More twisted tales from the trial of alleged sex slave cult leader Keith Raniere…
The co-founder of the NXIVM group, along with Nancy Salzman and Smallville star Allison Mack, is facing charges of sex trafficking, forced labor, child pornography, and more.
While Salzman and Mack apparently saw the writing on the wall and pled guilty months ago, it seems the man at the top of the pyramid is fighting the charges. It… isn’t going well for him. Nor for our stomachs, which keep getting turned with every new reveal.
Related: How Allison Helped Invent The Branding Ritual
Thus far the prosecution’s star witness has been Nicole, an actress whose full name is being withheld from the public to keep her safe.
The now 31-year-old actress testified most of last week about how she was tricked into joining a sex cult.
She revealed how NXIVM tried to brand themselves with the less ominous moniker “The Vow” when trying to recruit women for… well, to brand.
What was sold to her as “female empowerment,” as she testified, turned out to be a trap in which the NXIVM held collateral — sex tapes and other potentially life-ruining materials — in order to keep her serving the whims of her “master.”
That man at the top was Keith Raniere, but his muscle was a tiny TV actress.
According to Nicole, it was Allison Mack who kept her and others in the group in line, sometimes in unexpected ways.
As reported in the New York Post, Nicole says she befriended fellow “slave” India Oxenberg, daughter of Dynasty star Catherine Oxenberg (both pictured above, inset).
“When India and I became close, they would use her to make me behave. Alison was trying to have [Oxenberg] get down to a certain weight. It was just really hard to watch, sometimes… It was tough on her.”
Other witnesses testified Raniere liked his women to be skinny and sleep-deprived.
Nicole says it was more extreme than just keeping fit. She claims Allison kept India on a 500 calorie per day diet for a whole year!
Catherine, who has been one of NXIVM’s most vocal opponents for almost two years now, confirmed her daughter’s diet to People on Monday, but it was actually even worse than she’d realized:
“I knew India was on a restricted diet of between 500 to 900 calories, but I had no idea it was down to 500 calories for a year. It’s so many layers of disgust. When you think it can’t get worse, it does. The layers of sadism and cruelty are endless.”
Another NXIVM victim had testified Raniere enforced the ludicrously unhealthy diet with security cameras in the kitchen areas, saying:
“He was surveilling everybody’s food intake… He would take an absurd focus on what everyone was eating.”
That insider said Raniere used to make pig noises whenever he saw women eating.
But that wasn’t all. Allison used India’s obvious suffering as emotional blackmail against Nicole. She testified:
“‘The first thing Allison said is ‘Look what this is doing to India, she hasn’t eaten since she got your email. And India said ‘Well, that’s not entirely true.'”
Ugh. To think of Allison using guilt over one another’s suffering as a means to control these poor girls is just…
Disgusting.
[Image via Joseph Marzullo/Dimitri Haikidis/WENN.]
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