♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
CATHERINE: Within NXIVM, there's a secret sisterhood.
They have to sign a lifetime vow of obedience,
and they have to provide blackmail,
and they're branding girls.
I just spoke to India,
and she did admit to being branded.
She thought it was wonderful.
I will do whatever I can to get India out.
MARK: We knew there was another branding ceremony
that was about to happen, and it was like
"We have to get this story out and Frank will report it."
And when he came out with the news,
it set the whole organization into a panic.
The idea was not just to expose what was going on.
It was about getting people away from danger.
This organization has taken my child.
I will do whatever it takes to get her back.
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
(camera beeps)
Mark Vicente: And... whenever you're ready.
You know, like, here we're doing this, you know, wonderful,
idealistic movement,
and we're trying to create something,
and we have created something that just produces value.
Enhances people's lives.
And we're just minding our own business and doing this great thing,
and we're just being attacked.
So, I just feel determined.
You know, like, "Motherfucker." You know?
Like, how could they do this to us?
When I think of how destructive that is,
I think, "Oh, my God. That is just heinous."
We're gonna uncover all these things,
and then people are gonna say, "Don't fuck with those people,
because, you know, they'll come after you."
You know? "They will, they will figure it out.
"They will... They won't let it go.
They're not... They don't let things slide."
(Kristin Keeffe continues)
(laughs)
Yeah!
("Dream State" by Son Lux playing)
♪ Days we were young ♪
♪ We took photographs of everything we could see ♪
♪ We had to run from it ♪
♪ Priest and prophetess ♪
♪ We were nothing we would defy ♪
♪ Oh, invisible skin ♪
♪ Where is the world within ♪
♪ Invincible skin ♪
♪ It's how we all begin ♪
(birds chirping)
(baby babbling)
Sarah Edmondson: He asks about Albany.
He's like, "Mommy, when are we going back to Albany?"
- I wanna get down. I wanna get down. - What about your sweatshirt?
- I wanna get... I want... - Ooh.
What about your sweatshirt? You wanna put it on like a cape?
- Troy: Yeah. - Put it on like a cape.
I'm gonna give you this jacket in case (indistinct).
- Troy: Superman! - Edmondson: Good?
Bye, Troy. Love you!
Edmondson: So I got a call from the police officer
from the financial crimes unit in Vancouver
saying that they were trying to get me arrested on three fronts:
fraud, mischief, and theft.
I knew this was coming, because I'd heard
through someone who was kind of playing both sides
that they were preparing a legal case against me.
That's when I called Jim,
because he was one of the main leaders of SOP,
and also, I considered him to be a friend.
Jim Del Negro: Yeah.
(Edmondson speaking)
- Del Negro: Mm-hmm. - (Edmondson speaking)
Edmondson: I really don't.
(Edmondson speaking)
Nippy Ames: I'm not angry at the people still in. I understand it.
I've been on that side of it.
Jim and a couple other friends are the ones that, like,
as I'm sitting here, I'm struggling to...
you know, I, I still feel...
I still feel like they're my buddies, you know?
And I feel...
You know, I spoke to him and Mark,
you know, almost every other day.
And he showed me
a level of compassion that, you know, from a guy,
you might even think is somewhat uncomfortable.
But, you know, he showed me love,
uh, in a way that, you know, another guy hadn't.
He, he hung in there with me,
and he really helped me, where I just didn't have
certain skill sets in certain areas,
and he goes, "I know you to want these things,
"and when you behave like this,
you undermine the things that you want."
You know, he was the kind of guy who could tell me that,
much like a brother could.
Del Negro: I think a lot of times, we're doers.
And men, we like to accomplish things.
And sometimes, that gets in the way
of our relationships with each other
and standing up for each other.
And there's nobody that I know
that does that and represents that more
than Keith Raniere.
So, I give you Keith Raniere.
(applauding)
Ames: And that's the hard part of this whole thing.
He's, you know, loyal to Keith, I think to a fault.
♪
Vicente: We kept getting information through people that were
on the inside, straddling things,
that realized things were bad, but didn't wanna,
y ou know, make a big fuss. That basically said, you know,
message is the legal dogs have been released,
and that I am going to be considered the enemy.
Well, he's gonna find a way to get us.
He has an army of people, about a hundred strong,
who are so devoted.
They will sell us out. They will lie about us.
They will make up stuff about us.
They will do everything they possibly can
to try to convince the world that we're criminals.
So we're up against not only him,
but all of his agents, as well.
When other people were leaving...
Bonnie Piesse: It was like he didn't want to get contaminated
- by the evil, right? - Yeah.
At that point, I trusted Keith completely.
You think they're, like, the most ethical...
- Completely. - ...noble people in the world.
(line ringing)
Vicente: Hello?
- Keeffe (over phone): Hey. - How's it going?
Keeffe (over phone): Good.
Vicente: Mm-hmm.
♪
Vicente: Kristin Keeffe was a proctor in ESP.
And she was the legal liaison for a long time.
In fact, she worked with the lawyers on all of the lawsuits.
"I'm thinking of sit, like, doing, like, belts, like martial arts,
but instead of judo, sashes."
And I was like, "Keith, you can't do that. That's so queer."
But like, that... I remember that very specifically.
You were like...
(laughs) Yeah.
Vicente: She seemed very close to Keith Raniere, as well.
But then she suddenly just disappeared,
and I didn't know why.
And I found out later she ran,
because she had a baby with Keith Raniere.
Keith Raniere: Anywhere in your body that there's a sensation
that you try to... try to ignore, or try to suppress,
it just gets stronger and stronger.
And perhaps there are areas in your body you haven't noticed before.
Like certainly you've noticed your stomach, at times.
And maybe the sensation in your stomach now
is changing,
but not going away. Maybe intensifying.
Maybe not. But probably intensifying.
You may even be coming less comfortable.
But that's okay.
I guess you're not gonna let me finish my report.
- No, you're almost done. - I'm, I'm trying to read.
- Yeah, that's okay. You can finish your report. - Can you... can you stop?
I, I can stop, and you wanna know what else?
I will stop.
Right.
Sorta.
(typing)
- Vicente: Right. - (Keeffe continues)
- Vicente: Yeah. - (Keeffe continues)
Vicente: Mm-hmm.
♪
Vicente: What I was told was,
when you officially resign,
give it a few weeks. She'll reach out to you.
It's fuckin' full espionage shit.
And she does.
And it's burner phones, man.
Fuckin' different numbers every week.
Just fuckin' never know where she is, and like,
we're talking all the time.
Vicente: And so that's when she says to me,
"I can help you." And a few days later, we called Sarah.
Vicente: Hmm.
Vicente: Clare Bronfman, heir to the Seagram's fortune,
is the financier of NXIVM.
But when I first came in, she was a coach.
Vicente: Right.
Vicente: But, she eventually took control of legal.
She's on the executive board. So she had more and more power,
you know, as the years went on.
At this point, in essence, she's funding a lot of the lawsuits
against the perceived enemies of ESP.
She was probably told it was the ethical thing to do.
Okay, so a number of things were happening
in ESP and the company that weren't necessarily good.
Did you guys have a chance to do any research on NXIVM?
Edmondson: This is like Scientology.
It is a cult, where the leader
is keeping people through fear and dependency
and now, blackmail.
I can't spell NXIVM for the life of me.
Vicente: ESP has had about 15,000 people go through it.
In terms of permanent members,
it's probably 700 to 800 people.
What happened was, I was invited into this women's group...
The secret society is called DOS.
DOS. D-O-S.
Edmondson: Dominus obsequious sororium.
Which I believe means "dominant over submissive" or something like that.
By the way, DOS does not stand for "dominant over submissive."
I made one error.
That means "dominant submissive sorority."
I think there are about at least 50 women in this secret society.
You are aware, I'm sure, that my daughter is a DOS slave at this point.
The girls were branded in a branding ceremony.
Man (over phone): This business was ESP, right?
- Woman (over phone): N-X-I-V-M? - Yes.
Just point me in the right direction. I'm, like, a distraught mom.
I will... I will knock on anybody's door.
I don't care anymore if I'm prepared, not prepared.
I've been living with this for months now. I can't take it.
♪
Vicente: This morning Sarah contacted
the head of victim services in Latham, New York.
Uh, she referred Sarah to an investigator in the police department.
So, Sarah spoke to him and I'm waiting to hear from her.
(laptop jingling)
- Vicente: Hey. - Edmondson (over laptop): Hi.
Vicente: I have, uh, Catherine here, and Bonnie here, as well.
Hi.
Women: Hey, Sarah.
Vicente: So, the investigator.
- Edmondson: Yeah. - Vicente: What was his conclusion so far?
Edmondson: Um, that it's definitely fucked up.
He's not totally sure where the crimes are. Um...
Yeah.
You look like you need a rest.
Catherine Oxenberg: I'm sending you love from here.
I feel it. Thank you.
♪
Oxenberg: What else can we do?
Vicente: Speak. I mean, how do you get
law enforcement to move in this country?
You fuckin' blow it up in the press.
♪
Barry Meier (over phone): Uh...
Okay.
(Meier speaking)
Vicente: Twelve years.
I was one of the highest-ranking
male members that's ever defected.
(Meier speaking)
Well, there is no, there is no good way to leave this organization.
You are usually harassed, spied on, et cetera, et cetera.
(Meier speaking)
Vicente: There are members in our group of people
that have left that have had threats.
Now, we have spoken to law enforcement.
Uh, there is this Frank Report thing out,
but it's a very marginal website.
And we began thinking, you know,
what needs to happen is a reputable source
needs to look at this,
and, and I'll tell you, there's a lot of reading you can do
to understand the larger story. And in fact,
there was an article in "Forbes" magazine.
There were many articles from the "Times Union."
There were many sort of breaking news-type stories about
different women that left the organization.
(Meier speaking)
Pretty much all of it. I was sleeping very, very little.
I was dedicating my time to constantly solving different problems.
I put my career on hold.
My first year that I was kind of around, in and out,
I went to Keith Raniere and I said,
"This bad press is a real problem."
And he's like, "Eh, not really." I'm like, "What?"
Vicente: Right.
(line ringing)
Vicente: He said to me,
"Fearful people that can't think critically
"hear something, and freak out.
"We don't want those people.
"We want the people that can reason things out.
"The ones that just, don't just freak out over nothing.
We want the critical thinkers."
And I was like, "That is brilliant."
(line ringing)
(Vicente speaking)
- (beeps) -Vicente: And I would say it with such confidence.
Because, like, in some ways, it's the guardian at the gate
to make sure that we get the best.
Camera. Marker.
Vicente: From the moment I get there,
they want me to figure out how to make the film
to exonerate Keith of all this terrible press.
And me and Keith and Kristin Keeffe and a bunch of people
begin having a discussion about, like,
how do we show that what's been done to Keith in the press
is horrible,
and this is the very problem in civilization.
That when somebody tries to do extraordinary things,
they get suppressed.
And we start shooting this pro-Raniere
anti-cult film,
and it was basically to vindicate him.
To think that Keith and Nancy's names would go down as...
They would go down in history as schmucks,
when in my opinion they're both,
you know, intellectual and humanitarian giants.
Uh, I can't live with that.
'Cause I understand that,
you know, reality isn't what it looks like.
And I understand that justice doesn't happen.
You got to make justice happen.
So, I just feel determined.
Vicente: We spent years and years planning this film,
but never made it, because the bad press just kept on coming out,
and we had to keep on coming up with different strategies,
which we never could.
So, this is when the story gets even more interesting.
So, Raniere tells me that the, the issue is
all the negative press
is written by journalists who, in essence, are being paid off,
funded in extremely high level in the world,
with billions of dollars behind it.
Because, you know, you have young, fairly open-minded children
from very powerful families come to take ESP,
as apparently happened with the Bronfmans,
who came in 2002.
And suddenly saw the world differently.
♪ ♪
Vicente: So what happens if they stop responding
to the parental pressures that they used to respond to?
And Keith would explain, "Their family's extremely powerful,
and they see this as a threat, and they come after me."
I was told that Clare Bronfman got upset one day,
told her father something,
and her father tried to destroy ESP and the mission.
He was behind the "Forbes" article.
She was basically responsible for a lot of the bad press.
That was considered her breach.
Vicente: And so it seemed like she was gonna spend
the rest of her life fixing it, at Raniere's behest, I guess.
Oxenberg: I really struggled with
the idea of going to the press.
That being said, I'd been speaking with Barry Meier.
And I said to him, "I want this to be
"a piece that could impact
"a broader range of people into really understanding
the danger of this."
♪
I'm coming to pick up my mother.
Because she's coming to give me some emotional support right now,
because I was feeling particularly alone in this fight,
as far as my family's concerned.
(indistinct chatter)
- Hello, Mama. Oh. - (kisses)
- You made it! - (indistinct)
(laughs) That's cute.
- Princess Elizabeth: No. No, I don't think so. - Oxenberg: You don't.
To the girl...
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Oxenberg: Yes, this is a slightly...
It's ghastly.
Princess Elizabeth: Yes. She will.
♪
Oxenberg: I mean, there are people in that organization
that don't have relationships with their families anymore,
and they're not young anymore like her.
They've dedicated their entire life to
upholding this ideology.
I think that the whole idea about having him come was to basically...
vindicate Raniere.
And then what happened is, that event got canceled.
Because there was a lot of negative press,
the Dalai Lama was pressured,
and he said something to the effect of, you know,
"We need to examine these things before we take the next step."
That's when myself, Nancy Salzman, Sara Bronfman,
and Keith Raniere went to Dharamsala
to try to convince the Dalai Lama
that, you know, Keith Raniere was a good guy,
and to please come.
And so, I went to document the whole meeting.
- Raniere: It's that way. - Nancy Salzman: Which way?
There it is.
(motorcycle rumbling)
♪
- (Dalai Lama speaking) - Raniere: Good morning.
Yes.
I guess first and foremost, I wanted to apologize.
I... The things written about me are not true.
To the best of my knowledge,
the factual information is not true.
But it is my responsibility,
and I do want to change that.
(speaking English)
Man: Precautions.
Advisor: The different things proven against him
and he has lawsuits against others.
These are going on, right?
Are they all settled? All lawsuits are settled?
Advisor: There's no lawsuit... Don't you have lawsuits against, uh...
We've actually...
Yeah. Can I give you a little bit of the history?
- Advisor: Sure. - Um...
It... It is my belief that all of the accusations against us
are not true.
- Advisor: Okay. - Um...
- And there's never... Now... - Advisor: Yes.
Um...
The things that are said are not only
just opinion,
but the facts that they use are incorrect
to propagate that we are cult, we are a cult, we are cult
with no evidence.
(laughing) Right?
(indistinct chatter)
Dalai Lama: And he's dedicated for some good things.
- Isn't it? - Advisor: Okay.
- So, thank you. - Dalai Lama: Okay.
Bye-bye. Bye-bye. See you again tomorrow.
Vicente: And at the very end of the tail end of the meeting,
um, somehow, he said yes.
You know, and this was the moment that Raniere
would be finally vindicated.
Yes.
♪
Vicente: But despite our win with the Dalai Lama,
the bad press just kept on coming.
Jim Odato: He has been involved with several women
younger than 16 years old.
The girl pictured here lost her virginity to Keith Raniere
at age 15 or 16.
Her older sister says,
"He had told her that she was a bodhisattva,
whose soul could be much older than her biological age."
Hutchinson killed herself outside a Buddhist monastery
a t age 33.
Vicente: When 2012 rolled around
and the "Times Union" article came out, I read the whole thing.
That disturbed the hell out of me.
That was a lot to take in.
♪
But we were trained for years
to think that the most honorable thing
is to maintain silence.
To hold this position of
nobility against these terrible things in the media.
And at that time, as a fervent believer,
of course one of my first calls was to Keith Raniere saying,
you know, "I think we should talk."
But he was very well-prepared for these things.
He had answers for everything.
You know, we get the negative press,
- and I, I think I know where it comes from. - Mm-hmm.
But the good side of it is,
in learning about it and watching how it's done,
and watching how it's done to me,
I was able to come up with
a useful tool set
that can really transform media,
and transform how people interact with media,
and with the data within media.
Vicente: So 2014,
"The Knife" was born.
I was one of the founding members of "The Knife."
So in essence, it was a media company,
and the idea was to analyze the news
for objectivity, or lack of objectivity.
So, I trained a group of people,
what we called analysts,
on logic and a series of Raniere's ideas.
There was Rosa Laura Junco, whose father owns
one of the largest papers in Mexico,
Nicki Clyne,
Allison Mack, and Jens Erik Gould,
who used to be with "Bloomberg."
We would talk about the kind of bias in the article.
The slant, the skew, the use of, you know, adjectives.
Basically talk about how objective something was,
versus, you know, very subjective.
The idea was to give every newspaper article a rating.
Joining us now to analyze
is the editor-in-chief of "The Knife" media,
Jens Erik Gould.
Your rating of the coverage in three outlets
of the Trump Presidency in the first six months.
Jens Erik Gould: The language used in their stories
have some sort of vagueness.
Some sort of sensationalism. Let me give you an example.
Words like "constant chaos,"
"in-fighting," "abrupt and angry,"
"warring factions," "floundering."
These are words that are not measurable.
They're not based on data or facts.
They're emotional, and they get us riled up,
and we get into that.
But they're not helping us be more informed.
News host: So when the President says it's fake news,
what you're here to tell me is, a lot of it,
if it's not fake,
it's heavily spun and very biased.
It's an important distinction,
because something can be a fact,
but it can be distorted in how it's presented to you.
News host: Very interesting. "Knife Media" is what it's called.
Jens Erik Gould, thank you for being here today.
Vicente: At the time, I understood "The Knife"
was a way to analyze the accuracy
of media outlets...
which I now understand was literally to prepare people
for any negative press that would come against ESP,
because they would, in essence, discard it
for its emotionality.
You know, if you reduce everything down to the simplest thing,
you know, you go from,
a man raped a woman to
a man did something. There was a woman involved.
When you, when you basically take all the emotionality out,
you have no idea what actually happened.
Vicente: Hello.
Mm-hmm.
(Meier speaking)
Yeah. Here's the deal. I cannot...
A year ago, I could not imagine
that I would be talking to you,
taking the position I'm taking. I couldn't.
Because I have a lot to lose
if, if it's public that we're having this conversation.
This, this thing is a ligation machine
funded, funded by a lot of wealth.
(Meier speaking)
- Yeah. - (Meier continues)
- Vicente: Yeah. - (Meier speaking)
Vicente: All my paranoia...
Literally my 20s in South Africa
for seven years were watching my back,
looking to see who's following me, you know.
Being, being, you know, really espionage-minded,
'cause my father was a spy.
I now feel like I'm back there again,
doing all the same things.
Walking through a space, memorizing faces.
Watching cars, looking for tails.
It's all like, the same shit I went through.
And it's hard on Bonnie, you know.
So, Mark started this thing, like, two years ago
where he wanted to have cameras in our house.
And at first it felt like,
like that was a good, protective, you know, safe thing.
So he put a camera here. And, uh...
(laughs) At first, that was good.
Now, when I quit, um,
I didn't trust him completely.
I was very paranoid, and I had called a cult counselor.
And I literally tried to avoid the camera
so he wouldn't see me making a phone call.
And I'm, like, talking in the corner of the kitchen
calling the counselor, paranoid,
saying, like, "I'm so afraid to call you."
Um, luckily he didn't rat me out.
So that's fine.
Now, it feels like we're on the same page,
which is, like, the most important thing.
We know what we're standing for.
We know what happened to us.
Now we're talking to "The New York Times," and...
none of us know what's gonna happen.
Vicente: Basically, we've been laying low.
Not a lot of people have known we were here,
and actually the reason
we're okay with shooting here
is 'cause we're about to leave here.
What we'd made a decision about
was applying for the government safe address program.
To basically go off the grid,
so that nobody can find out where we really are.
A nd all, all mail and all everything points to Sacramento.
Piesse: It would be good if we're moved in,
and then "The New York Times" comes out,
and the address protection thing will happen
in the next, like, two weeks. I think.
And then we can be pretty much off the radar.
If they want to serve us papers, they can't find us.
(phone bloops)
Oxenberg: All right, so I got correspondence
from a lawyer,
and a document from what appears to be NXIVM Mexico,
the letter and notice from the State Attorney in Mexico
that's notarized.
"I hereby request the compliance of
the following restraining measures."
"Failure to comply with such measures shall bring along
"the imposition of urgency measures.
"Such measures vary from a warning,
"up to an arrest for 36 hours,
alongside criminal responsibilities that shall arrive."
Are you serious?
Vicente: I heard that Barry went up to Albany
to try to get a statement from NXIVM so I think...
I think that's what tipped them off about the article.
Oxenberg: So I think they're trying to attack
anyone that they think might be speaking to the press.
Yeah. I think so, too.
So I immediately sent the letter
to Barry Meier at "The New York Times,"
because I wanted his reaction.
Actually, my thought was if he gets this letter,
maybe he will push for the article to come out sooner.
But he basically sent me back an email this morning saying,
"Welcome to the club."
He said he got the same letter,
so I'm baffled why they are doing this.
(phone jingling)
Hold on one sec. What's going on, Troy?
Hi, buddy.
Are you gonna go to the park?
I couldn't talk about it 'cause I didn't want my collateral to be released.
The biggest fear, I think, is my family,
and, like, the videos of me trash-talking
all my important relationships.
Those are my biggest things.
And also, I just don't want a legal battle.
- You know, I know what ESP does. - Ames: Yeah.
Edmondson: They go after anyone who speaks against them.
Ames: We have a three-year-old son.
I don't want to make this his backdrop to his childhood.
(Keeffe speaking)
Edmondson: Jesus.
(Keefe speaking)
♪
Edmondson: Putting myself out there
and being the face of this...
is terrifying.
But, like, when I was in ESP,
there were always allegations, but there was no proof,
or as they say, "class one data."
You know, if anyone's gonna say anything about it,
it has to be someone who's willing to say,
"Hey, here's the proof."
So now I have class one data,
and it's on my body.
And you cannot deny it.
So, I've decided to go on the record,
and expose this.
I was reluctant to talk to "The New York Times." Scared.
And I don't want to be associated with these things, you know?
I'm embarrassed.
You know. And then I was like,
if embarrassment is the only price to do the right thing,
I'm just gonna go on the record,
and do what I can to expose this. Take this out.
You'll be surprised how many times I can say
"Keith Raniere and Allison Mack's initials are on people's vaginas."
I will put that in every single statement I can,
and if you leave reading that article
supporting that, and you're in that camp,
it's gonna be obvious that the problem is you,
and not people who are standing against that stuff.
Spin it however you want.
That's the problem. That's the bad thing.
I tap out at that.
(camera shutter clicking)
Photographer: I'm doing a very slow, low depth of field,
just on your eyes. That looks great, Mark.
Tilt your head a little bit that way.
And now, chin down every so slightly... Right there. That's good.
- Good. - Vicente: I said to Barry,
"I don't know if I can go on the record with this."
I wanted to back away.
And he said to me, "I, I, I just want to tell you,
"the reason this shit keeps going on is because
people don't want to go on the record."
I was like, "Fuck you. That's so true."
Photographer: Oh, that's good. Straight ahead.
Just into the camera, just there.
Vicente: They are gonna look for us more and more,
'cause we're talking about people that have a lot of resources.
No.
Vicente: So Bonnie and I spoke about it,
and said, "Okay." And it was like, it was like a suicide mission.
Just, like, we can't live with ourselves.
(camera shutter clicking)
What do I do with myself?
- Yeah. - (photographer speaking)
- That is true. - Photographer: You can even put it up
a little bit higher, if you want.
All right, you guys. Look over here at me.
- (camera shutter clicking) - Good.
(phone jingling)
Vicente: Hello.
Vicente: So there's, uh, Catherine on the record,
there's Sarah on the record, there's Sarah's husband,
as well, on the record.
And then, myself and Bonnie.
Um, there are
a number of other girls that are coming out.
But I don't know their status,
whether they'd want to talk about this or not.
- (Meier speaking) - Vicente: Mm-hmm.
(Meier continues)
Okay.
- Vicente: I'm gonna talk to a few different people. - Meier: Right.
Vicente: But I think in about 3 or 4 days,
I'll probably have a pretty clear list of who would talk.
(Meier speaking)
(line ringing)
Vicente: I wanted to just go back to the question you had
about that article.
Vicente: Um, what did you hear?
(line ringing)
♪
Oxenberg: I wasn't 100% sure,
her level of involvement, but... (sighs)
my daughter India, she's a ringleader.
She's a slave, and she's a master.
I don't think I'm gonna get her out
until the organization is taken down.
(line ringing)
- Do you think it's too late to call? - (line ringing)
Oxenberg: Hey, Barry.
- Obviously, you know why I'm calling. - (Meier speaking)
India's still in the clutches of...
that in... that madman.
And being subjected to more mind control,
so that's really hard on me.
- Yeah. We're, we're... - What... tell... What do you know?
(Meier speaking)
Keep the faith. Keep the faith.
- Okay, and so you can't... - Meier: Keep the faith.
Can you give me, like, a vague ballpark?
- (Meier speaking) - Well, like, how about a...
day. Not the time, but just the day.
(both laughing)
(Meier speaking)
Oxenberg: Mm.
Yeah.
Oxenberg: Mm-hmm.
God.
This is nerve-wracking.
♪
Edmondson: He's ruining people's lives.
People's lives that I brought into the company.
That is terrifying to me.
How do I reconcile that?
And my friends in Albany, my close friends,
people who were at our wedding say,
"Oh, you seem really fearful
"and you're making a rash decision.
It seems like you're having a tantrum."
I'm not having a fucking tantrum.
I'm the most principled I've ever been in my fucking life.
That's why I knew that I had to do the article,
because I had to reach them somehow.
And Frank Parlato... The Frank Report isn't the way to do it.
It's too sensationalized.
If we expose this, then, then they have
the opportunity to leave if they want to.
If they want to keep going, go ahead.
(phone ringing)
Oxenberg: Sarah?
- Edmondson (over phone): Yeah. - Hey, sorry to bother you,
but I just found out some bad news.
- Edmondson: Okay. - Oxenberg: So,
"The New York Times" doesn't consider this story urgent,
and there's a chance that
they may postpone it indefinitely.
Basically, the story is considered evergreen.
There is no... They don't think there's any urgency to this story.
But they don't have a kid in there that's wasting away.
Edmondson: You just to talk to him. You need to move this.
This isn't the gossip column.
People's lives are being ruined.
Oxenberg: I'm desperate.
I don't know if you know what's going on inside my body,
but I am desperate.
Because I don't know what else we can do at this point.
I really don't. Like, somebody tell us... give us an option.
♪
Meier: I don't think that someone signing up for
self-improvement or self-help is a horrible thing
or a bad thing.
I'm so incapable of self-improvement, okay,
that it just doesn't appeal to me, straight up.
Right? It's like there's no hope for me.
There's just no... Nothing that could be done.
Even if there was some self-improvement program
that actually worked,
it wouldn't work on me.
It's that simple.
So, I'm, like, protected from this shit.
Because I'm fucking helpless.
I would guess the central thing that I took away from it
was how extraordinarily vulnerable we are,
as people.
And how even people who, on the surface,
are bright, are capable,
talented, successful, in many ways,
have this intense vulnerability.
And that vulnerability
is available for someone to exploit.
The idea that in 2017,
when we think of ourselves as living in
an advanced, culturally enlightened society,
where there's hope for equality between men and women,
that this type of unspeakable cruelty
can persist.
And that people can partake
and be subjected to practices
that could only be described as barbaric.
But, from the standpoint of publication,
it's important to have as many people as possible
speaking on the record.
And throughout the reporting of the story,
the greatest fear that everyone was expressing to me
was the fear of legal retaliation.
And they had a basis to believe that,
because there was this other group of women who had left the group,
and in fact had been the subject of numerous lawsuits.
Barbara Bouchey: I was the first significant person
in the entire organization to ever leave.
Over the years, I heard from members
and ex-members and the media
that people were terrified
to be the next Barbara Bouchey.
They needed to make an example out of me,
in order to instill in the community:
This can happen to you, too.
Buckle your seat belt, and get ready.
'Cause they're comin' for you.
("You Better Be Careful" by The Golliwogs playing)
♪ You better be careful, girl ♪
♪ You're all alone ♪
♪ You better be careful, girl ♪
♪ You're on your own ♪
♪ I see the tears begin ♪
♪ There in your eyes ♪
♪
WOMAN: I'm front page of The New York Times.
Holy shit, the whole world knows.
MAN: (OVER PHONE)
WOMAN: Every now and then I'm getting, "What the fuck? How could you let that happen?"
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
WOMAN 2: (OVER PHONE)
WOMAN: Now that I'm out and I'm looking back,
it was all for a man's pleasure.
And these women feel it's a beautiful, noble attempt
to teach women strength and empowerment
and I am fucking that up for them.
WOMAN 3: I found out the board was all the women
Keith had been sleeping with.
I held a forum to confront Keith.
KEITH RANIERE: This is extortion.
So, we are filing criminal charges.
WOMAN 3: They were bombarding the court.
WOMAN: It was like a horror show.
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
Subtitles Diego Moraes(oakislandtk) www.opensubtitles.org