Dianne Lipson is out of the courtroom to give us this report from this morning’s testimony at the Nxivm trial…
Testimony continued this morning with questioning of former sex slave Jaye.
Jaye is 29 years old. She grew up in Southern California. She was an actress, model, and a writer. She thought Nxivm would help her. She took the 5-day event and went on and found that it helped her a lot.
At one point she took a walk with India Oxenberg, who told her about a secret woman-only society that would build character. Jaye was excited and hoped that it would help her grow.
Some things seemed controversial, but these were bad-ass women. Jaye gave collateral to India. One was a video saying that Jaye had been molested by her uncle. This was in fact true, she had been molested and was still recovering from it.
Jaye had a reverse-Cinderella childhood. It started out nice, then her parents got into drugs. Both mom and dad were arrested and jailed, so Jaye was raised by her grandparents.
She thought India was becoming her mentor, but India later informed her that it was a master-slave relationship.
She met Keith Raniere at a Nxivm volleyball game and gushed to him how inspiring it all was. Jaye wanted to come up with a T-shirt business for Nxivm slogans. Keith seemed interested.
India and Allison Mack told Jaye it would be a good idea to move to Albany. She was making money modeling in LA, but she did go to Albany.
She was encouraged by India to develop a relationship with Keith. It was considered lucky to have Keith as a mentor. Jaye was made to feel that it was remarkable that she would have a friendship with him so early in her involvement. But now she realizes she was being groomed to be his sex slave.
She was told that the purpose of the monthly collateral was to make your bond stronger, but now she realizes it was blackmail.
There were assignments from India, “acts of care” and acts of self-denial. Readiness drills. Cold showers. Standing for 30 minutes in the middle of the night. A punishment for Jaye was keeping a journal of her failures.
Jaye thought Allison would help her learn about the industry. She went from thinking that Allison was a good person, to later believing that Allison was a vindictive, hurtful, manipulative person.
Jaye also recruited someone herself, a model named Val.
Dianne notes that Jaye exudes confidence on the witness stand. She spoke clearly, never mumbled. She comes off as a strong, confident person.
Val got admitted to Nxivm very quickly. Allison asked her to think about developing an app to do mass recruitment. It would not be recruiting all people for life-long commitments, but the more people in the Vow (DOS), they’d have more buying power.
Jaye was told that the commitment would require a tattoo. She never thought it would be a brand, or that it would be Keith’s initials.
She had to fill out a questionnaire about her sexual preferences.
At volleyball, during the breaks, there would be a line of people waiting to talk to Keith. Everyone would kiss Keith on the lips — men or women. People would give him gifts.
At a volleyball event, Keith touched her without her permission, drawing a circle around her bellybutton. Because Jaye had been sexually abused, she was in shock when this happened.
There were additional walks, and Keith would say, do you know that you’re special?
After she moved to Albany, she got permission to get access to the Dropbox which contained all the collateral. She realized that it wasn’t as secure as they were told. She saw a lot of names in it and realized she wasn’t alone in this.
She was put on low-calorie diets. 1000, then 800, then 500-600 calories a day. They had to measure and weigh each item of food, and send pictures of the food to ask permission to eat it.
They had to take a 3-minute cold shower each morning. Everyone was on a diet, short of sleep, and everyone looked unhealthy.
Keith liked a woman not to be shaved. Keith said grooming was propaganda from the porn industry and it was violence against women.
At volleyball, now she understands she was on display for Keith.
Then she got a special assignment: To seduce Keith.
She was told this was an honor and a privilege. That both Allison and India had done this assignment. She was told to seduce Keith and have him take a naked photo of her, to prove that she did it. And she was also told that only privileged women had this assignment.
Jaye says it was her worst nightmare come to life. That it was a cult, and it was going to force her to sleep with someone. But she was told it would help with her sex abuse issues.
She was told that Keith wasn’t involved in the Vow.
Allison: “And I give you permission to enjoy it.”
Jaye pretended to go along with it, but she started to plan her escape. Jaye was thinking of her collateral. What will they do with it if she leaves?
And Jaye was thinking about Allison: “You fucking bitch.” Allison was re-traumatizing her. Allison said to do this discreetly.
Jaye felt the whole room was spinning, she almost blacked out. She started Googling, and found something describing Keith having a harem.
Jaye asked about India’s experience seducing Keith. India said Jaye should have her own experience, but India said that Keith was surprisingly fit and that it was amazing.
Jaye knew she needed to get out of Albany. She played along for a while, and she also had a family trip planned that Nxivm knew about.
Before she left, she went to the Dropbox account and took screen shots. She took copies of almost all of the collateral in the Dropbox to protect herself in case they tried to blackmail her.
If she failed in her assignment, she worried that her collateral would be released. She felt trapped.
She went on the family vacation, and afterwards she claimed her grandmother in California was ill. She needed to be there. She started doing less of the DOS stuff.
Allison still had her car. Jaye hoped just to walk away. But India said this is a lifetime commitment.
Jaye did get her car back. She told Allison that she had Googled things, and Allison was upset about it.
Allison said Jaye needed to meet with her, and Allison told her, you can do this as hard or easy as you want. We just want to help you.
Jaye said, just back off. Allison said I feel like I failed you. And Jaye said it’s nothing personal, but you’re entitled to feel that way (throwing the DOS lingo back at Allison).
Jaye had gotten Val in, and asked Val to go on a hike. During the hike, Catherine Oxenberg and Bonnie (Mark Vicente’s wife) called. Bonnie warned her, don’t go to the branding ceremony coming up. Catherine told her to get out of Albany.
Jaye made peace with her collateral being released. She just accepted that it could happen.
She sent collateral to her ex-boyfriend so someone else would have it, but told him not to look at it.
She got a threatening letter from an attorney. In Spanish with a translation. Warning her about criminal responsibility, etc.
Jaye’s collateral was never released. Prosecutor: Would you have provided DOS collateral if you knew Keith was in charge? No, she says.
Dianne is going back into the courtroom for the afternoon session, and she’ll have details of Jaye’s cross-examination later.
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Posted by Tony Ortega on June 11, 2019 at 14:05
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Tony Ortega is a journalist who was formerly the editor of The Village Voice. He’s written about Scientology since 1995, and in May 2015 released a book about Scientology’s harassment of Paulette Cooper titled ‘The Unbreakable Miss Lovely,’ and more recently a compilation of his stories, ‘Battlefield Scientology.’ He continues to monitor breaking developments in the Scientology world, as well as other subjects at The Underground Bunker. You can reach him by sending him a message at tonyo94 AT gmail.com (Drop him a line if you’d like to get an e-mail whenever a new story is posted.)
