Allison Rood of California is a comedian and actor. She is also a plaintiff in the NXIVM lawsuit.
Rood was a student at the Los Angeles NXIVM center for about three years, dropping out in 2017 when Frank Report broke the news that a sorority known as DOS, connected with NXIVM, was branding slaves and taking collateral.
Rood was not in DOS.
On July 13, 2017, a video published on YouTube showed Rood onstage at a Greg Dean Standup Comedy workshop.
She refers to her time with NXIVM.
In the video, Rood says, “I was in a personal growth program for three years, and I just found out that it’s a sex cult… a sex cult… I don’t know which is worse, the fact that I didn’t know I was in a sex cult, or for three years no one tried to fuck me… Terrible… but I’m glad I know now that, first of all, growth does not come from a sex cult; it comes from social media.”
NXIVM Harm
Rood’s complaint in the lawsuit is that she was “emotionally and financially harmed.”
She alleges she was told that NXIVM courses would “lead to a successful career and self-fulfillment.”
Rood later found that the courses were based on “a pseudoscientific hodgepodge of psychotherapeutic methods which, when practiced by unlicensed and unqualified lay-people, subjected its participants to an unreasonable risk of serious psychological injury and emotional distress.”
Rood also alleges she “performed uncompensated labor, working for many hours without compensation for the benefit of the Defendants.”
The main defendants are sisters Sara and Clare Bronfman, who have an estimated $500 million.
Additional defendants are the imprisoned Keith Raniere, his top assistant Nancy Salzman, some of his harem – Allison Mack, Nicki Clyne, Lauren Salzman, Kathy Russell, and Karen Unterreiner, and two de-licensed physicians, Danielle Roberts and Brandon Porter. One did the branding, and the other did experiments dubbed “human fright, ” which he called “emotions study.”
Along with other female plaintiffs, Rood claims, in connection with 18 U.S.C. § 1595 – which authorizes civil lawsuits based on criminal offenses: Her actions benefitted an enterprise that allegedly engaged in or attempted to engage in and profited from sex trafficking, forced labor, and peonage.
‘Vicente and Edmondson Defense’
I am informed that the defense plans to argue that Rood’s uncompensated labor was performed at the Los Angeles NXIVM center, which Mark Vicente, a plaintiff, owned.
And they will argue that most plaintiffs were recruited either by Vicente or Sarah Edmondson, who owned the Vancouver NXIVM Center. The alleged free labor benefitted Vicente or Edmondson, not the defendants.
Vicente and Edmondson owned the centers, collected money from students, and paid commissions to the parent company that owned NXIVM, which defendant Nancy Salzman held and Raniere controlled.
The defense, I am told, will argue that free labor at Los Angeles and Vancouver reduced plaintiffs Vicente and Edmondson’s overhead and added to their net profit. It did not impact the profits or benefit the defendants.
At a hearing before Judge Eric Komitee, Bronfman’s lawyers argued that every plaintiff is ‘blanket’ suing every defendant for almost everything without distinguishing who did what.
For instance, Rood’s harm was allegedly caused by defendant Nicki Clyne who was recruited by Edmondson and Vicente, who both earned money from Clyne’s tuition. Clyne, however, had nothing to do with Rood’s recruitment or her uncompensated labor, the defense claims.
It is unclear how Rood’s claims of doing uncompensated labor have a nexus to peonage, forced labor, or sex trafficking and how all the defendants fit in, as is alleged in the complaint.
The plaintiffs’ lead attorney, Neil Glazer, will undoubtedly explain his theory on how this is legally plausible.
At least we know Rood wasn’t sex trafficked. In three years, no one in NXIVM even asked her to fuck.
Frank Parlato 
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Where was the location of the centers in Vancouver and Los Angeles?? We never found out.
“Vicente and Edmondson Defense” Ouch, plaintiffs cannot be loving that potential defense title. Does highlight the significant plaintiff problem (there is also with the bank problem) with the civil case.
Most of the charges are for behavior that was also engaged in willingly by many of the plaintiffs. How do you successfully sue for person for doing XYZ wrong while simultaneously going but ignore that I also did that. What they did counts, what I did does not (also known as “Its OK if my team does it” in politics and sports).
As for Alison Rood, seems Keith dropped the ball. She is a cutey.
Surprised he didn’t want her for DOS. If this case does get bifurcated, those that just want a refund + nice bonus for wasted time and effort might get a reasonable payday as making them go away is likely to be significantly cheaper than litigate to the end.
Problem its not something they can settle until the after the “real” part of the civil case of essentially re-trying Keith with Bronfmans as enablers since any settlement would be used against them.
Who cares??
Just scream “CULT”!
Everyone in law enforcement and in the judicial system loses their minds. And they work to make juries lose their minds, too.
It’s simple: Whoever is against the “cult” is innocent and whoever is for the “cult” is guilty.
Specific torts or crimes committed by specific individuals no longer matters.
It’s always been my understanding, as a naïve and gullible American, that the First Amendment clause of “freedom of assembly” doesn’t work like that.
But hey – what’s the bill of rights when there’s money to be made?
Right Neil?
Alanzo
Geez. You are so boring. Just like the other followers of Raniere. Everything is the fault of the other. Like their leader, gaslighting everyone else to Hell with conspiracy theories and lies while shamelessly lying through their teeth. There are no ultimate victims except the biggest victim of them all — Keith Raniere — but just ignore that. You pretend to be nuanced but you’re constantly projecting black and white thinking. No one thought Raniere was a threat to them. He’s just another two-bit, shameless, lying conman, narcissistic and sociopathic and so prone to his own destruction, and an emotionally stunted, horny teen boy trapped in the body of an aging adult. The conspiracy angle is a dumb delusion he sold clowns like Nicki Clyne from the beginning — who is about as disinterested as any other lover still smitten in the Honeymoon phase — and other dead-enders who are still living in the delusion of their hack job of a human’s grandiosity and all that comes with it.
Alonzo, don’t forget to change your socks this month.
The Alonzo Mantra:
Blah, blah, blah!
Anti-Cultist, tribal ninnies, meanies!
Blah, blah, blah!
Hot pokers, torches, butt plugs!
Ad Hominem, Hyperbole!
Blah, blah, blah!
“Shout cult, you evil doers!”
Thanks, Alonzo, for sharing your daily pontifications with us all.
P.S. For writing such a great sermon you, Alonzo, deserve to eat a whole three boxes of RingDings®️ and a 2-liter bottle of Diet Pepsi to wash it down.
Mark Vicente was for the cult. He can’t just “sike!” and bail after committing crimes.
You Can’t Escape Karma
Keith Raniere would have never been able to do what he did with the NXIVM Cult without the funding of the Bronfman sisters. It was their willingness to give him millions of dollars and the power that comes with that kind of money that allowed him to step over the lines that he did.
Raniere’s harem of women was manageable with his gals from CBI and a few new ones from ESP.
Until Sara and Clare came into NXIVM, Raniere was struggling to keep the Rick Ross lawsuit afloat. Nancy Salzman was always riding her Field Trainers and Salespeople for more sales to fill the bank of NXIVM legal fund
There was a push to enroll people of influence. These were the people who could help change the world the fastest the leadership would say. What was really going on is these were the people who had the most money to give to The Vanguard to do his “Thing”.
We all know what that thing is now.
Clare and Sara Bronfman were warned several times by many people that Keith Raniere was up to no good. They were warned early on, they had lost over 100 million dollars in the “bad decisions” by the so-called “smartest man in the world” long before Sara Bronfman decided to distance herself from NXIVM.
$68 Million in the commodities market, $24 Million in a real estate venture in California, millions in legal cases NXIVM loss, patents that went nowhere, and millions to Raniere’s other causes.
Raniere’s science foundation, his library fund, VWeek, putting on events for Nancy Salzman’s birthday party, flying back and forth to visit, and bringing in the Dalai Lama, flying Nancy Salzman and others around in their private jet, spending money on pollical campaigns, hiring consultants, PR people, lawyers, etc.
The Bronfman sisters have spent millions of the money given to them by their grandparents and now father to protect Raniere, the Salzmans, and others within NXIVM who were questioned and arrested by the DOJ when NXIVM was being brought down.
This is why they are both involved in this lawsuit. To say they are not responsible for what happened is to say you do not understand responsibility. It is their money that fueled the machine of destruction that the defendants caused upon not only the victims in this case but countless others.
Not everyone who was damaged in NXIVM qualified to be in this case because their situation happened too long ago and the court would not accept damages in this case.
That does not remove Salzman, Raniere, the Bronfmans, and others from their responsibility. They will have to live with this karma however they see fit.
Karma does not go away. It has to be cleaned up somehow. It will be up to each of those who harmed those involved in the destruction of others to figure out how to do this.
This was even taught in NXIVM. It’s odd that those who taught it, make money off of teaching it, believed in those teaching it are now fighting so hard to avoid it, and don’t want to take any responsibility for their karma.
Look closely. Allison Rood is the love child of Vanguard and Nicole Clyne.
But no one knew the truth because Keith and Nicki told the Nxivm community that Allison Rood was a foundling adopted by Barbara Bouchey and then abandoned as a young women in Albany.
Keith’s amphibian features blend nicely with Nicki’s giant pumpkin head to create quite a lovely young woman.
In JNESS and other Nxivm tracks Keith Raniere claimed (with no research or data, just pure evil agenda) that fathers soon became attracted to their own daughters when they hit puberty.
Because, Keith swore, the daughters now reminded the father of his own girl child’s mother – when she was younger.
Nancy Salzman parroted this perverted agenda to the feeble female minds she sought to strengthen in JNESS.
Prefect knew this tale told by an idiot had some truth in her own life. Keith Raniere grew tired of Nancy when she grew long in the tooth. But Lauren Salzman was younger and suitable to take her mama’s place in Keith’s dirty sex loft.
Now this wasn’t the incest Keith Raniere craved. And that he tried to punish Daniela and Marianna with by continually pushing the two sisters into sexually engaging with Keith simultaneously… But it was still filthy fun for Keith to have sex with mother. Salzman and her daughter.
Surely when Keith Raniere gazed upon Allison Rood he would see a better (younger) version of low level lover Nicki Clyne. First Allison Rood must grow her public hair to great lengths. And lose about 59 pounds. Be branded with his intials. And stop eating garlic
Maybe Nicki Clyne did harm Allison Rood? Look how child sexual abuse victim and Keith’s “# 1 slave” Cami begged vanguard to choose, “anyone but Nicki Clyne” to share a lifetime commitment with them.
Maybe it was because Nicki had harmed Camila? Or maybe Camilla just knew that empty-eyed Nicki Clyne was a cold-hearted sycophant who lied and groveled naked at child predator Keith Raniere’s feet. And that female hating Nicki Clyne would never believe or care about the rapes, abortion, child pornography and world of torment Keith Raniere had wrought on young Camilla since she was 13 years old?
Who knows? But the civil suit should unpack a lot. It will be very healing to hear the details of each plaintiffs civil complaint.
Good luck with your case Allison Rood. Keep laughing. Keep making fun of the Nxians. They take themselves waaay too seriously.
It’s likely that some of Rood’s money and unpaid labor benefited defendants Vicente and Edmondson. And that the rest went upstream to Albany and the coffers, desk drawers and shoeboxes of the various Nxivm corporations, sub-corporations and entities of this criminal enterprise.
A mess, certainly. As are the vast majority of civil lawsuits. Courts sort them out nonetheless.
Sandy Hook parents successfully sued Remington Firearms for $73 million. Remington was not directly responsible for the school shooting. They can’t even be held liable for making the gun used, because a special US law protects gun makers from product liability claims. No, Remington was culpable because of the way it marketed the AR-15 in question. A link of indirect responsibility was established and justice was done. Remington was partly responsible and it cost them $73 million.
Same thing can happen to the Bronfmans (and other defendants in the case). The Bronfmans funded, they enabled Raniere and the whole Nxivm criminal enterprise. They were involved in its operation. They bear responsibility. It’s likely to cost them.
So no, Glazer doesn’t have to show a direct link between Rood and the Bronfmans. They were responsible for Nxivm and she got ripped off by Nxivm.
Nxivm was a fraud and a criminal organization. That’s been established in law. People like Rood paid money for bogus courses. They deserve compensation. That part ain’t complicated.
I’d say she has a pretty good chance of recovering damages for emotional harm too.
And who d’you suppose the jury going to feel sorry for in this case? The Roods and the Miljkovics, or the Bronfmans? The little people who got scammed, or the rich enablers of Raniere?
Hey Sausage — Instead of speculating on the legal issues, why don’t we all wait until Claviger weighs in.
First of all after watching some of Allison Rood’s videos she is already a talented comedienne.
More talented than Nicki Clyne.
She need not waste money taking a bogus psychotherapy course concocted by a bunch of deranged cultists.
Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz who always possessed the means of going home, Allison Rood already has the talent to be a good comedienne without any help from a deranged cult leader like Keith Raniere.
On a consumer fraud theory Ms. Rood deserves to have a refund of her tuition money.
Considering the nature of NXIVM and its leaders Ms. Rood should feel lucky she was not propositioned for sex.
As for the peonage theory Ms. Rood might or might not win depending on the circumstances surrounding her unpaid labor.
The leaders of NXIVM, including Mark Vicente and Sarah Edmondson seemed to be more focused on squeezing money out of their students than anything else.
Some people believe that Vicente is some kind of hero.
In truth Vicente is a “cult hopper” who jumped from the crazy Ramtha fraud to the even crazier NXIVM.
Isn’t one form of Scientology enough?
Vicente jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.
If Vicente is a hero or genius why did it take him twelve years to discover that NXIVM is a cult.
Other people discovered the true nature of NXIVM right away.
If Vicente had waited much longer to discover the true nature of NXIVM he might have been indicted.
People like Roger Stone, Doug Rutnick, Joe O’Hara, Frank Parlato and Edgar Bronfman, Senior unnderstood from the get go what NXIVM is.
If it took Vicente twelve years to figure it out he is not the brightest bulb in the box.
As for America I fear for the Republic.
If Americans are unable to perceive that its leaders are a gang of greedy, grasping buffoons led by a senile old man
with no morals the country is in deep trouble.
As Bill Maher opined, “America is a silly country and History is not kind to silly countries.”
Political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote the book “The End of History,” published in 1989, and was thoroughly mistaken about its content, but not about book revenues, which are more important than respectability and scientific knowledge.
He probably should have written a book titled “The End of America.” Maybe that book title would be closer to the truth about the future, but it wouldn’t have sold as well as the lurid title “The End of History.” You can see that money blinds you, even when writing books.
What a wacko! Shadow says he wants to bang Dorothy form Wizard of Oz.
Frank, I just starting to follow this. Are Vicente and Edmonson the ones suing or being sued? If they were the ones who recruited Allison, it sounds like they were forcing her to do labor. Is she suing them along with the Bronfmans?
Vicente and Edmondson are plaintiffs. I think they thought NXIVM was good when they were involved in it, and then they changed their perspective when
…when?
Alonzo was breast fed until age 11.
Helpful News Story for NXIVM followers from the Babylon Bee
Are You A Groomer? 9 Things To Look For
1. Do you talk about sex with 5-year-olds behind their parents’ back?
2. Do you begin sentences with, “Don’t tell your parents, but…”
3. Do you encourage kids to cut off their sex organs?
4. Are you a Disney Executive?
5. Did you quit your teaching job after they passed the Parental Rights Act in Florida?
6. Does taking other people’s kids to a drag show and calling it a “field trip” seem ok to you?
7. Are you now, or have you ever been, a politician?
8. Have you ever helped a child acquire sex hormones without their parent’s knowledge?
9. Does David French think you’re a “blessing of liberty?”
Tally up your number of “Yes” answers and consult this chart:
1-2: Oh no! You’re a groomer!
3-4: Wow. Definitely a groomer.
5-6: Yep, still groomer.
7-8: There’s a Law & Order SVU episode with your name on it.
9: Ok, we’re calling the police.
Hey ShadowState,
If the highest tally is 9……..
…..How’d you score an 11?
“Anonymous
April 9, 2022 at 10:42 am
Hey ShadowState,
If the highest tally is 9……..
…..How’d you score an 11?”
Because you are dyslexic and confused ones with zeros. ShadowState
NC,
Obviously, ShadowState must have done something to get ‘extra credit’. Mmmh!
First of all Ms. Rood is a funny comedienne.
Funnier than Nicki Clyne.
Allison Rood has plenty of talent on her own without resorting to a bogus psychotherapy course.
Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz who always had possessed the ability to go home on her own, Allison Rood already has the talent.
All she needs to do is tap it.
She doesn’t need a “Wizard” like Keith Raniere.
On a consumer fraud theory Ms. Rood clearly wins and deserves her tuition refunded at the least.
If she performed unpaid labor, such as stuffing envelopes or some other chore, she might or might not win depending on the circumstances.
I have long criticized Mark Vicente as a “cult hopper” who hopped from the Ramtha cult to the NXIVBM cult.
Vicente jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Why did it take Vicente twelve years to figure out that NXIVM was a cult?
Other people figured it out right away.
People like Roger Stone, Doug Rutnick, Joe O’Hara and Frank Parlato, not to mention Edgar Bronfman, Senior.
Vicente is not the brightest bulb in the pack.
With a slightly different scenario Vicente might have been a defendant and not a plaintiff.
Did Vicente’s ample profits from NXIVM blind him to its true nature?
I fear for America, a country with a controlled media and corrupt elite where millions of people can not sense that its leaders are greedy, grasping buffoons.
Shadow-
“Why did it take Vicente twelve years to figure out that NXIVM was a cult?”
Why did it take Scott Johnson 8 years to figure out Amway was scam?
Why did it take Allen “Alanzo” Stanfield
16 years to realize volcano/spaceship reincarnation was absurd and he never was getting a promotion?
/////
Answer: Morons are morons; suckers are suckers; and Vincente, Johnson, and Stanfield are both.
///////////////////
Something to ponder:
It took Johnson 8 years to leave Amway and Alonzo 16 years to leave Scientology. Alonzo took twice as long as Johnson to have an epiphany. Does that mean Alonzo is twice as stupid as Johnson?
***
FYI: Shadow, I give you a lot of grief, but you are not a moron or sucker. Have a lovely night. Sincerely!
So Mark and Sarah did the forced labor on her?
I don’t get it… Aren’t they on her team?
And how is she traumatized but also joking about it publicly.. what a scam
When Rood said she took a class for three years, does this mean she lived in the quarters along with other NXIVM members? Can you specify what her three year course entailed in terms of hours/days of instruction/participation?
If she profited from using her NXIVM experience in her stand up comedy routines, does that reduce her victimhood damages? Did Rood need therapy for her to realize her experience was not one to joke about, but did serious harm to her psychological health? She seemed healthy in her comedy routine, not so healthy with her shift in position with the lawsuit.
Still cannot fathom how Vicente and Edmonson are victims in all of this. Is there evidence of the financial profit they made from NXIVM? If so, shouldn’t that money be spread among the ‘victims’ if there are actual victims?
It still seems the doctors should be sued separately.
She did not live in some NXIVM compound. She lived at her home and came to various classes. Unless she was wealthy, she did not take the classes every day. But rather intermittently.
But anyone who wished to have their brand removed ( buyers remorse) they’re already being compensated via a judgement ordered on Keith Raniere.
And for those just tattooing over it, like India and probably others, pretty sure a new tat doesn’t cost $2500.00?