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Prosecutor’s closing statement: Nxivm leader Keith Raniere was a ‘crime boss’

[Keith Raniere]

Closing statements in the Nxivm trial began this morning, and Dianne Lipson was in court. She has the morning session, when prosecutors began their summing up…

Moira Penza is giving the closing statement for the prosecution. She described Nicole, blindfolded on the cold table, not knowing who was there. She described Daniela in the room with just a paper and a pad to write on. Penza said to the jury, “You saw the defendant for what he was: a con man, a predator, and a crime boss.”

As a crime boss, he turned others into criminals to work for him. We heard testimony, Penza said, from the inner circle about how Daniela went from hacking to being imprisoned.

She went over the various counts that Keith is facing: racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud, forced labor, sex trafficking, conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, and attempted sex trafficking.

Racketeering is not just about the mob, she told the jury. It can be any group of people who partake in a criminal enterprise. Keith was a ruler with no limits. His words were the law. No one acted without his approval. And she mentioned how Lauren Salzman owned two homes and traveled, and she would have lost all of that if she wasn’t part of the group. There was a fear of reprisal if you challenged Keith or the inner cricle. And the enterprise turned its victims into victimizers: For example, Camila sexually abusing Nicole.

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Keith was the center of the enterprise.

She then went over some technical guidelines about what constituted racketeering and conspiracy.

In order for a conviction on those counts, there must be criminal acts committed.

Act 1: Transporting Daniela over the border
Acts 2-4: The graphic photos of Camila
Act 5: Identity theft: Trying to obtain user names and passwords. (Edgar Bronfman, for example.)
Act 6: Mark Vicente altering the video (which was tampering with court evidence)
Act 7: Obtaining username and password for Mariana
Act 8: Daniela being kept in the room for two years
Act 9: DOS extorting property from DOS slaves
Act 10: Sex trafficking, like with Nicole
Act 11: The use of Pam Cafritz’s credit card after her death

Penza went through Daniela’s testimony, and about how Keith gaslighted her over sex.

Penza said yes, the parents were at fault for letting that man — she pointed at Keith — put her in the room for two years. But make no mistake, Keith was in charge.

She talked about the hacking of Edgar Bronfman and others When accessing Bronfman emails, the information was to be given to Keith, proving that he was involved in it. Daniela gave raw data from Mariana’s emails to Keith.

They heard evidence that Clare and Keith were involved in using Pam’s credit cards after her death.

Camila and sex trafficking: Keith wanted her and her sibling Fluffy to come back to Albany while their parents remained in Mexico. Camila was to work as a maid for Nancy. Keith wanted her isolated so he could have access to her.

Penza went back over evidence of Kekith talking about some children being more mature than others.

He had said he was proud to be Camila’s husband for 8.7 years — dating back to 2005, when she was underage.

Penza went back over exif metadata of photos of Camila.

Penza seemed to be tying the evidence together in a skillful manner.

She cited disparate pieces of evidence, for example, to show Keith searching for an underage successor to Camila.

Agnifilo had tried to characterize the photos as not sexual in nature, but Penza said they were all about Keith’s sexual gratification.

She also said that any woman would want to know if a man was in charge of an organization they had joined that was supposed to be run by women, and that they would have to submit sex tapes to be a part of it.

After the lunch break, Penza will continue tying evidence together to show that Keith was in charge, and was having his enterprise commit crimes.

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on June 16, 2019 at 14:00

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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.)

 

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