A former member of the alleged sex cult NXIVM was preparing to have group sex with founder Keith Raniere and his “sex slaves” when authorities burst into a Mexican compound to arrest him.
Lauren Salzman said Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court that she barricaded herself in a master suite in a Puerto Vallarta home with Raniere in March 2018 when Mexican federal agents entered, determined to protect him.
“My main concern was to protect Keith. It was almost automatic,” Salzman said, who had been in a decade-long relationship with Raniere. “I chose love over everything, just like we were taught by Keith.”
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Raniere, 58, is accused of running a secret sex-cult pyramid scheme that branded, assaulted, and enslaved women while promoting NXIVM as a self-improvement group to the public. He is charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy, child exploitation, and child pornography.
Raniere has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
Salzman is among the four NXIVM members, including Allison Mack and her mother, who were arrested in 2018 with Raniere. After pleading guilty to racketeering charges in March, she is the first co-defendant to testify against Raniere, who is standing the trial alone. Salzman began testifying on Friday and continued on Tuesday.
On her third day of testimony, Salzman revealed the moment Raniere, whom NXIVM members referred to as “the Vanguard,” was taken by Mexican agents days before Salzman and other women were preparing a recommitment ceremony to Raniere.
Salzman previously testified she was among seven “first line slaves” to Raniere since they were the first recruited into DOS, the “secret society” where she said “slaves” would be forced to brand themselves with Raniere’s initials near their crotch with a cautery pen—without anesthesia—and have sex with him.
In March 2018, Raniere had moved to Mexico following several investigations into allegations of a sex cult within NXIVM. To affirm their belief in NXIVM and DOS, the seven women agreed to partake in a recommitment ceremony. The ceremony, she said, was to include “group oral sex” as a way to do “something special for Keith.” The only people in the house in the Mexican gated community were Raniere and the seven women, one of whom was Mack, an actress most famous for a role on Smallville.
“Honestly, I didn’t want to do a recommitment ceremony. I didn’t want to start DOS again,” Salzman said. “We had reason to believe that we were under possible indictment. But I didn’t feel like it was my option to not go forward with there ceremony.”
After taking a nap with Raniere before the ceremony, Salzman said she went into the kitchen to make herself a smoothie when one of the fellow “first-line slaves” ran into the kitchen screaming “police are at the door, and they are looking for Keith.”
“Honestly, I went into one mode—protect Keith. I closed all the doors, all the blinds,” Salzman said. “And I looked out the window and all I could see was federal agents with machine guns surrounding the property and Keith refused to leave. He wanted to stay.”
When federal agents arrived to the door, she said Raniere went to hide in “walk in closet and told [her] to ask the police if they had a warrant.” Salzman said Raniere made it clear that police “could not know he was in the room.”
Salzman said while talking to the police through the door, who were asking if anybody else was in the room, she was scared of being shot. Eventually, agents kicked open the door and held her on the group with “four machine guns.”
“They kept asking if anyone was in the door and I didn’t respond,” she said. “But then I was scared they were going to hurt me, going to kick me, so I called out Keith’s name.”
Raniere, who was hiding in a closet, eventually came out after Salzman’s plea for help and started to read her the indictment federal authorities “thrusted in his face.” In that moment, Salzman said, she realized that Keith was not the protector “he had always claimed to be, but a coward.”
“It never crossed my mind that I would choose Keith and Keith would choose Keith,” Salzman said on Tuesday, holding back tears as Raniere glared at her from across the room. “For months after that I felt like such a failure for not being strong enough. I felt like I let him down.”
