A former nurse who co-founded and once ran the cult-like NXIVM group, where prosecutors say women were brainwashed, branded like animals and coerced into sex, was sentenced Wednesday to 42 months in prison but won't be locked up until January.
Nancy Salzman, the former president and co-founder of NXIVM, must also pay a $150,000 US fine, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis said. She has agreed to forfeit more than $500,000 US in cash, several properties and a Steinway grand piano.
More than three dozen Canadians were part of a lawsuit against the organization's inner circle.
Vancouver's Sarah Edmondson sued the leaders of NXIVM — along with two heiresses of the Seagram's liquor fortune — for emotional and financial harm the actress claims to have suffered as a result of being intimidated and harassed as well as being branded with the initials of group leader Keith Raniere.
On Wednesday, Salzman was found guilty of crimes including conspiracy to commit identity theft and hacking into emails.
Salzman was ordered to report to prison by Jan. 19, Garaufis said. Her lawyers said she has been caring for her ailing mother.
Speaking in Brooklyn federal court, Salzman, 67, said she fell under NXIVM leader Keith Raniere's spell when they started working together 20 years ago and that she started rationalizing and overlooking the wrongdoing she saw around her. She offered an apology to everyone she's hurt.
"I don't know that I can ever forgive myself," she said.
Salzman, known within the Albany, N.Y.-based group as "Prefect," pleaded guilty in March 2019 to charges of racketeering conspiracy that involved conspiracy to commit identity theft and conspiracy to obstruct justice. She was one of the first in the group's leadership to plead guilty to criminal charges.
Spied on perceived enemies
At that time, a tearful Salzman said she got mixed up with Raniere, a self-improvement guru and self-professed spiritual leader, because she wanted to help people improve their lives but that she ended up losing her way by helping spy on perceived enemies who sought to expose the group as a cross between a pyramid scheme and a cult.
At Salzman's sentencing, Garaufis said she had positioned herself alongside Raniere "atop the NXIVM pyramid" and "left trauma and destruction" in her wake.
"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 Jacquelyn Kasulis said in a statement after Salzman's sentencing.
Raniere was sentenced last October to 120 years in prison for turning some women into sex slaves branded with his initials and sexually abusing a 15-year old.
The group attracted millionaires, including Seagram's liquor heir Clare Bronfman, and Hollywood actors, including Allison Mack of TV's Smallville.
Bronfman was sentenced a year ago to nearly seven years in prison.
Mack was sentenced in June to three years in prison. Salzman's daughter, Lauren Salzman, was sentenced in July to five years of probation and ordered to perform 300 hours of community service for her role in the group.
Nancy Salzman's crimes involved stealing identities of the group's critics and hacking into their email accounts from 2003 to 2008, prosecutors said. She was also accused of conspiring to doctor videos showing her teaching NXIVM lessons before the recordings were turned over to plaintiffs in a New Jersey lawsuit against the group.
An NXIVM bio of Salzman posted on the internet said she was a consultant to New York state and major corporations "until she met Keith Raniere and discovered an approach to personal growth that yielded powerful and permanent results."
