Unsealed letters show Keith Raniere's cruelty to top NXIVM ally

NEW YORK — In the mid-to-latter years of NXIVM, as Keith Raniere’s cult-like empire slowly headed toward a tumultuous fall, the “Vanguard” fired executive board members and refused to allow Nancy Salzman, his second-in-command, to attend meetings in her own Halfmoon home.

Raniere required Salzman, his former lover and the co-founder of NXIVM and its Executive Success Programs (ESP) rooted in Colonie, to stay up late with him and cook him breakfast, and then harshly criticized her for falling asleep as he spoke.

“He even went so far as to write into the curriculum how my mom's coffee drinking was a dependency and demonstrated a lack of personal evolution,” stated her daughter, NXIVM defector Lauren Salzman. “Not surprisingly he failed to include the multitude of other caffeinated and energy enhancing drinks that he consumed daily.”

The words of Lauren Salzman were contained in one of nearly 40 letters sent to Senior U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis on her mother’s behalf prior to his sentencing of her last month. Garaufis unsealed the letters, which Nancy Salzman’s attorneys tried to shroud in secrecy, following a request by the Times Union and arguments by its attorneys.

The notes portray Raniere as a master manipulator who exacted absolute control over even his closest ally in NXIVM. Nancy Salzman, a native of Cranford, N.J, known in NXIVM as "Prefect," co-founded the purported self-empowerment company with Raniere in 1998.

The letters contained impassioned pleas for mercy to the judge from Nancy Salzman’s closest relatives, longtime NXIVM members and still-loyal disciples of Raniere, including Brandon Porter, the former Capital Region doctor whose medical license was revoked for conducting brain experiments on NXIVM-linked individuals in Halfmoon. 

Raniere, 61, is serving 120 years in federal prison for sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy and racketeering crimes. On Sept. 8, the judge sentenced the 67-year-old Nancy Salzman to three-and-a-half years in prison, telling her: "In 20 years at Raniere's side, you left trauma and destruction in your wake." Nancy Salzman, who does not have to report to federal prison until Jan. 19, now rejects Raniere, whom she calls a predator and possible psychopath.

Nancy Salzman’s father, Milton Loshin, who died at 93 in August and her mother, Lorraine Loshin, 92, who told the judge her daughter's care for her was invaluable, sent the judge letters seeking leniency. And the judge received letters from Michelle Myers, the younger of Nancy Salzman’s two daughters, and her husband, Ben Myers who, years before his marriage, was linked to one of Raniere’s most notorious acts. A young Mexican woman kissed Myers and told Raniere who, as punishment for her kissing another man, ordered her confined to a room in her family’s townhouse for nearly two years between March 2010 and February 2012.

Lauren Salzman, who pleaded guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy for crimes that included her role in the woman’s isolation, received five years probation. She was the star witness against Raniere for federal prosecutors in Brooklyn's Eastern District of New York. 

At Nancy Salzman's sentencing, victims described the NXIVM president as Raniere's fiercely loyal enabler and enforcer. They said she turned a blind eye to his worst atrocities and parroted his theories, including his claims that children are "perfectly happy" having sex with adults and that women experience "freedom" during rape. 

But many of the unsealed letters depicted Nancy Salzman as another of Raniere's victims. Some described her as jittery around Raniere, who carried a God-like reputation in their ranks, and that she constantly tried to please the NXIVM leader only to be subjected to his ridicule. Some letters said Raniere kept Nancy Salzman in the dark about his secret "master/slave" group, Dominus Obsequious Sororium (DOS), in which women were blackmailed, sleep-deprived, physically branded with his initials and given assignments to "seduce" him.

Lauren Salzman said Raniere had entered her mother’s life when her mother was at her most vulnerable, presented himself as invaluable and conned her into leveraging her life savings. When ranking NXIVM members defected, Lauren Salzman added, they were labeled enemies to be shunned while members loyal to Raniere were considered the good guys.

“Behind the scenes, Keith fired most of the executive board blaming us for not handling things better and we believed not only that we had destroyed his organization because of our shortcomings but that we owed it to him to fix it,” Lauren Salzman said.

She said Raniere closed her mother out of NXIVM operations and installed a new executive board headed by deep-pocketed Seagrams’ heiress Clare Bronfman — and scolded her if she informed her mother about it. 

If her mother showed up at meetings, Raniere refused to look at her and disciplined her for interrupting him, she said.

“He constantly humiliated her in front of others and made her feel that she was stupid,” Lauren Salzman said. “My mother was often exhausted because of how hard she worked, but Keith insisted that her need for rest was out of weakness or an indulgence.”

She said: "My mom is a good person. That also cannot be said of Keith."

Kim Constable, a Belfast-based professional bodybuilder and former longtime NXIVM member, echoed Lauren Salzman’s sentiments. Constable runs a fitness-related company, Sculpted Vegan, which employs Michelle Myers as a coach and hired Nancy Salzman as a consultant, the judge was told at Salzman’s sentencing.

“When Keith was in the room, Nancy turned from a strong and comforting presence, to a nervous, jittery woman trying her hardest to please him,” Constable told the judge. “She would bring him food, tend to him and make him comfortable. If a smoothie or drink was brought to him with the incorrect ingredients it would be sent back. He never seemed particularly grateful, only that he was getting exactly what he was due. This kind of servitude just didn’t sit well with me.”

Constable said Nancy Salzman’s home on Oregon Trail was more like a NXIVM center than her home. She said it was not until she witnessed Raniere publicly discredit and shame Nancy Salzman as a "joke" that she realized why she had been so nervous.

“She worked like a dog around the clock, day and night, coaching, mentoring and running the company while Keith swanned about being driven around by his various women friends, and playing volleyball at odd hours of the night," Constable said. "Nancy was treated more like his high-level PA than his business partner.”

Steven G. Messing, an Albany periodontist and longtime friend of Salzman, told the judge that Raniere seemed to control all of her time.

“It was as though she needed to ask his permission even to have coffee with a friend,” Messing, of Clifton Park, told the judge. “She was nervous in his presence and not herself. It was my impression she was afraid of him.”

Sandy Padilla of Clifton Park, a former deputy commissioner for the state Office of Mental Health who married Salzman’s first husband, Michael Salzman, said she recommended Nancy Salzman meet Raniere after her second divorce because she thought he could help her. 

“I later learned that Raniere locked her into a promise that she would work with him forever or give up her 25 years in a successful career if she chose to leave his program,” Padilla said. “He made her believe that this would be the only way she could be ethical.”

Raniere loyalists who wrote on Nancy Salzman’s behalf included Leah Mottishaw of Vancouver, who joined DOS and continued to defend it on a website alongside seven other former members, and Marc Elliot, who credits Nancy Salzman with helping him overcome Tourette syndrome. Elliot told the judge it was “imperative that she has the opportunity to continue to work and help people with such debilitating disorders.”

Another letter writer, Jack Levy, also identified as Jack Levy Hassan, was identified by federal prosecutors at Raniere’s trial as one of the members of his inner circle. 

In March 2019, the same month Nancy Salzman pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy, Porter, the former doctor, told the judge she “helped me in my goals to be a better physician, husband and father on multiple occasions over the years of our friendship.” Five months later, the state Department of Health revoked Porter’s license.