Editor’s Note: Several readers have asked for links to the daily transcripts of the trial. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to provide such links at this point in time (The same is true for every other media outlet that is purchasing transcripts).
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This is the fourth in a series of reports about Mark Vicente’s testimony on May 7th & May 8th in the U.S. v. Raniere case (You can access the first report here, the second report here, and the third report here).
He will be returning to the witness stand on Monday, May 13th, to provide further direct testimony – after which he will be cross-examined by one of Raniere’s defense attorneys.
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The next topic that Vicente testified about was the Rainbow Cultural Gardens (RCG) program.
As Frank Report readers know, this was a program designed by Raniere in which children would be “taught” in several different languages by several so-called Multi-Disciplinary Specialists – all of whom were, in fact, unqualified as teachers.
In reality, the RCG program was both an unlicensed daycare operation – and an unlicensed school.
The RCG program was headed up by Loreta Davila Garza – who was also unqualified as a daycare provider and as a teacher.
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Vicente then described other film projects that he had undertaken at Raniere’s request.
One was named “Finding the Carbon Crimes” – and was meant to convey Raniere’s belief that global warming was a complete myth.
Another was focused on “debunking” all the supposed lies that had been propagated about Raniere by the media and his enemies.
The latter film was going to include a piece in which the “true story” about Kristin Snyder was revealed.
According to Raniere, this “true story” would reveal the never-disclosed-before fact that private investigators had found Kristin Snyder in a hotel with her lover – and that she faked her suicide “to try to get away from some kind drug thing that she was involved in”.
Sadly, the film about Kristin Snyder never came to fruition.
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Next, Vicente testified about how the weekly volleyball games were structured.
It turns out that there were three groups of people at those games:
– The “A-Team”, which included Jim DelNegro, Ben Meyers, Mike Baker, and Adrian;
– The “B-Team”, which consisted of people who were just learning the game; and
– 15-40 spectators.
Unfortunately, Vicente was not asked any questions about the outfits that Raniere wore in those volleyball games – which probably means we’ll never really know what those were all about.
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Although Vicente had moved to Albany in order to become more involved with NXIVM, he did not get to meet with Raniere on a regular basis for quite some time.
But, after the departure of the NXIVM 9, he became increasingly involved with Raniere – and was in touch with him on a daily basis for several years before he quit the cult in 2017.
Nancy Salzman tried to impress upon Vicente just how lucky he was to be spending so much time with The Vanguard.
“Nancy Salzman would say to me things like, you know, ‘Do you understand what it means to spend an hour with him? Do you understand that that – you know, his time is worth $100,000 per hour and that when you are spending time with him the way you are, you are getting millions of dollars’ (of value)”.
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Nancy also Vicente about some of Raniere’s abilities and powers that were generally not discussed in public: e.g., how he could affect the weather – and how his energy field often caused problems with computers.
She also told Vicente that Raniere had figured out the “path to enlightenment through sexuality”.
Unfortunately, Vicente was so taken aback by that comment that he never asked any follow-up questions.
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The next topic concerned an inquiry that Vicente received from Raniere about whether he could remove part of a videotape in a way that was undetectable.
The inquiry came in June 2008 during the midst of what turned out to be NXIVM’s 14-year lawsuit against Rick Ross.
Raniere explained to him that certain things needed to be removed from several videotapes because leaving them in would put the Rational Inquiry patent at risk (Vicente only learned later on that there was no such patent).
The parts of the videotapes that had to be removed concerned various training session in which Nancy Salzman had claimed that Raniere’s “technology” could cure certain diseases.
As Vicente explained it, the process for altering the videotapes was quite involved – and definitely amounted to the falsification of evidence:
“The first stage was that the people in legal — legal department were to determine what needed to be removed. We were then – the video department was then given a list of, you know, remove these things here from this number to this number. We would then use various processes to remove it and then processes to create glitches to make it look like it was natural, that nothing was actually removed.
“Then a final master copy was made, that was then duplicated a number of times to give it the appearance of being older, multiple generations, then labels were put on that would age the — there was some scuffing that occurred to make things look older, then that was handed off to — back to the legal department and then went wherever it went”.
Vicente then confirmed the other people in the Communications Department who helped him alter the videotapes were Ken Kozak, Megan Mumford, Chris Mumford, and Adrian AKA Fluffy, who was the brother of Cami, Dani, and Marianna.
And the people from the Legal Department who participated in this activity were “Kristin, Keith (and) potentially Clare Bronfman [Editor’s
Note: I think the court reporter misheard the words “Kristin Keeffe” and recorded them as “Kristin, Keith”].
All in all, more than ten videotapes were altered to remove problematic content before they were turned over to Rick Ross’ attorneys as part of the discovery in that case.
While it might be expected that Raniere’s attorney will challenge
Vicente’s recollection of various events, that’s going to be hard to do with respect to the alteration of the videotapes.
That’s because the prosecution was able to produce several email strings that show exactly what went on with the falsification of the videotapes – and which people were aware of that activity.
Those people include Vicente, Chris Mumford, Megan Mumford, Keith Raniere, Nancy Salzman, Kristin Keeffe, Dan Brotman, and Clare Bronfman.
And so ended Mark Vicente’s testimony on Thursday, May 9th.
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At the end of each day, the presiding judge, U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis, reiterates his instructions to the jurors before they leave for the day.
For those who like to know all the details of what’s going on, here’s what he says to them:
THE COURT: All right. Members of the jury, we’re going to resume on Monday morning at 9:30.
If you’re taking notes, please leave them in the jury deliberation room.
Let me remind you that it is extremely important that you follow my instructions; that you do not discuss the case with anyone. Not your family, your friends, or business associates and not other jurors.
In addition, you must not read, listen to, watch or access any accounts of this case in any form of media including newspapers, TV, radio, podcasts or the Internet. And you should not research or seek outside information about any aspect of the case.
Do not communicate with anyone about the case on your phone, whether through e-mail, text messaging, or any other means; through any blog or website, or by way of any social media including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube or other similar sites.
You may not consider anything you may have read or heard anything about the case outside of this courtroom whether you read it before or during, whether you read it before or during jury selection or during the trial.
Do not attempt any independent research or investigation about the case.
Do not visit any of the location action identified during the course of testimony or in the questionnaire.
And we will see you on Monday morning. Have a good weekend.