Long before cult leader Keith Raniere was arraigned in federal court, The New York Times published a bombshell report on the sinister secrets of NXIVM, his “self-help organization.” The Times alleged that there was a sorority within NXIVM called DOS in which “masters” recruited “slaves,” and that these “slaves” were asked to hand over collateral as part of their vetting process including “naked photographs or other compromising material.” One defector, Sarah Edmondson, told the Times that her recruiter, Lauren Salzman, “made it sound like a bad-ass bitch boot camp.”
As The Daily Beast previously reported, legal documents paint an entirely different picture, in which DOS masters “groomed DOS slaves for sex with Raniere by requiring DOS slaves to adhere to extremely restrictive diets and not remove their pubic hair (in accordance with Raniere’s sexual preferences) and by requiring them to remain celibate and not to masturbate.”
In the 2017 Times exposé, Edmondson shared her experience being branded in DOS: “She had been told she would get a small tattoo as part of the initiation. But she was not prepared for what came next.”
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“Each woman was told to undress and lie on a massage table, while three others restrained her legs and shoulders. According to one of them, their ‘master,’ a top Nxivm official named Lauren Salzman, instructed them to say: ‘Master, please brand me, it would be an honor.’ A female doctor proceeded to use a cauterizing device to sear a two-inch-square symbol below each woman’s hip, a procedure that took 20 to 30 minutes. For hours, muffled screams and the smell of burning tissue filled the room.”
According to the Times, the accused doctor was Danielle Roberts, “a licensed osteopath and follower of Mr. Raniere.” Edmondson reportedly filed a complaint about Dr. Roberts with the New York State Department of Health. However, “the agency said it would not look into Dr. Roberts because she was not acting as Ms. Edmondson’s doctor when the branding is said to have happened.” Just days after their first article, the Times reported that, “Officials in New York State plan to review why regulators and others did not act after women involved with a secretive group reported they had been branded with a cauterizing device.” A spokesman for Governor Cuomo told the Times, “The review will also examine whether state officials should now pursue those complaints.”
The Daily Mail is now reporting that Dr. Danielle Roberts has been cleared of any wrongdoing by the New York State Board of Health. However, the New York State Department of Health told The Daily Beast in a statement that, “The Department cannot confirm or deny the existence of an OPMC investigation of a physician, unless charges are served upon the physician, or a public action is taken by the Board.”
“Once an action has been taken by the board,” the Department of Health explained, “the public documents regarding professional misconduct and physician discipline can be found here,” and referred The Daily Beast to a search function on their website. Dr. Danielle Roberts’ name yielded no results in the public documents search, indicating that she has not yet been cleared of any wrongdoing. (Roberts did not respond to requests for comment.)
The Mail also reported that Dr. Roberts will be speaking at an upcoming medical conference in New York, “Where she is promoting membership into her group, EXO/ESO… EXO/ESO is described as a ‘program designed to build total mastery over the physical, emotional and thought components of human performance’ and, like Nxivm, carries a hefty price tag. One class costs $750, though conference members are offered a 10 percent discount if they sign up within 72 hours. There is also a group rate if four people sign up for a series of sessions together to learn more about Dr. Roberts’ teachings.”
Dr. Roberts is listed as a speaker on the official website for the Navel Expo, an event that boasts “experts in human optimization from around the world.” The expo is set for November 10-11 at the Sheraton Times Square, with pricing starting at $20 for a one-day pass. Alex Lubarsky, the Founder of the Navel Expo, told The Daily Beast that he's aware of the allegations against Dr. Roberts, saying, “I am aware of them from what I’ve heard in the media, but she’s not at liberty to discuss them.”
When asked if he had any prior knowledge of the ties between exo/eso and NXIVM (in court documents, exo/eso was included in a list of entities that are “affiliated in any way with Keith Raniere, his teachings, his purported ‘technology,’ his purported ‘tools’ or Allison Mack”), Lubarsky shared that he is “not sure about the business logistics.” He continued, “Just to be clear, she’s speaking not [on behalf of] whatever other organization she was involved with, she’s speaking as a physician who’s focused on human optimization. So that’s the only part of Dr. Roberts that I’m interested in.”
Lubarsky explained that he’s known Dr. Roberts “for over 10 years. And from knowing her as long as I have, I just couldn’t believe that she would do something intentionally sinister. It didn’t ring true to me on any level.” He also told The Daily Beast that Dr. Roberts has been participating in the expo “for the last three years or so,” and that he hasn’t “changed [his] mind about her.”
“From my perspective, people do all kinds of things as adults in their own private worlds. And I work with hundreds of hundreds of different people, so I don’t really put my nose in what those affairs are. It’s unfortunate that whatever this was exploded the way it did, but I also know that sometimes things can be blown out of proportion and not the entire story is heard.” Lubarsky described Dr. Roberts as “an amazing, generous, kind, loving physician who wants to make a difference in the lives of others.”
“Over the years I’ve seen doctors steered because of their trusting, serving nature in a direction that was not beneficial to their own interests, which is always unfortunate because they end up holding the bag,” he concluded. “In this case, I know she’ll be fine and I want to help her build her practice as a physician, and nothing outside of that matters, really.”
According to a CV uploaded on Dr. Roberts’ website, she works as a physician in Port Washington. She is also the “president and co-developer of exo/eso,” an Albany-based program (NXIVM was also based in Albany). Under conferences, Dr. Roberts has listed numerous convenings, including “4th International Public Conference on Vaccination” and “Humanistic Elective in alternative medicine, Activism, and Reflective Transformation.” Her Navel Expo lecture is billed as: “Placebo Effect: Creating the Belief Systems for Miraculous Healing.”
While the Navel Expo materials contain no reference to NXIVM, Frank Parlato, the NXIVM whistleblower and journalist behind the blog Frank Report, told The Daily Beast in a statement that, based on his extensive reporting, “Exo/eso was created by Keith Raniere with a little help from Danielle Roberts.” Parlato added that Raniere would be inclined to downplay his role in the founding of exo/eso in 2013, because NXIVM had already begun to receive negative press coverage and “recruitment was becoming very difficult.”
“Roberts, as an osteopath, was chosen to lead the group (and be its face). She was to do much of the recruiting—using her medical license as an imprimatur of sound science,” Parlato alleged. “She would also teach classes. The classes were nothing more than an intro to NXIVM, with some physical exercises added including yoga. Exo/eso is just one of many NXIVM groups with different names to bring people in; it was useful after NXIVM developed a poor reputation.”
“[Exo/eso] was just a recruitment tool for NXIVM, based on adding a little yoga and a little exercise.”
A source with direct knowledge of NXIVM confirmed to The Daily Beast that exo/eso was “one of the NXIVM companies.”
ExoEso Trailer Loop V.2 from SteXy on Vimeo.
Parlato also told The Daily Beast that he had spoken with a “New York State” source who also disputed The Daily Mail’s report that Dr. Roberts had been “cleared of any wrongdoing.” According to his source, Parlato relayed, “She hasn’t been cleared… They’re still reviewing the matter.”
“With Raniere in prison, the money angle is probably paramount since Roberts has taken a financial hit,” Parlato hypothesized. “But all of them think that Raniere is going to be free shortly via acquittal. Roberts hawking exo/eso at events etc. is a mere recruitment tool for NXIVM.”
An April, 2018 article in the Journal Sentinel revealed that, “Records show Roberts has worked in recent years at St. Mary’s, Columbia St. Mary’s Ozaukee in Mequon and Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Hospital.”
“One of her former St. Mary’s patients told the Journal Sentinel that Roberts tried to persuade him to attend a 16-day seminar hosted by exo/eso, an affiliate of Nxivm that she runs,” the report continued. “During one of their conversations, [Damon] Dorsey said, [Dr. Roberts] talked up an ‘amazing guy’ who was leading some New York seminars. He took her card and later got a text from Roberts. But what struck Dorsey the most, he said, was the doctor’s ‘disheveled appearance’ and the fact that she seemed to be operating in ‘some kind of a haze.’ On his final day in the hospital, he searched her name online, finding out about her ties to Raniere and the allegations that she branded his followers. He said he then filed a complaint on St. Mary’s website, linking to a news story on the sex cult and Roberts.”
In a 2015 blog post on “Raniere-influenced groups,” Parlato analyzed the exo/eso website, which has since been taken down. “The descriptions of the levels sound like they were written by Raniere,” Parlato wrote. “This may be the one that Raniere expects to take over if the NXIVM/Executive Success Program brand becomes too toxic!”
An exo/eso trailer features testimonials from multiple known NXIVM members, including actress Allison Mack. As The Daily Beast previously reported, earlier this year Mack was arrested and pleaded not guilty to a number of charges, including sex trafficking. In legal documents, the United States attorney accused the former Smallville actress of “using force, fraud, and coercion to recruit and maintain DOS slaves, and instructing those slaves to engage in sexual acts with Raniere, among other assignments.” Mack, who is currently under house arrest, faces 15 years to life if convicted. In the exo/eso trailer, an upbeat Mack is described as an “exo/eso student.”
“I’ve studied with some of the best yoga teachers in the United States,” Mack explains in her testimonial, swearing that exo/eso’s “stexy” program gave her “a real sense of wellness.” She concludes, smiling beatifically, “This specific type of exercise is profoundly important for all of us.”
