Dianne Lipson came out of the courtroom long enough to tell us that the jury in the Nxivm trial had found Keith Raniere guilty on all counts.
After 25 days of testimony and closing arguments, the jury deliberated for less than five hours to reach its lightning-fast verdict.
Dianne has gone back in to get some reactions. We’ll add to this story soon.
Sentencing for the other defendants is scheduled for September, so we’d assume Raniere would learn his fate after some time as well. (His sentencing is set for September 25.)
The racketeering and sex trafficking charges he’s been convicted of carry serious penalties, and Raniere is potentially facing decades in prison.
We’ve had a front row seat for this trial thanks to the dogged work by Dianne Lipson, and we are extremely grateful for her diligence.
After reading her reports day after day, we’ll offer up a few non-professional opinions.
The defense strategy to put on no case at all and rely solely on the cross-examination of prosecution witnesses isn’t looking too effective at this point, but it’s hard to see what other option they had.
Raniere would have been torn to shreds under cross-examination, and his potential witnesses sounded like they might come off as ineffective groupies.
Agnifilo had his moments, but ultimately his task was extremely difficult. The best he could hope for was to convince the jury that Raniere was a horrible human being but not a criminal.
But the jury didn’t buy it.
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Posted by Tony Ortega on June 19, 2019 at 15:00
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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.)
