NXIVM co-founder and executive Nancy Salzman has been sentenced to 42 months in prison and ordered to pay a $150,000 fine for racketeering conspiracy.
She agreed to forfeit several real properties, more than $500,000 in cash and a Steinway grand piano.
“In her misguided loyalty and blind allegiance to Keith Raniere, the defendant
engaged in a racketeering conspiracy designed to intimidate NXIVM’s detractors and that inflicted harm on NXIVM’s members,” Acting U.S. Attorney Kasulis said in a statement. “Today’s sentence holds the defendant accountable for her crimes and we hope that it brings some measure of closure to the vulnerable women who were victimized and abused.”
Salzman pleaded guilty in March 2019 to racketeering conspiracy for her role in the group that was co-founded by Keith Raniere, who was sentenced to 120 years in prison last October. Former NVIXM members said Salzman enabled Raniere’s abusive behavior.
Raniere was convicted two years ago for racketeering, sex trafficking, sexual exploitation of a child and human trafficking, among other charges that accused him of coercing women into unwanted sex using systematic shame and humiliation.
NXIVM was marketed as a “community guided by humanitarian principles that seek to empower people,” and Raniere offered self-help workshops, but it was more sinister than that. Raniere managed to recruit members like “Smallville” actress Allison Mack and “Battlestar Galactica” star Nicole Clyne, as well as India Oxenberg, the daughter of “Dynasty” star Catherine Oxenberg. Mack was sentenced to three years in prison.
According to the New York Times, as her hearing approached, Salzman attempted to distance herself from Raniere, and her lawyers wrote that she had been “fooled, controlled, humiliated, and ultimately led to engage in criminal conduct by an egotistical, self-important, sex fiend.”
Prosecutors had asked for a sentence between 33 and 41 months and in their sentencing memo, reiterated crimes committed by Salzman who served as NXIVM president and was known within the group as Prefect. The defense had asked for a sentence of two years home confinement.
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.