Federal judge dashes sex cult leader Keith Raniere’s latest bid for new trial
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BROOKLYN (CN) — The ex-leader of an upstate New York cult who branded women he kept as sex “slaves” lost his fourth attempt for a new trial after a federal judge denied his motion claiming federal agents tried to frame him for child pornography.
Keith Raniere billed NXIVM, pronounced “Nexium,” as a self-help group, but the organization was shut down in 2018 after its leaders were arrested for operating a secret inner sex ring called DOS or “The Vow.” Women brought into the cult were forced to have sex with Raniere and branded with his initials along their pubic lines, according to trial testimony.
During a six-week trial, witnesses detailed sexual abuse, control and manipulation at the hands of Raniere. He was sentenced to 120 years of prison after being convicted on all seven counts, which included sex trafficking, forced labor and wire fraud. The fraud charge alone included 11 racketeering acts, among them creation and possession of child pornography, conspiracy to commit identity theft and extortion.
In Raniere’s latest motion for a new trial, he claims prosecutors fabricated “files, timestamps, folders and metadata” associated with nude pictures from 2005 of a 15-year-old DOS member named Camila.
He says he didn’t have enough time to examine the metadata evidence before and during trial and claims the government fudged the dates of the images and planted it on his computer.
But to constitute a new trial, Raniere must prove he has come into new evidence that couldn’t have been discovered before or after the trial, and he had been aware of the metadata evidence in the leadup to and during trial, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis said in an order Monday.
“Mr. Raniere ultimately seeks to have a new trial to challenge evidence that he previously stated he was ready to challenge, that he had the opportunity to challenge, and that he did in fact challenge during his trial,” Garaufis said in his decision.
“The jury found him guilty of the predicate acts at issue so he now attempts to manufacture ‘new evidence’ he argues would lead to his acquittal to receive a second bite at the apple.”
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