♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NANCY SALZMAN: What is the nature of an ethical breach
and why does it occur?
What does it mean when you commit an ethical breach
and what are its effects?
Get together with your groups and your facilitators
and discuss those questions.
And then we'll meet back here and discuss them together.
The ultimate crime was this thing he called
"an ethical breach," and why it's an ethical breach
is because supposedly you go against your own morality
to do something that gives you a benefit that's easy,
as opposed to doing the hard thing
that allows you to be a better person.
"Repairing an ethical breach is vital to all of humanity.
It's vital to love."
"The moment you don't repair a breach,
you're destroying your morality."
I started thinking, are any of us ever good?
Is there anyone ever that gets involved
with Keith Raniere that their ethical breach
doesn't end up on the table as an issue,
that he then has power over them?
There was a certain point when I realized nobody
ever was able to heal an ethical breach with Keith.
And once he had an ethical breach on you,
he used it to torture you.
♪ ("DREAM STATE" FT. BONNIE PIESSE 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 ♪
♪ (SONG CONCLUDES) ♪
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
REPORTER 1: The second week in the federal NXIVM trial
wraps up in Brooklyn with Lauren Salzman
on the stand.
REPORTER 2: When it comes to the big names in the NXIVM trial,
Lauren Salzman is one that tends to get overshadowed.
She isn't the NXIVM co-founder, her mother is.
But Lauren Salzman is the first co-conspirator
to testify against Keith Raniere.
(SARAH EDMONDSON SIGHS)
(INHALES) This is Nancy, Lauren, and Michelle.
This is the part that just blows my mind.
She was knowingly putting Keith's initials
on other women's bodies and not telling them.
(SIGHS)
She did hurt people.
And she hurt her closest friends,
and she lost an opportunity to have a wonderful friendship
with many people, myself included.
And it's gonna be lonely there.
Wherever she ends up, whether it's jail or--
(SNIFFS) You know.
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
TANYA HAJJAR: So, Ms. Salzman,
how long have you known the defendant?
Almost 20 years.
I was a senior in college when my mom and Keith decided
they were going to start a human potential school.
So, I thought it would be a surprise
that Vanguard was going to be here.
He's going to introduce a brand-new module tonight.
And I got a preview, so you're in for a treat.
LAUREN SALZMAN: And when I graduated,
my mom told me they were going to teach classes
that were going to be good for figuring out
what I wanted to do in this next stage of my life.
And she made a deal with me
that if I came into the classes for six months,
then she would support me
no matter what I wanted to do after that.
NANCY: Keith used to call Lauren "Chip."
"Chip off the old block."
He said he had never seen a mother and daughter
who were so similar and so connected.
(STUDENTS APPLAUDING)
(ALL CHUCKLE)
-(STUDENTS APPLAUD) -♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NANCY: I always used to say to her,
"Lauren, you're gonna have to be better than anyone.
Because everybody will think you got this job because of me.
And so you have to work harder." And she did.
ALL: Thank you.
(STUDENTS APPLAUD)
♪ (PIANO MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NANCY: My daughter was the happiest
I had ever seen her.
But also I had a concern.
Like, was it really that she just loved ESP,
or was something else going on behind the scenes?
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(CHUCKLES)
(KISSING)
-LAUREN: See you tonight. -KEITH RANIERE: See you later.
TANYA: So, Ms. Salzman,
how long did you have a sexual relationship
with the defendant?
LAUREN: Mostly between 2001 and 2008.
KEITH: Are you wearing underwear?
-LAUREN: Yes. -KEITH: Aw!
I always wear underwear, Keith.
TANYA: Now, at the time you began your relationship,
did you openly discuss or acknowledge it?
LAUREN: No. He asked me not to.
TANYA: Was it difficult not to tell your mother
about the relationship?
LAUREN: Yeah, it was really difficult for me.
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NANCY: I did not know about Lauren's relationship
with Keith for five years.
And it wasn't until things were going badly
that Lauren told me.
(SIGHS)
It was-- I had mixed feelings. I felt like, in a way,
it was a betrayal. But I also felt like...
that maybe it was wrong to feel that way.
Like, I mean, he's...
He was supposed to be this very ethical person,
and she wasn't a child, but she was.
The fact that he kept it from me...
was-- That's terrible.
Because he knew that--
He had to know that it wasn't okay.
Now, in retrospect,
I know that he started right from the beginning.
After college, she moved back in with me.
And Keith wanted her to move out.
And he said I was keeping her dependent,
and it was really bad.
And he told me I had to charge her rent.
He convinced her to move out.
And she said that immediately he was on her.
And she said, "He just wanted to get me away from you
so he could do that."
TANYA: Ms. Salzman,
did you ever discuss having children
-with the defendant? -LAUREN: Yes.
We started talking about having children
within the first five years of our relationship.
I had expressed that I wanted to have children.
And he said that that was something he could do.
And as I got closer to 30, I started pushing harder
for that to happen.
He told me that the reason we aren't having children
was because I didn't have a good work output
and that I hadn't lost weight and my state was very low.
So I focused on changing all of those things.
(STATIC)
KEITH: Now, how about--
(INDISTINCT CHATTER, CHUCKLING)
LAUREN: Then, in 2011, Keith said it was a good time
to start trying to have children.
But then, one night in volleyball...
I was excited and roughhousing.
And I jumped on another male NXIVM member.
He said I straddled him and that I communicated
that I was open to having relationships
with other men.
And that I had really disrespected him.
Keith said I committed an ethical breach.
When there was a breach, you would humble yourself
and make a commitment and plan to fix it.
So I stayed home for a whole weekend,
and I came up with a very involved seven-page plan.
TANYA: I'm showing you government exhibit 1497.
Can you read the text of that email?
LAUREN: "I'm so sorry, Keith.
I'm perceived as easy or available for a relationship,
or viewed as jumping from man to man, so not taken seriously.
This degrades me and also sets a bad example
in the organization and reflects poorly on Keith
and his choice to be with me or have a child with me."
"I damaged the way others will view,
relate with, and treat our child,
so I'm hurting someone who doesn't even exist yet."
LAUREN: Keith said it was a pattern.
That the way I relate with men disrespected our relationship.
Which was another reason why we couldn't have children
and that I had to work on myself first.
TANYA: During that period of time,
were you in any other sexual or romantic relationships
with anyone besides the defendant?
No.
TANYA: So was your relationship with the defendant monogamous?
LAUREN: Only for me.
TANYA: And was that a requirement?
LAUREN: Yes.
NANCY: I know that the government thinks
this is a sex case.
I don't think this is a sex case.
I think this is an abuse of power case.
They're making sex the big thing
because that's what everybody wants to buy.
It's power.
And the way he abused it with women
was to control them through these romantic relationships.
VERO JASPEADO: I was in love with an idea of who--
what I thought he was.
I believed he was...
he was this man upholding these amazing values.
At some point, Nancy Salzman approached me and she said
that Keith wanted to spend time with me.
And then just a few hours later, Lauren called me on my mobile.
And she said that--
that she had been talking to Keith and to her mom,
and that Keith wanted to meet with me.
And that it was such an honor. "I just wanted you to know this.
Whatever you choose is fine, but I wanted you to know,
that this is a high privilege that you have right now."
The Dalai Lama flies to see him.
You know, if the Dalai Lama comes to see him,
it's like, this is a huge opportunity.
You could say that I had,
like, an infatuation with my teacher, you know.
Through the years, we became closer.
And eventually, our relationship
transformed to something intimate.
He just asked me to be discreet.
He sees more than I do. He believes it's a better idea
to keep our relationship a secret.
Of course, I understand.
TANYA: So, Ms. Salzman, did you ever express wanting
to have a relationship with someone else
to the defendant?
LAUREN: Yes. In 2013,
I told Keith that I had been spending time with someone,
and I shared a kiss with that person.
I was hoping that he would end the relationship
because I did that.
But he told me if I stayed,
he would reinvest in our relationship.
And that we could have children soon.
I said, "Soon like a year, or soon like five years?"
And he said, "Within that time frame."
But then he told me he was considering resigning
as Vanguard because of what I had done.
(CROWD APPLAUDING)
LAUREN: It was a huge deal to me.
I couldn't make sense of why he would leave
the community without a leader because I had done this.
GROUP:
(CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
LAUREN: So I decided to stay.
I thought if I could prove to him that I was a good person,
then I could believe it myself.
I mean, I guess I thought it would help justify
all the choices that I made over the last 20 years.
MARC AGNIFILO: You know, it was just a--
a very, very sad, difficult day,
I think, for-- for everybody.
Keith's perspective is that
Lauren had certain things that in Keith's opinion
she had to work through.
And I think in Keith's mind, if Lauren worked through them,
maybe they could have this relationship
that Keith had in mind for them.
Whether Lauren didn't get there because of Lauren
or Lauren didn't get there
because there is no "there" to get to, you know, is--
I don't know the answer to that.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
There are lots of things that we do to each other
that are hurtful, you know. Not all of them,
and maybe even very few of them, are criminal.
NANCY: It's very sad.
Like, I had a whole life before I met Keith.
Like a whole, normal, traditional life.
The thing that saddens me is the women
in Lauren's generation
who spent their whole twenties and thirties
with-- with Keith promising them things
and never had an experience with the real world.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NANCY: When I got here, they were all fighting over
who was gonna get the special babies from Keith.
Like, he promised Barbara, Pam, and Karen babies.
They-- they had names for them.
Like, I mean, they really believed they existed.
I found out little by little all the women didn't have babies
because Keith made them think
that they could have babies, like, anytime.
And they were all in their forties and almost 50.
One of the women had been on the pill
because she had skin problems. And she went off the pill
and found out she'd been through menopause
and didn't know it.
And was still thinking she was gonna get pregnant
and have a baby.
It was crazy.
And then he promised the next generation babies.
VERO: We were talking and he was grabbing my hands.
And at some point,
he grabbed his hand and he put it on my belly.
And he looked at me and he said,
"Do you wanna have a baby with me?"
I said,
"I need to think about it," or something like that.
And then I wrote to him and I said,
"Of course I want to, you know. Of course, I just got...
scared a little bit, but, uh,
I think it's a beautiful thing what you're asking me."
When I found out that he had told the same thing
to other friends of mine...
That is so cruel.
You don't-- You don't play with somebody's motherhood.
You don't do that. You don't do that.
NANCY: He had me working with Vero Jaspeado
about her discontent about the organization.
He called it "management." I had to manage people.
It was such a diversion from what I was trying to do.
But if I didn't do it,
I was afraid my organization would be destroyed.
And-- and I'm telling you, I felt responsible
-for these women. -(CROWD APPLAUDING)
NANCY: In a company, you need a human resources department.
Lauren and I were the Human Resources Department.
VERO: If someone was having a reaction,
Nancy or Lauren, or Karen, or one of the high ranks
would be sent in to smooth things over
and help us work our alleged issue.
In my case, Keith spoke at a training
about my entitlement and my defiance,
and therefore everyone felt entitled
to point that out to me.
To the point that I completely believed it myself.
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
VERO: I want to offer my apologies.
I know very well how and...
and when I have spoken without honor.
And-- (SIGHS)
And-- and it's so painful.
Sometimes, we're just in awe to realize what you've built.
And-- and...
I don't think I fully understand the--
the-- the damage that I-- I've done. (SNIFFLES)
And, uh, I commit and I promise...
(SNIFFLES, INHALES) ...I'm changing now.
VERO: I believe that many of the tools that we used in ESP
were meant to
stop listening to your intuition.
To gut feeling.
I strongly stopped listening to my intuition.
And...
And that was-- That was so important.
One day, he asked me to meet him.
It was very late. I think it was, like,
3:00 in the morning or something like that.
So, we laid together.
I put his hand, like, next to-- to my face.
And I am a woman, and I know how
female fluids smell.
And he smelled like that.
He said that--
that he had a couple other relationships.
He asked me how I felt about it.
And I said that--
Well, that it was uncomfortable.
You know, and that I was trying to--
to hold my reactions, you know. But it was painful.
KEITH: You have a relationship with a person,
and you trust them, you believe in them.
And then one day you find they've lied to you.
No matter how many times they live up to their word,
there's still the one where they didn't.
So the question is,
can you ever believe in them absolutely again?
There comes a point where there are--
is no truth and is no lie. It doesn't matter.
As long as it matters to me, I can't be free.
As long as it doesn't matter to me,
then I am free.
What matters to me is my experience of you.
You understand?
VERO: I was thinking, "Why didn't you tell me before?"
These are things that if you say before,
then I have-- I... I have--
Like, more opportunity to choose.
And he told me, uh-- That it was my-- my--
my entitlement, that I wanted him for me or...
that I could feel jealousy or...
Basically, that it was my issue.
NANCY: He wanted the women
that he was in relationship with to get to the point
where they didn't have reactions anymore.
If they had a reaction to him with another woman,
he would hold that over their head
and say, "Well, you have an attachment.
You shouldn't care!
And I'm doing this for you."
And I remember this one particular time
I saw him do something that I was very upset about
with a woman.
And I found it completely inappropriate. And I told him.
And he said to me...
"You have no right to think you know
what what I'm doing means.
You have no way of understanding the way that I work with people.
And you have no right to question
how I work with women!
If you ever do it again, ever, you will never see me again.
We will never speak again."
And I was horrified. Horrified.
I-- I didn't know what to do!
And I somehow...
made myself wrong.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
VERO: I was in love! I was gonna have a baby with this man!
It was hard for me to...
(SIGHS) ...to be objective!
NANCY: Everything is so blurred
because we trusted that he was teaching us
something that we didn't know about being ethical
and living an ethical life.
And so we committed ourselves to something that we thought
was real and principled. And we did things for him...
because he convinced us that that's what we were doing.
I resented that in the background
of everything I did was damage control
-about Keith's sex life. -(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING, CHEERING)
NANCY: Is it bad? Yes!
But you weigh it against all these people
who are having a great experience
and it's just his little world.
I used my authority
to edify Keith Raniere,
and he took the credibility that I gave him...
and he abused many people.
And I don't know...
how to live with that.
And that's my cross to bear in my life.
So where is, um...
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
NANCY: He had so many women he had to balance all the time.
It became harder to get people into these commitments.
Like with Lauren,
he had to promise her constantly that he was coming back,
that they were gonna have a baby.
All of these things!
And I think he created DOS maybe
as a way of getting them to have this vow
that they would never leave.
TANYA: Ms. Salzman, I want to go back
to discuss your initial recruitment into DOS.
Looking back now,
do you see any significance
as to the timing of your recruitment?
LAUREN: Yes, I do.
Keith told me that he had started a sorority,
that there were seven founding members,
and that they were going to invite me
to be a founding member.
Then a trusted friend approached me
and we had a meeting in her car,
where she introduced the concept of collateral.
She suggested naked pictures.
I took three pictures of myself that I put on a USB drive
and I gave them to her.
Then once I did that, she explained
that this is a lifetime vow of obedience.
Ten days later, he told me he was having a child
with another woman. Marianna.
I had a complete meltdown.
He stole from me and himself the ability to know
if I would have stayed without a collateralized vow.
He responded by telling me that my emotional reaction
was making things harder.
Love, if you will, is the greatest fight.
It fights against comfort. It fights against our bodies.
It fights against our emotions. It fights against our words.
Hopefully, when you take on commitments,
when you take on vows,
you're going to have to fight for them
harder than you imagined.
That's how we know love by how much pain we can feel.
LAUREN: Ultimately, I apologized to Keith
for my immaturity and committed to staying with him,
knowing there wouldn't be a relationship or children.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
(SCOFFS) I find today to be really disturbing.
Uh...
It was really hard to stomach.
If someone who is so devoted to him...
I mean, she loves this man.
She wants to have children with him.
And then he has the gall to approach her
after she has waited for so many years and say,
"Actually, I think I'm going to have a child with Marianna."
And then when she gets upset about that...
it's thrown back in her face as the reason that she's not fit
to bear children with Keith.
It's just such a mind fuck.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
ANTHONY AMES: All right.
SARAH: "In 2005, he took nude pictures of her
on a bed in his library." Gross.
"Raniere advised her on her ideal weight."
Manipulative fuck. Sorry, I'm getting a little angry now.
I wouldn't say I wanted to be branded per se,
but I wanted to prove to Keith that I was the kind of person
who was committed to growth. Oh, Lauren.
ANTHONY: "Lauren wanted to believe
that all of this was for her growth,
and she wanted to make everyone proud of her
and wanted to have a child with Keith.
When DOS was exposed, there was a renewed discussion
on the subject of Lauren having children with Keith.
Keith said he would do some kind of fertility treatments
to have a child with Lauren if Lauren stayed."
-What the fuck? -Motherfucker.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
I'm just... (SIGHS)
It's just, like, I don't know. (INHALES)
Like...
Even through betrayal
with Lauren and how she lied to me,
there's always been this through line,
like, that I still cared about her.
You know, that's why I didn't take the photo down of her,
my bridesmaid.
I'm not saying her choices are okay,
but she was fucked with.
She has been fucked with, and consequently fucked...
other people too. Like, really screwed them up.
And the way that she was with me in DOS
makes sense now.
It was abusive. It was like being with someone
in an abusive relationship.
Like, she'd be mean and then I'd--
I'd be like, upset about it. And she's like,
"Why are you upset? Don't you see
I'm only doing this for you and your growth?
Don't you see I'm doing this 'cause I love you?"
(SIGHS)
And obviously, this is what she's getting from Keith.
Uh, I mean-- (SIGHS)
It's hard to pick a place to start. Um...
We had no idea that this is what was going on.
But hearing all the abuses that she had been subjected to,
uh...
the first thing I felt was my anger towards her
just kind of dissipate.
Justice is weird 'cause it-- it--
it feels like this is just, 'cause it's coming out
and everything that Keith is doing
is being exposed.
Still doesn't feel good. A lot of people are hurt
as the result of one man.
(EXHALES DEEPLY)
NANCY: Keith didn't include Lauren in DOS for years.
She was only in DOS a couple weeks more than Sarah.
It wasn't like Lauren had been in for a really long time.
She-- she wasn't.
She told Sarah about it 'cause she was her best friend.
But everybody thought Lauren started DOS
because Keith had Lauren address the community.
And Keith forced her to lie
and say he had nothing to do with DOS.
TANYA: Ms. Salzman, you testified
that you lied publicly within the NXIVM community
about the defendant's involvement in DOS.
LAUREN: Correct.
TANYA: At some point, did the defendant release
a public statement to the NXIVM community?
LAUREN: Yes, he did.
It contained statements that he was not affiliated
with the sorority, and that he had little knowledge of it.
TANYA: But you testified earlier that the DOS meetings
where the defendant attended were recorded?
Yes.
-♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪ -(MACHINE BEEPING)
I think branding is a very specific method
of control over someone.
I think it's violent, I think it's possessive.
And having his initials on these women
showed that he owned them, and he believed that he did,
based on the fact that they were all collateralized.
Having women who were physically scarred
for the rest of their lives,
it is just such a physical manifestation
of the pain that Keith Raniere caused.
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
KEITH: The whole branding thing, or what they call branding,
people think it's like a bunch of little girls,
you know, running around like hot poker brands,
stuff like that.
It's not like they chase after them, tie them down,
hogtie them or whatever. This is something
that they asked for, this sort of a thing,
and all this stuff around it, but I think
it's historically people have done this.
Warriors have done this.
Blood brothers have done this sort of a-- a thing.
And... I think...
as noble as it is to have,
it's ignoble and shameful to share.
And those people that go and break a vow,
not only a vow of secrecy, but a vow of fidelity
to all of their sisters, and show this sort of a thing.
That-- that's shame on them.
Not shame on the sisters.
NICKI CLYNE: You can say,
"This was a cult where women were branded."
Right? And that sounds horrible,
and I would never want to be part of that.
Or you can say, "There was a group of women
who, in an act of solidarity, chose to get a brand."
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MICHELE HATCHETTE: People love to get hung up on the branding.
I have not said publicly whether I have a brand or not.
And, like, I-- I don't plan to.
It's nobody's business what's on my body.
And what I, excuse me, chose to put on my body.
NICKI: If what was being said about us as a group within DOS
was happening to men,
it would be viewed so differently.
If a man came out and said, like, "Oh, my God, I was part
of this group and I got a brand, and now my life is ruined."
People would be like, "Who cares?" (CHUCKLES)
TANYA: After you were branded, did you have a conversation
with Allison Mack about having joined DOS?
LAUREN: I did.
Allison was very excited and enthusiastic.
She was like, "Isn't this great?
Like, not only do we have this master,
but we all have these new sister wives."
I came away from the conversations
with Allison believing that Keith was having sex
with all of her slaves.
I came home and said to Keith, "Are you having sex
with Allison's slaves?"
And he said, "No."
So I asked him, "Why does she think you are?"
And he said, "Because I didn't correct her."
Later, I went back to Allison and said,
"Is he fucking your slaves?"
She said, "Just Nicole and Suzy,
but we're going to start working with India and Jay."
And I said to her, "When you say 'working,'
do you mean fucking?"
And she said, "Yes."
TANYA: Did the defendant express interest
in a house that was specific to DOS?
LAUREN: Yes. He wanted us to get a sorority house.
A place where DOS could meet.
TANYA: Can you describe these meetings to the jury?
LAUREN: At the start of every meeting,
we would take a naked group photo
and send it to Keith.
The photograph had to be full frontal nude.
We were to look uniform and happy,
and our brands had to show.
If we weren't happy, we got feedback
that we needed to retake the picture.
Oftentimes, we'd discuss enrollment
or recruitment, or look into buying toys
for Keith's planned dungeon.
TANYA: A dungeon in the context of DOS?
LAUREN: Yes.
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
LAUREN: It was going to be like a BDSM sex torture dungeon.
They had ordered a bunch of things for it.
He said it was for the people
who were the most committed to growth.
What is...
the "Good Boy Vibrating Remote Puppy Plug"?
This was in court? Oh, my God. (GASPS)
I don't know what BDSM stands for.
Can you tell me?
-CREW MEMBER: Bondage. -Bondage.
-CREW MEMBER: And domination. -And domination.
-CREW MEMBER: And sadomasochism. -And sadomasochism.
I did not know that was going on anywhere near my company.
(LAUGHS) I'm not a good sex cult leader. It's true.
Because I don't even know what these things are.
And I'm kind of horrified, but also interested
because I've never even seen things like this before.
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Very crucial to consent within the BDSM community
is that you can stop at any time.
You can take that consent away at any time.
And so here the idea with collateral
was that you can never take it back.
You can never get that stuff back.
So you have to do whatever is being asked of you.
VERO: That was the deal.
You leave, your collateral is released.
You must obey.
It is exactly the opposite of what we teach.
Being responsible?
How can you be responsible
if you're not choosing for yourself?
It's impossible. It's twisted.
One day, my master told me
that she was gonna make this video of me,
telling lies about people very close to me,
that if the video were to be released,
they would be deeply harmed.
Keith said that that video was good collateral for me
because I was an agent of truth.
♪ (MUSIC INTENSIFIES) ♪
(CELL PHONE CHIMES)
VERO: At some point,
my master threatened to release my collateral.
Keith wrote me that he didn't believe
that she would release my collateral,
but would never give the assurance.
And I realized, this was not just an exercise.
The way I could see it, I had three options.
To uphold my vow and to stay in DOS,
and to... (SIGHS)
...to be blackmailed
for the rest of my life, basically.
My second option was...
to leave...
and have my collateral released.
Or the third option...
end my life. Like, you know...
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
VERO: I sent a video to Keith saying that I was leaving.
I can't go on with the vow. I'm not--
I'm not the right person for this kind of vow.
And I-- I hope you will understand me.
So I left DOS before I was branded.
But my collateral is still out there
and that haunts me every day.
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
TANYA: Ms. Salzman, at some point, were you invited
to a recommitment ceremony in Mexico?
LAUREN: I was.
In June 2017, DOS became public,
and so a lot of the ongoing operations stopped.
And then after New Year's,
Keith wanted to get things going again.
I got a call from another first line master.
She said it would be really nice
if we did something special for Keith during the ceremony.
I can't remember her exact words,
but I interpreted it as group sex.
Then I started texting Keith.
I said, "Is this what you think of me?
Is this what you want from me?"
And he said, "Look, you have control issues.
And they interfere with so many things that you do.
Until you're willing to surrender
to anything and everything,
you're never going to get through this issue."
And I was like,
"There has to be another way for me to grow that isn't this."
And he said, "There isn't."
Now, I had no way of growing except surrendering
to a group blowjob.
But I decided to believe Keith
and go to the recommitment ceremony.
TANYA: Can you describe the trip?
LAUREN: It was in Chacala, which is a small fishing village
about an hour and a half outside of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
When we came over to the house,
Keith wasn't feeling well.
He asked me if I wanted to take a nap.
We laid down, and I started to calm down a bit.
At some point, I got up and went to the kitchen.
Suddenly, one of the other DOS members came running in.
She said the police were at the door.
They're here for Keith.
I immediately went into "protect Keith" mode.
(DOOR LOCK CLICKING)
LAUREN: The police started banging at the door.
(BANGING ON DOOR)
(POLICE OFFICER SHOUTING IN SPANISH)
-LAUREN: I just kept thinking... -(BANGING CONTINUES)
...they might just shoot through this door.
KEITH: Love is the greatest fight.
Our commitment is our power.
Love is pain.
You're going to have to fight.
(DISTORTED VOICE ECHOING)
♪ (MUSIC CRESCENDOS, FADES) ♪
(INDISTINCT YELLING)
LAUREN: At that point, I was completely frantic.
And in a moment of absolute fear,
I called out Keith's name.
(INAUDIBLE)
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
LAUREN: For months after that, I felt like such a failure...
because I hadn't been strong enough to protect him
at all costs.
TANYA: Were you surprised that the defendant
went into the walk-in closet
when Mexican law enforcement arrived?
♪ (SORROWFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
I was so surprised.
Everything I was teaching in NXIVM,
all centered around the fact
that we can live this principled life.
That day, I chose what I believed
we had been training for this entire time,
which was to choose love over everything else.
Including the possibility of losing my life.
(APPLAUSE)
It never ever crossed my mind
that if Keith and I were in this situation...
he wouldn't choose the exact same thing.
It never occurred to me that I would choose Keith...
and Keith would choose Keith.
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
(SNIFFLES)
MARK VICENTE: I'm very unhappy for Lauren...
but I'm happy that this is coming out
because this is the kind of thing--
This is the darkness.
-This is the darkness. -(SARAH SOBBING)
I still think
she can have a life now if she wants it.
She can still have a child, maybe not conventionally,
but she can. (SNIFFLES)
You know? We're gonna talk again.
I know we will. I don't know if we'll be friends again.
Maybe we will. I don't know.
I feel so bad for her.
It's so terrible.
(GROANS) Man, I have so many questions for her.
(SIGHS)
MICHELLE SALZMAN: My sister, she's destroyed by this.
She was destroyed by it. And-- and it-- it's--
it's fucking terrible.
And there's not a lot of, you know...
It's like... (SIGHS)
"Oh, my God. Why didn't-- why didn't we just see
how bad it really was?"
There was always like, "Well, he must know better.
He must know what he's doing. He's Keith."
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MICHELLE: There was a bunch of stuff
that I'm not comfortable in talking about.
Absolutely happened that I never shared with my mom,
and I never shared with Lauren,
and I never shared with anybody because he asked me not to.
I remember having a conversation with him when I was 18,
and he wanted me to commit to something,
some sort of something kind of relationship with him,
that I didn't know that I was agreeing to,
or understood what it was that he was asking.
At some point, it became a breach.
I broke some sort of commitment to him,
and then my relationship with him was broken forever
and I was always supposed to repair it.
And you came after me for 20 years.
I have to repair this relationship with Keith,
and if I don't... I don't know what.
It's even creepier that he wanted
to have a relationship with me
when he was having a relationship
with my sister. I mean, who does that?
And I had a boyfriend at the time,
and I was like, "Who is this guy?
He's 40-something years old and I'm 18."
What the fuck was going on?
NANCY: Keith never liked Michelle.
But I didn't realize it was because
she wouldn't have sex with him.
So...
I guess I should've.
I think it was like an experiment with him.
I started thinking that...
he enjoyed hurting us.
He just wanted to see how far he could push us. (SNIFFLES)
Like how much could he get away with.
He never intended to have a baby with her,
and he used those things as excuses
so he could blame her
for why he didn't follow through on his promise.
He knew what he was doing.
He stole her child-bearing years.
(SNIFFLES) He practically broke her.
I mean, she went to college,
but she was a baby when she met him.
She was not worldly.
And she was not strong.
Like me.
(SNIFFLES)
(SIGHS) He really affected my family badly.
And I let that happen.
I couldn't see it.
(SOBS)
(SNIFFLES)
(KEYS JINGLING)
(KEYBOARD KEYS CLACKING)
EMILY SAUL: With Lauren, she did know a lot.
She stayed a very long time.
This is obviously a very intelligent woman.
But it's really what she said at the end I think encapsulated
why she stayed there for as long as she did
and why she did what she did, and it's because
she loved-- because she loved Keith Raniere.
And she thought he, like--
She-- It was too hard for her to not believe
that he was the most ethical man in the world.
When you are in that position, like, who knows
what any of us is capable of?
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
TANYA: Ms. Salzman, do you remember
the defendant approaching you with a plan regarding
a young woman from Mexico?
LAUREN: Yes.
Keith told me that there are some serious problems
with this young lady.
That she wasn't doing the work that she committed to
and that she was stealing from the community.
Keith told me that Dani should be given an ultimatum.
She needed to go into her room with no distractions
and come up with a plan for how to fix her breach
or be sent back to Mexico.
How do you feel about participating
in this Dani project now?
I think it's horrendous.
I mean, of all the crimes that I committed...
I think this is the worst thing that I did.
JUDGE GARAUFIS: The government may call its next witness.
MOIRA PENZA: The government calls the witness
who will be identified as Daniela.
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
♪ ("UNRAVELING" BY BONNIE PIESSE PLAYING) ♪
♪ Everything Everything is wrong ♪
♪ There's nothing left Of how we knew it ♪
♪ Breaking down All the crooked lines ♪
♪ Unraveling ♪
♪ Everything Everything is gone ♪
♪ There's no way back You can't erase it ♪
♪ Memories are falling To the ground ♪
♪ Spiraling ♪
♪ It's who you ♪
♪ Who you are ♪
♪ Not who you ♪
♪ Believe in ♪
♪ (SONG CONCLUDES) ♪