The six members of the branded, sex-slave cult Nxivm who are facing federal charges for their involvement in the group were reunited on Wednesday in court.
Billionaire heiress Clare Bronfman, Smallville star Allison Mack, Nancy Salzman and her daughter Lauren and Kathy Russell were all seen making their way into United States District Court in Brooklyn for a criminal cause for status conference.
Once inside the five women were joined by their former leader Keith Raniere, who along with the previously indicted Mack is also facing some new charges.
A superseding indictment released on Tuesday revealed that all six members are being charged with racketeering conspiracy and that Raniere, Mack and Laren Salzman were being charged with wire fraud.
It has also been revealed that Raniere and Lauren allegedly locked a woman in a room for two years because she was affectionate for a man who was not her master.
Back in Brooklyn: Billionaire heiress Clare Bronfman, Smallville star Allison Mack, Nancy Salzman and her daughter Lauren and Kathy Russell were in a Brooklyn court (Mack above on Wednesday)
Private eyes: All six members of the cult have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them, and on Tuesday Bronfman (above on Wednesday) posted $100 million bond for her release
The painted veil: The five women are all being indicted on charges related to the cult Nxivm, and a subset of the group where women were branded and kept as sex slaves (Nancy Salzman above on Wednesday)
Leader of the pack: Keith Raniere, the leader of the group, was also in court and remains in custody as he faces a number of charges including sex trafficking (Raniere above in 2016 video)
‘Raniere and Lauren Salzman trafficked a victim, who was once a sexual partner of Raniere’s, for labor and services,’read a statement released by the US Attorney’s Office.
‘The victim was confined to a room in Clifton Park, New York, for nearly two years as punishment for having romantic feelings for a man who was not Raniere.
‘The victim was told that if she left the room she would be sent to Mexico without any identification documents.
‘As threatened, she was driven to Mexico and her family was instructed by co-conspirators, including Lauren Salzman, not to send the victim her identification documents.’
Four of the five women are all out on bail currently, with Mack, Russell and the Salzmans paying $5 million while Bronfman had to post $100 million bond.
Russell’s bond is only $25,000, but she has not yet been able to post that amount.
The women whoa re out on bail are under home confinement, while Raniere has not been granted bail in the case.
The six members have all entered pleas of not guilty to the charges against them, which carry considerable prison time.
‘Raniere and his inner circle, including the defendants Clare Bronfman, Allison Mack, Nancy Salzman, Lauren Salzman and Kathy Russell also known as ‘Prefect,’ and others known and unknown, comprised an organized criminal enterprise (the ‘Enterprise’), reads the new indictment.
‘The principal purpose ofthe Enterprise was to obtain financial and personal benefits for the members of the Enterprise by promoting the defendant Keith Raniere, also known as ‘Vanguard,’ and by recruiting new members into the Pyramid Organizations.
‘By promoting Raniere and recruiting others into the Pytu-id Organizations, the members of the Enterprise expected to receive financial opportunities and increased power and status within the Enterprise.’
Among the criminal offenses that members of this group allegedly carried out are ‘identity theft, harboring of aliens for financial gain, extortion, forced labor, sex trafficking, money laundering, wire fraud and obstruction of justice.’
Bronfman is not accused of sex trafficking.
It was however Bronfman and her sister Sara who helped woo Allison Mack when she considered joining the group according to multiple sources who previously spoke with DailyMail.com.
Mack was also aggressively recruited in hopes that she would become their Tom Cruise-like figure and publicize the group much like the actor had done with Scientology.
The Bronfmans helped with this by flying Mack private, all part of the $150 million the two have allegedly put into Nxivm over the past two decades.
Bronfman, 39, is the youngest daughter of Edgar Bronfman Sr, the billionaire philanthropist who was formerly head of Seagram.
Her mother is Rita Webb, the British-born second wife of Bronfman, who would divorce and then remarry Edgar shortly after Bronfman’s birth. Rita Webb – now known as Georgiana Bronfman – has since married British Chariots Of Fire actor Nigel Havers, making Clare is step-daughter.
Rita and Edgar’s second divorce split the family, with the girls living in England and Kenya with their mother while their father stayed in thew United States.
They would visit him in New York City as well as his nearby home in Westchester, and even took him to a Nxivm meeting at one point.
When she was 17, Bronfman began to compete in equestrian events, something she would continue to do for a decade.
She was ranked 12th in the country and 80th in the world at her peak.
Bronfman gave it all up though for Nxivm.
Victory: Catherine Oenberg (right) whose daughter India remains a mamber of Nxivm arrives with Ranire’s ex Toni Natale (center)
‘I retired from a very successful career as a professional show-jumper because I wanted to do something more meaningful with my life,’ said Bronfman last year while defending Raniere.
‘NXIVM is that. As I said, the programs help. I am happy, healthy and financially moe successful than I have ever been.’
She and Sara both decided to not only join Nxivm but to relocate to upstate New York so they could become involved in teaching and training new members.
Bronfman went on step further though and became involved in organizing Vanguard Week, the annual week-long celebration of Raniere’s birthday brought together all of the group’s members.
The sisters were able to use their connections to attract big name guests like the Dalai Lama, who visited the group and made an appearance in Albany after the Bronfmans put up a $1 million donation.
That was done through the charitable organization they founded with Raniere, World Ethical Foundations Consortium.
That money comes from their grandfather, who founded Bronfman’s Distillers Corporation.
In London today Clare’s stepfather Havers refused to comment.
Leaving his home in Earl’s Court, south west London, on a motorbike he said: ‘We’ve absolutely no comment to make. We don’t want to be arrested by the FBI.’
Samuel Bronfman was born in Imperial Russia but immigrated to Canada, where he later purchased another liquor company, Joseph E. Seagram & Sons.
He decided to change the name of the company given the success Seagram already had with their branded liquors such as Dewars and Seven Crown.
He purchased that company at the perfect time as Prohibition took effect in the United States, forcing many Americans to travel across the border to buy or consume liquor.
The company would even ship liquor to a few northern cities, breaking no laws since they were producing the product in Montreal, where it was legal.
His son Edgar would become CEO, and in 1933 took control of the first Seagram subsidiary in the United States.
Edgar had five children with his first wife, Ann Loeb: Samuel, Matthew, Edgar Jr, Holly and Adam.
Samuel made headlines when he was allegedly kidnapped in 1975 by two men who demanded $2.3 million ransom.
The boy, 21, was eventually found in a Brooklyn apartment along with two other men and the ransom money stashed under a bed.
One of the two kidnappers, who were both from Ireland, said that he and Samuel were lovers.
His kidnappers were later acquitted when they claimed Samuel was in on the crime, and hoping to get a share of his father’s wealth.
That is something that the sisters were also accused of doing when in 2009 they claimed that a group was threatening to go public with damaging secrets if they did not hand over $2.1 million.
Edgar and his most successful son, Edgar Jr, became estranged after he told his namesake that he should not marry first wife Sherry Brewer because she was black.
Edgar’s other two sons, Matthew and Adam, are both successful businessman, while his daughter Holly moved to India and converted to Hindu, changing her name to Bhavani Lev.
Clare and Sara did not spend as much time with these siblings however given the fact that they lived on the other side of the world and were decades younger than their father’s other children.
That brought the sisters close, and now prison could tear them apart.
Sara is still a free woman, but her sister is facing some serious time behind bars if convicted on these charges.
‘As alleged in the superseding indictment, for over a decade, Keith Raniere was the leader of a racketeering conspiracy in which he and members of his inner circle committed a broad range of serious crimes from identity theft and obstruction of justice to sex trafficking, all to promote and protect Raniere and Nxivm,’ said US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Richard Donoghue in a statement’
FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William Sweeney also gave a statement on Tuesday.
‘As alleged, this long-running conspiracy crossed multiple avenues of criminal activity, which included, among other things, electronic monitoring; identity theft; extortion; victim smuggling; and illegal trafficking of a victim after a period of unlawful confinement,’ said Sweeney.
‘The details of these alleged crimes become more and more grim as we continue to dig deeper into the conduct of this organization and its intended mission.
‘Today’s superseding indictment highlights our commitment to bringing justice to Nxivm’s many victims.’