Judges appear skeptical of Raniere’s latest bid to overturn NXIVM conviction
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ALBANY — An attorney for former NXIVM leader Keith Raniere argued before a tribunal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Tuesday that he deserved a new trial, or at least a hearing, on evidence tied to his conviction of possession of child pornography.
It is Raniere’s third bid for a new trial, with the argument based on claims that the government falsified evidence of child pornography on a hard drive and camera memory card seized from Raniere.
Raniere’s 2019 racketeering conviction was predicated on 11 acts, including child exploitation and possession of child pornography. Investigators discovered images from 2005 of a girl, who was 15 years old at the time, on a hard drive seized from Raniere. He was sentenced to 120 years in prison on Oct. 27, 2020, a punishment the federal Bureau of Prisons says he will complete on June 27, 2120.
Raniere’s attorney, Deborah Blum, argued to the appellate court that Senior U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis erred in denying Raniere’s appeal in 2024. She claimed the government relied on digital evidence, specifically the hard drive and camera flash card, to prove the age of an alleged victim and alleged tampering and planting of evidence by the FBI.
In court documents filed as part of the appeal, Raniere argued the FBI falsified metadata on the digital camera card and Western Digital hard drive to fit the prosecution’s narrative that the photographs were taken in 2005 when the victim was 15 years old.
Some of the judges on the panel appeared skeptical of Blum’s claims.
Content retrieved from: https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/nxivm-founder-keith-raniere-seeks-new-trial-21109743.php.
