By Dianne Lipson
Daniela [or Dani] resumed her testimony on the morning of May 28, in the trial of Keith Alan Raniere.
She was wearing a white blazer with big brown buttons. Underneath she wore a white shirt. She wore black pants.
Keith was dressed in a gray sweater with a white dress shirt.
The first thing Dani was asked about was regarding her younger sister, Cami, and a medical issue she had undergone.
It turns out that Camilia got appendicitis when she was 16. The operation left a large, permanent scar.
This was put into evidence to establish that if a nude picture of Cami was taken without her scar, it would evidence that she was less than 16 years old when that nude photo was taken.
It is alleged that Raniere took nudes of Cami when she was 15. [The age of consent in New York is 17].
The nude photos, it is believed, taken of Cami by Raniere do not have the appendicitis scar she has had since she was 16. [It was expected that the defense might try to obfuscate the date the pictures of Cami were taken by casting doubt about the computer dates. But the scar is telltale and as they say in Mexico, “Adios Raniere.”]
Following this bombshell revelation, there was testimony about the status of Dani’s younger siblings, Camilla, and Adrian – who are Mexican nationals, who came to live in Albany as teens to be mentored by Raniere. They were often – via Raniere’s direction – here illegally.
There were emails admitted into evidence from an immigration lawyer working for Nxivm, who was working on the immigration status of Adrian and Camilla. The lawyer advised Nxivm that the teens had to leave the US and then come back to cement their legal status.
The lawyer said that unless they leave and then come back, they’ll be a legal problem; that these teens should make plans to leave in order to come back. That they must leave and reapply; the longer they’re in the United States “out of status,” the more difficult it will be for them to return.
The lawyer also advised in the emails that he did not think political connections would help Cami and Adrian cure their illegal status. That they really need to leave first. And political connections would not substitute for obeying immigration laws.
{This advice was of course ignored by Raniere].
Daniela testified that she heard a lot of talk of political connections. She testified earlier that she had come in illegally to the United States [She came with fake ID provided to her by Kathy Russell and arranged for by Keith] and this was frequently held over Dani’s head.
When Daniella wasn’t doing well in her program, or not doing what she was supposed to do, or when she was receiving active discipline, this was often brought up.
The next topic for Dani was the day to day routine at Flintlock [where Keith lived with several women and where Dani would go to be with him].
Keith was often on the phone talking about the stock market [actually more likely the commodities market] with Yuri Plyam [who readers know was the commodities market broker than handled Keith’s ‘investments’. Keith lost more than $68 million of other people’s money – mainly Clare and Sara Bronfman’s money]
These were friendly conversations with Yuri. Indeed Dani would hear Keith openly talk to Yuri about more than investments. They would talk on the phone about sexual topics and Keith’s disciplining his women. They were long conversations regarding discipline. Often the discipline of other women for Keith would be enacted by Lauren Salzman, Pam Cafrtiz or Nancy Salzman.
Daniela said that Kristin, who lived at Flintlock with Keith at that time [she later defected and provided crucial information that helped take down the monster] would come down in the mornings and talk about legal issues with Keith.
Daniela was recording many of Keith daily utterances. However, she was not allowed to record when Kristin and Keith discussed anything legal.
Keith’s legal conversations were mainly with Kristin, although he sometimes spoke about this with Nancy. There were groups of lawyers that Nxivm retained and sometimes the conversations were about gaining political favors.
Many conversations seemed to be about hiring private detectives. Keith wanted to get access to people’s emails and records. There was much discussion about how much this would cost. Keith was the ultimate decider as to who should be investigated.
Kristin did the work, Dani testified. Keith never went in the field to do things himself. The reason was that the focus was on protecting Keith. Kristin was supportive of protecting Keith [at the time] and Kristin was ready to “take the fall for Keith,” Dani testified.
Keith wanted access to Kristin Snyder’s email [Snyder disappeared in Feb. 2003 in Alaska after leaving a Nxivm intensive. Her cause of death is listed as presumptive suicide. Her body was never found].
Keith wanted to prove that Kristin Snyder was still alive.
The other main targets were Rick Ross, Toni Natalie and Joe O’Hara.
At one point, they were spending a great deal of money to get people’s email passwords. Daniela had a discussion with Keith saying “why are we spending all this money it could be done cheaper.”
The upshot was that Daniela was now deployed to learn how to hack emails and computers. Daniela felt conflicted about this. She knew it was unethical, illegal and wrong.
But Keith explained to her in a conversation that it was about good guys versus bad guys, good guys versus suppressives, that good guys have ethics, but suppressive have no ethics.
Keith explained, “Our purpose is to build a better world. In order to build this better world, we are going to do unethical things, ethically, to build a better world.”
Dani testified about the steps she took in order to make sure that what she was doing wouldn’t be detected. She was in the US illegally. She didn’t want to leave traces of herself. She had no car, no bank account, nothing with her name on it. [If a police car passed her, she said, she would jump].
She described the steps in the process of targeting enemies’ emails with a key logger or embedded screenshot capturing software. Dani seems to have been a self taught hacker.
Many emails came into evidence which shows what Dani was doing, and regarding her research on becoming a hacker.
Dani testified she tried to hack Joe O’Hara’s emails but it never worked. Keith came up with a plan.
This plan involved Kathy Russell being able to get somebody who worked for Joe to come to Nxivm [with his computer] and while the man was distracted, Daniela sneaked in and got access to his computer. She was able to successfully put spyware software on his computer and look at his emails.
[Ed. note: It is believed this man is James Loperfido, O’Hara’s accountant. He is expected to testify in this trial.]
Dani also testified how she hacked the email account of Edgar Bronfman Sr.. Dani’s job was to check all Bronfman’s emails. She had to sort out what was relevant and what wasn’t.
At some point, Dani was asked to hack her own sister, Mariana’s computer.
Mariana was having issues. She was throwing a big tantrum. There was a suspicion that Mariana was having a relationship with one of her ex boyfriends. Daniela successfully infected Mariana’s computer.
Daniela felt guilty about this, but thought she was helping Mariana with her issues.
Daniela testified that she felt bad at the times and but, as she testified, “Now I feel even worse.”
At one point, Keith thought he had a computer virus and Daniela had to scan his computer. She found a group of files that was not in a visible place on the computer. These files were nude pictures of Nxivm women. Daniela saw Nxivm member Monica Duran in those pictures. Dani hadn’t realized before that Monica Duran had slept with Keith.
Dani spoke to Keith about her concerns about these pictures; finding them was alarming. She asked Keith to delete her own pictures. She doesn’t know if Keith ever deleted her pictures.
***
Her testimony continues today and it is expected that she will soon get to her period of imprisonment.