On June 19, 2019, the NXIVM co-founder was found guilty of sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy, racketeering conspiracy and exploitation of a child.
The charges against him alleged that Raniere, known as “Vanguard” within his company, maintained a secret sorority called DOS, for which Allison Mack, who had risen through the ranks of the NXIVM organization to become a “first-line master,” recruited other women for the purpose of having sex with him. As part of their initiation, the women would turn over compromising photos or other items and information that could be used against them if they disobeyed, and were branded on their pelvis with an abstract symbol that incorporated Raniere and Mack’s initials.
“If one woman is having an issue, it hurts Keith, and if he’s hurting, you’re hurting,” a woman identified as a former member of DOS told The Hollywood Reporter in 2018. “So if you do something he doesn’t like, you get an army of women, sister wives, coming after you. You get ostracized. No one wants to socialize with you unless you get back in line.”
Though Raniere’s business dealings had attracted legal and journalistic scrutiny before, it wasn’t until about a dozen people spoke out to the New York Times about the ritualistic branding and other alarming practices in 2017 that the FBI launched the investigation that turned into the current case against him.
In March 2018, FBI tracked Raniere down to a $10,000-a-week villa in a gated community near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where he was staying with several women—including Mack—who ran after the Feds’ car in protest as they drove Raniere away.
On Oct. 27, 2020, he was sentenced to 120 years in prison and fined $1.75 million.
