Convicted Nxivm leader Keith Raniere filed a motion for a new trial today, saying that some of the witnesses against him in last year’s federal prosecution committed perjury during their testimony.
Raniere is awaiting sentencing after being found guilty last June of sex trafficking and faces decades in prison. But since his conviction a massive new lawsuit was filed against him by former Nxivm members, including some of the witnesses who testified in the criminal trial.
In that testimony, Raniere’s attorney Marc Agnifilo asked witnesses if they were planning to sue Raniere, and they answered no. But in his new filing, Raniere points out that the attorney who filed the lawsuit, Neil Glazer, had been shuttling the witnesses to interviews with federal prosecutors, and the prosecutors should have known that Glazer was planning a civil case.
The motion includes, for example, the cross-examination of one witness by Agnifilo, who asked specifically about a planned lawsuit…
Agnifilo: You have no intention of bringing a civil lawsuit against Keith Raniere or Nxivm or anyone else?
Agnifilo: I know you haven’t done it but you plan on doing it, don’t you?
Witness: No.
The lawsuit was then filed in January, and Raniere is arguing that the witnesses who denied it was being planned committed perjury.
He’s asking for a new trial.
Here’s the document itself. Let us know if you think he should get a do-over…
US v. Raniere: Motion for New Trial by Tony Ortega on Scribd
