Seagram heiress Clare Bronfman sentenced to prison in NXIVM case

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Seagram’s liquor fortune heir Clare Bronfman, who is accused of using her family fortune to bankroll the NXIVM cult, has been sentenced to almost seven years in prison and ordered to pay a $500,000 fine for her role in the branded sex slave case.  

Bronfman, the daughter of the late billionaire philanthropist and former Seagram chairman Edgar Bronfman Sr., was sentenced to a total of 81 months on Wednesday at the US District Court in Brooklyn. 

The 41-year-old is the first member of the notorious NXIVM group, led by disgraced founder Keith Raniere, to be sentenced. 

Bronfman pleaded guilty last year to charges she committed credit card fraud on behalf of Raniere and to knowingly harboring a Mexican woman brought to the US on a fake work visa in order to obtain that woman’s labor for herself. 

In addition to prison time, Bronfman will also pay a $500,000 fine and $96,605 in restitution to the Mexican woman she recruited.  

Raniere, the disgraced leader of the self-improvement group in upstate New York, was convicted last year of turning women into sex slaves who were branded with his initials. 

His adherents included Bronfman, actress Allison Mack of TV’s Smallville; and a daughter of TV star Catherine Oxenberg of Dynasty fame.  

Bronfman’s lawyers had asked a judge to give her three years’ probation instead of prison time but prosecutors had argued she deserved at least five years behind bars. 

Bronfman watched on silently on Wednesday as nine women gave victim impact statements before her sentence was handed down and described how their lives had been destroyed by her and NXIVM.  

One former member had said she watched Bronfman mentally descend over the years into a ‘dangerous megalomaniac’.

Another slammed her as a predator, saying: ‘You should feel shame, self loathing… You should understand there are lives you destroyed’.

‘I pray that you will take the claws of Keith Raniere out of you, and you will learn who Clare Bronfman really is.’ 

Prosecutors say Bronfman recruited individuals into NXIVM-affiliated organizations and then sought to obtain visas or other immigration status for them based on false promises. 

In regards to Jane Doe 12, Bronfman submitted documents to secure a work visa that would see the Mexican woman paid $3,600 per month. Prosecutors say, however, that Bronfman only paid the woman about $4,000 over a year-long period for her work.

In a letter to the court just last month, Bronfman wrote that she ‘never meant to hurt anyone, however I have and for this I am deeply sorry’. 

Still, she said that she couldn’t disavow Raniere, who is due to be sentenced next month, because ‘NXIVM and Keith greatly changed my life for the better’.

During Raniere’s trial last year, prosecutors told jurors that NXIVM operated like a cult. 

To honor Raniere, the group formed a secret sorority called DOS that was comprised of brainwashed female ‘slaves’ who were branded with his initials and forced to have sex with him, prosecutors said. 

Bronfman denied being a member of the secret women’s sorority but prosecutors argued that Raniere and NXIVM wouldn’t have been so powerful without her financial support.   

She has long been affiliated with NXIVM and gave away tens of million of dollars to bankroll Raniere and his program of intense self-improvement classes. 

She also paid for lawyers to defend the group against lawsuits brought by its critics. 

Clare Bronfman’s history with NXIVM and how she still stands by disgraced founder Keith Raniere  

Bronfman, who is the daughter of the late billionaire philanthropist and former Seagram chairman Edgar Bronfman Sr., is the first to be sentenced in the NXIVM case.

She pleaded guilty in April last year to charges of racketeering conspiracy and conspiracy to commit identity theft.

Prosecutors say she made false statements to obtain a visa for a young Mexican woman to come to the US after being recruited to work for NXIVM. She also admitted to committing credit card fraud on behalf of Raniere.

Bronfman joined NXIVM in 2003 after hearing about the group from her sister Sara and father Edgar Bronfman, who was the former chairman of the Seagram company.

As she became more involved in the group, she quit her professional equestrian career to move to NXIVM’s headquarters in upstate New York. 

Bronfman and her sister Sara are said to have helped woo Mack when she considered joining NXIVM. Sara has not been charged or accused of any wrongdoing.  

Bronfman gave away tens of millions of dollars to bankroll Raniere and his program of intense self-improvement classes. She also used her wealth to hire lawyers, private investigators and public relations firms to discredit critics of NXIVM.

Prosecutors said Bronfman spent more than $100million funding NXIVM’s legal battles. She also gave Raniere $67million to invest in the commodities market, which he never repaid, prosecutors said. 

Bronfman has denied any involvement in the sex slave arm of the cult saying she was ‘never told about anything sexual or damaging of any nature’. Other members have also previously written to the judge backing up her claims that she was not involved in DOS. 

In a letter to the judge just last month, Bronfman refused to denounce her loyalty to Raniere, saying he ‘changed my life’.

‘Many people, including most of my own family, believe I should disavow Keith and NXIVM, and that I have not is hard for them to understand and accept,’ Bronfman wrote in the letter dated August 28.

‘However, for me, NXIVM and Keith greatly changed my life for the better. 

‘Most of my teenage years and early 20s, I was ashamed of who I was, constantly focused on my shortcomings and ridden with self-hate.

‘NXIVM changed that. I learned a sense of who I am beyond my faults and the tools of how to transform things I didn’t like about myself into traits and behaviors I do. I started to embrace myself and turn outwardly to care for and help others.’

She reiterated in the letter that she had no knowledge of ‘anything sexual or damaging’ related to the ground.

‘I was assured by them and by professionals that: there was no harm being done; no one was being forced to do anything; and to the contrary, people were experiencing improvements in their life through their membership in DOS,’ she wrote.

She told the judge during her plea hearing that she had wanted to help people through NXIVM but ended up dishonoring her family.

‘Your honor, I was afforded a great gift by my grandfather and father,’ Bronfman said at the time. ‘With the gift, comes immense privilege and more importantly, tremendous responsibility. It does not come with an ability to break the law.’

‘For this, I am truly sorry.’

Bronfman’s grandfather Samuel Bronfman founded Seagram and made millions during the prohibitions era of the 1920s by making liquor in Montreal, Quebec, where alcohol production was still legal. 

His son Edgar, who is Clare’s father, would become CEO and took control of the first Seagram subsidiary in the United States in 1933. 

As part of her plea deal, Bronfman agreed to forfeit $6 million from a fortune that prosecutors say is worth $200 million.

The plea meant Bronfman, who was one of the most devout members of the group, avoided going to trial.   

Inner workings of NXIVM’s secret sex cult: How women were kept on starvation diets, branded with Keith Raniere’s initials and ordered to have sex with him

Bronfman was one of five NXIVM members to be charged alongside Raniere – the guru of the group that attracted heiresses and Hollywood actresses.

Smallville actress Allison Mack, the group’s bookkeeper Kathy Russell, NXIVM co-founder Nancy Salzman and her daughter Lauren Salzman were also charged.

All five women initially tried to fight the charges but eventually agreed to plead guilty as part of deals with prosecutors.

Mack, who admitted helping Raniere assemble his harem and collect ‘collateral’, and Bronfman were indicted at the same time as him. 

Raniere, who was arrested at a Mexican hideout in 2018 following an investigation into his group, is the only one to have faced trial.  

He was found guilty last year on all counts of sex-trafficking and coercing women into sex for turning his female devotees into his sex slaves through such means as shame, punishment and nude blackmail photos. 

Raniere’s six-week trial featured testimony from several women who said Raniere victimized them, including Lauren Salzman, who was the only one who was charged to testify against him.

He started NXIVM in the 1990s in Albany, New York as a purported self-improvement group that then expanded across the country. 

The group first became known for its ‘Executive Success Program’ courses, which purported to give students the ability to achieve their goals in life by overcoming mental blocks. 

Prosecutors allege that Raniere started a secret branch, known as the DOS, in about 2015 that was just for women.

Prosecutors say the secret society was comprised of brainwashed female ‘slaves’ who were blackmailed into have sex with him, follow dangerously restrictive diets and be branded with his initials.  

They were told that the material would be released if they disobeyed orders or tried to leave, according to a former member and other witnesses. 

According to testimony, Raniere’s ‘slaves’ were forced to give up ‘collateral’ – nude photos and other material – to keep them in line.

Among the more damning allegations against Raniere were that he had some women branded with his initials and that he started having sex with a follower when she was 15.

Prosecutors said he took nude photos of the teen that were shown to the jury during his trial. Raniere kept the photos stashed in his private study as ‘a trophy’ of ‘his sexual conquest’, jurors were told.

One victim described being confined to a bedroom for more than 700 days on orders from Raniere as punishment for showing interest in another man.

Another said she was blindfolded and bound to a table so that another woman could perform a sex act on her.

The defense argued during the trial that Raniere was a genuine believer in unconventional means for self-improvement and that all his sexual encounters with female followers were consensual.   

Raniere is scheduled to be sentenced next month.