00:07:01.320So what he really was was not a very smart guy because he ended up in prison for 120 years.
00:07:09.080He could have done a correction along the way and avoided that.
00:07:14.220Instead, like many cult leaders, he fed on his adulation, and it led to a kind of hubris and arrogance that ultimately meant that he kept escalating his bad behavior, hurting more and more people, thinking he could get away with it forever, and eventually he was held accountable.
00:07:42.100But the way he projected himself was as a kind of philosopher king, quiet, soft-spoken, not the brash, charismatic kind of extroverted cult leader that you typically see.
00:07:59.600But he was able to pull people in, and the people who were pulled in, they went through intensive after intensive after intensive.
00:08:09.700So by the time the women were branded, and there were quite a few of them that were branded, with a cauterizing iron and no anesthetic, and Keith Ranieri would watch remotely.
00:08:24.660And these women, they had been through so much by the time that that event occurred that you have to rewind it and understand that this took years of what we would call brainwashing before they reached that point.
00:08:42.520And in fact, it was a medical doctor, a DO, that eventually lost her license, that did the branding with the cauterizing iron.
00:08:52.740And she was that caught up in Ranieri's alternate reality.
00:08:57.020And, of course, you had the actress, Alison Mack, and she was brought in by another actress, Kristen Kruk, from the series Smallville.
00:09:09.580And these were successful women who had very good careers and thought that NXIVM would improve their lives.
00:09:17.480And then I worked with Catherine Oxenberg, who is best known from the series Dynasty in the 80s.
00:09:26.240And her daughter, India Oxenberg, was also brought into the group.
00:09:31.140And at that time, Catherine Oxenberg's husband, Caspar Van Diem, also went to some of the training.
00:09:39.040But eventually, Catherine and Caspar Van Diem would drop out of NXIVM.
00:09:45.460But the problem was India was still in.
00:09:50.200And she would eventually be branded and go through a horrible—
00:09:56.140And she would go through a horrible process of being separated from her family, turned against her family, you know, incommunicado.
00:10:07.000And Frank Parlato, by the way, was originally hired by Keith Ranieri as a kind of fixer and PR guy.
00:10:13.820I think, as I recall, part of what his job was was to deal with me.
00:10:20.960And let me backtrack and say that there were these two doctors, a clinical psychologist, a forensic psychiatrist who wrote three reports about NXIVM that were withering in their analysis.
00:11:14.040And the federal judge ordered that we get together and try to negotiate a settlement.
00:11:20.780And I'm telling you, that was an interesting experience, sitting with a cult leader, trying to negotiate a settlement from this harassment lawsuit.
00:17:15.820And she shared that with Ranieri, and together they designed his training, which I think anyone who reads through the manual and looks at the study notes will recognize a pattern of coercive persuasion and manipulation that is evident in the way the course curriculum was designed from the very beginning.
00:17:36.700So Salzman knew that, though she might argue today that she's a victim.
00:17:41.540I don't see Nancy Salzman as a victim.
00:17:44.200In fact, when they raided her house, they found $500,000 in cash in the house.
00:17:48.940To me, if you have that much money stashed, you're not really a victim.
00:17:55.000And Nancy Salzman would eventually go to prison for withholding information in the lawsuit against me, which is a crime in a federal lawsuit.
00:18:06.660And also they would find files in her basement of the perceived enemies of NXIVM, including me.
00:18:14.200And I saw this file when I testified in the criminal trial of Keith Ranieri.
00:18:24.680This is very similar to Scientology, so far what you're saying.
00:18:27.400Every time I've interviewed somebody that said something bad about Scientology, I've gotten an email and a website about why that person's wrong and history of that person's wrongdoing over their lifetime, whatever it is.
00:19:30.720If there's any affiliation, there's nothing connected between the two.
00:19:33.340I have been told that one of the inner circle in NXIVM was a former Scientologist.
00:19:40.480And I was also told that at one time when Keith Ranieri was suing me, he exchanged ideas or thoughts or had some kind of input from Scientology in regards to going after me.
00:19:55.980Certainly, my dead agent file was used by NXIVM.
00:20:00.720And by the way, NXIVM had me under surveillance.
00:20:04.620At one point, they were actually buying my garbage in a building that I lived in.
00:21:21.160I didn't meet her face to face, but at another court ordered mediation, she was there representing NXIVM.
00:21:29.200She was an officer of NXIVM, the corporation, and she was scurrying around, talking to different mediators, former federal judges, trying to follow through on whatever Ranieri's plan was at that mediation.
00:21:45.260But she really was a pawn of Ranieri for years and years and went to prison for seven years.
00:21:53.800And to this day, I think she would still say positive things about Keith Ranieri.
00:21:59.520Hi, I'm Rick Allen Ross, cult expert, intervention specialist, author of the book, Cults Inside Out.