By Dianne Lipson
Dani testified all day on May 29.
In a previous post, “Dani: Raniere’s Insane Jealousy and Obsessive Behavior Over Ben Myers Touching Her” I described her morning testimony, which largely consisted of her explaining some of the thousands of emails she and Keith exchanged during the years she was being punished following her 2006 brief affair with Nxivm member Ben Myers.
In the afternoon, Assistant US Attorney Moira Penza went back to the emails.
Unlike Keith, who was only pretending to be a monk, Dani was actually living a monk-like existence – after her brief fling with Ben.
[They had seven encounters. The big thing they hit on much of the day was Keith incessant demand for details about her relationship with Ben. Again and again: Did he put his hands between your legs? Did you orgasm? One question after another. And every time she answered, he asked 10 more questions. Have you ever had an orgasm with Ben? By the way Dani answered Keith – no -she never had an orgasm with Ben.
Keith told her that she should think that this monk-like existence is the best and happiest alternative and the remedy for her breach. She should be happy about it. It was the way she could undo the wrong of having an affair with Ben Myers.
Keith also ordered her to take down her Facebook. Which she did.
During her long period of being shunned by the Nxivm community – at Keith’s instructions, Dani wanted to go to a Nxivm party. She made a Mexican bread which was going to be served there. She thought if she didn’t go, people might think it was funny because she was the one who made the bread.
She was not allowed to do anything without Keith’s permission.
She tied to get Keith’s permission to attend but Keith did not answer her multiple emails. She did end up going to the party. Keith made this into bad thing, a horrible thing. She did not have his permission.
Keith wanted her completely isolated.
She was also not allowed to go to volleyball. But Keith lied to her brother, Fluffy, implying that Daniela could go if she wanted. Keith said it was Dani who chose not to go.
All through the morning and well into the afternoon, Dani was extremely composed, very believable- up to about 3 pm. That’s when she started to become emotional. [More on that later.]
Keith told Dani, “What you feel for Ben isn’t real. You just like the attention you get from him. It’s almost like worshiping.“
Keith talked about the fact that Dani was no longer pure. Although she lost her virginity to Keith [which was good] She lost her “moral virginity” by caring for somebody else [which was horrible].
Fluffy never said he knew about Keith having sex with all three of his sisters – Dani, Cami and Mariana. But he acted very strange around Keith, very resentful. Dani suspected that Fluffy knew, but Dani said she never told him.
Before she had been shunned, Dani had been documenting Keith’s life at Flintlock. Somehow some of the documentation about Keith was lost. Keith accused Dani. He said, “because of what you did we lost 18 months of documentation about me that will never be recoverable.”
She never got paid for her work.
She was 23 in 2008. She had been in ESP since she was 16. Dani did not want to be a monk.
At one point Dani wrote Keith an email where she said, “I no longer see the same way. I’m thinking about creating a life for myself. I would like to sustain myself, but I can’t because of these restraints [Keith imposed]. I don’t want to keep doing this. My life has no value. I’m caught in an impossible cycle. I want to work. I want to make money; become self-sufficient. I want to go to school. I don’t miss you [Keith] anymore. I almost feel I want to break away…. I’m the wrong person for this. I’m not ethical enough. I want to go back to before I met you.”
She also wrote, “I don’t want to have a romantic relationship with you or anybody else.”
In retrospect, Daniela said this email showed she was having a moment of lucidity.
“I knew what I wanted. And it wasn’t Keith. I was moving on,” she said.
Keith’s response to this was “you need to repair and restore your feeling about me. This is the biggest mistake of your life. You’re too comfortable. … You need more pain.”
At one point, Keith wrote her, “I need your WHOLE life. This is the only way to me.”
[He is the truth, the light and the way].
He told her, “I do not have the strength to carry you anymore. This is a last ditch effort to help you.”
Daniela felt that with this email that Keith cut her legs off. He would not let her go.
Keith said in this email that he [the Vanguard] might be leaving [Nxivm].
Dani was wondering how he could ask for her whole life and yet he was contemplating leaving. It was confusing.
At one point, Daniela was on a fast and she broke the fast and told Keith. In his reply email, Keith called her “Tubby.”
She had to look it up. She promised not to eat anymore. He always wanted to know,“how much did you eat? What is your weight?” At one point she was taking Benadryl for a rash.
Keith said her rash was caused by her not healing her ethical breach.
Even though she was not allowed to see Keith, he asked for naked pictures. She gave them. This was progress Keith said in his emails. He wanted photos of her vagina. She emailed them to him. But he wasn’t satisfied. He wanted a picture of both her face and her vagina in the same picture. Dani would not do that because it would be identifiable as her.
Keith said he wanted these pictures because it’s about her being totally vulnerable. He said, “I wish you loved me enough to give me all the pictures.”
Keith said he needed her to be vulnerable in all areas of her life, vulnerable and humble and give up.
Dani was now being disciplined to the point where she could not leave her parents’ house without permission. The family felt it was their responsibility to “help her.”
Her computer, her music were taken away. Daniella was writing letters to Keith constantly.
She had “reality checks” where she had to write down what she was doing every 15 minutes. This Keith said was to keep her life centered.
“Every waking hour was about my ethical breach,” Dani testified.
Her parents did not know Dani had sex with Keith. Dani didn’t think they would believe her. She was hurt. She felt trapped. She was not acting normal. The constant harassment, being constantly told she was bad made her angry. She kept telling her parents “You don’t understand.”
Her parents were not on her side. Her parents were on Keith’s side. Keith told her parents about the money she had stolen [and returned before anyone noticed] years ago. [People thought this was her breach – stealing. Keith made her look like a thief to the community and hid from them the fact that he was an insane jealous maniac and control freak.]
Dani knew it was not the money she stole [and returned]. That hadn’t been brought up by Keith in his emails on how to cure her breach. This was about Ben and her and also her weight, which was still a focus. She was supposed to be 120 pounds.
Her parents supported Keith over their own daughter. {They may qualify as the world’s worst parents. He had sex with all three of their daughters, one was underage. All three had abortions. He put them on abusive diets. He tried to trick Dani and Mariana to have sex with him at the same time one Christmas Eve and caused both to cry. He had been punishing Dani for years because she dared to have honest affection for another man. True, the sisters did not tell their parents. Yet the parents, devoid of any instinct to know enough to protect their children, no intuition of the monster that preyed on their children, adored Keith, worshiped him. They felt he was truly helping their daughters.]
So Dani was too heavy. So what did her parents do to help Keith help Dani? They locked the refrigerator.
[Dani had no money so she could not buy food.]
Once her parents locked her out of the house. Dani hardly remembers what she did. They told her she needed a consequence for some bad action [bad, according to Keith]. It was winter and they locked her out. She walked around. She came back. They still didn’t want her back in. This went on for a couple of days that they locked her out of the house.
Dani kept saying on the witness stand, “It’s my parents.”
Now she became emotional, when she said this – “it’s my parents” and you could see the people in the courtroom becoming visibly moved.
Dani went on. She was cold, hungry, starving. She went to a laundromat to keep warm. A man thought she was homeless and gave her $5. She brought some food. She bought the cheapest food she could to make it last longer.
And Dani slept outside. She kept moving. She was afraid the police would pick her up and she would be put in jail. [She was illegally in the US – thanks to the help Keith and Kathy Russell provided.]
Yes, her parents locked her out of the house in the winter in the Albany area.
When they finally let her back in, she said she was grateful and sorry. She tried to say all the right things, but it was never sufficient. When she said she was sorry, her mom said her apology was not sincere.
Her mom said “there’s an apology and then there’s a sincere apology.”
One day it was arranged that she would apologize to Keith in person. Daniela was allowed to walk to 8 Hale – to his sex lair. Keith opened the door. She hadn’t seen him in years. She looked and looked at Keith and yet she just couldn’t apologize. She said nothing to him.
Eventually he closed the door and she left.
This confirmed to her family that she was horrible. This confirmed to everyone that she needed to be punished more. All her documents, her ID, all of her papers were taken. She had no documents. She was illegal in the US.
Dani told her parents she wanted to go back to Mexico and live a simple life.
But to do that, she needed someone to drive her. She couldn’t use a bus or a plane because of her status and no money. No one was willing to help her. She needed to be punished for her ethical breach. It was the one way to save her. Thank goodness for Keith, her parents felt. He will find a way to help Dani.
This set the stage for Dani’s confinement in her room.