By Dianne Lipson
The prosecution ended their case today.
It ended with a sickening flourish with pictures of 15 year old Camilla and Keith Alan Raniere on audio talking about adult-child sex – in a favorable way.
The prosecution elicited testimony from FBI Agent Michael Weniger.
He testified that he had obtained Cami’s medical records that showed she had an appendectomy when she was 16. The prosecution then showed before and after nude pictures of Cami.
One of the nude photos – the one seized on Raniere’s hard drive in March 2018 – showed Cami had no scar on her body.
They then showed the jury pictures of her taken later with her scars.
This evidenced that Cami was under 16 when she was photographed naked by Keith Raniere.
Audio Recordings Doom Raniere
Then the prosecution played a tape of Keith teaching a [Jness] class where he says that raped women often experience their first orgasm during the rape act.
Raniere also says that if a woman wants to be with another man, the ethical thing for the man is to let her go freely. [Unlike what Raniere did in confining Dani to a room for two years.]
Raniere spoke about the lack of harm when an adult has [non-painful] sex with a child – other than the harm that society imposes [i.e. prosecuting adults, children being traumatized by the arrests, and the potential shame, etc.]
Raniere also asked the question if a family comes from a society where adults give children oral sex and then comes to the US whose morality should prevail. [I do not recall that Raniere named any such society].
He added that people who scream about sexual abuse are the real abusers.
He also said that some children mature younger than others – and that mature children are perfectly happy with sex. He mentioned that in some parts of the world, 12 is the age of consent.
Agnifilo crossed [more on that later.]
After the cross-examination, the prosecution rested.
Then Agnifilo told Judge Nicolas Garaufis that the defense was not putting on a case because the prosecution did not prove any of the charges. Moira Penza disputed that.
The judge asked Raniere to affirm that he understood his rights – and that he waived his right to put on a defense – and to testify on his own behalf – for the record.
Raniere replied, “Yes, Your Honor”.
The prosecution also said they made their witnesses available to the defense for interviews prior to trial and that the defense declined to do that.
The judge changed the date for closing arguments from Tuesday to Monday- at 9:00 AM.
The judge will hold court tomorrow [Saturday] at 11 pm for the jury charging conference. The jury will not be present.
Those planning to attend on Monday for the closing arguments should consider arriving at court early – perhaps 7:00 AM is advisable.
Closing statements are expected to last throughout the day on Monday [each side has estimated about 4 hours] and the jury will be likely charged on Tuesday and begin deliberations as early as Tuesday afternoon.
We will have a fuller report later this afternoon.