prevents him from doing the walking that’s necessary to avoid flareups.
While we don’t know the exact nature of his problem, it appears to involve some sort of spinal arthritis.
Whatever it is, it apparently includes severe, chronic pain and discomfort.
And some of you thought there was no justice in the world…
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Meanwhile, The Vanguard is also having trouble with his legal team.
The only time he was satisfied was when Marc Agnifilo beat up Lauren Salzman so much that the judge ordered Agnifilo to stop – and shut the trial down early that day.
Raniere wants more of those witness-bashing routines because he’s hoping to force a mistrial in the case.
But Agnifilo is apparently not willing to piss off the presiding judge, Nicholas G. Garaufis, any more than he already has.
Which is why Raniere recently told some of the guards that he’s thinking of firing Agnifilo, a man he describes as “not entirely ethical”.
That is so funny in so many ways…
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The “smartest man in the world” is also unhappy with many of the rulings of Judge Garaufis – who has decided in favor of the prosecution on almost every issue regarding what evidence it can submit (More on that in a future post).
But he’s also told some of his guards that he now thinks he has a better chance of getting bail if the current trial ends in a hung jury because the judge now understands that he’s “just a misunderstood man – and not a monster”.
Apparently, The Vanguard’s delusional issues are also growing.
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He still can’t believe that all of his co-defendants pleaded out in the case – and left him to go trial by himself.
He was particularly pissed when Lauren testified against him – and the same will be true if Clare Bronfman, Allison Mack, Nancy Salzman or Kathy Russell take the witness stand.
He’s also worried that Clare Bronfman might not be willing to support him in the future the way she has in the past.
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And just to top things off…
Remember the two mystery women who were visiting him just before the trial started?
Turns out that they are paralegals who met with him to review some case-related documents – and not the prison groupies we speculated they might be.
Damn…Nothing seems to be going right for The Vanguard these days.