NEW YORK _ Keith Reniere, the head of the NXIVM cult who branded women with its initials and treated them as his "sex slaves," was found guilty on all counts by a Brooklyn jury Wednesday.
It took less than a day of deliberations for a verdict to come back for the longtime leader and figurehead of the upstate self-help company in his sex trafficking, racketeering and racketeering conspiracy trial.
As the verdict was read Raniere, 58, was stoic and whispering to his lawyer, and several NXIVM defectors were crying and trembling.
Raniere was accused of helping himself to women who were recruited for his sexual pleasure. He had pleaded not guilty, and said that his encounters with the alleged victims, some of whom were branded with his initials, were consensual.
Prosecutors said his entire purpose for starting the cult, which he billed as a self-help group, was to feed himself an endless supply of sexual partners.
He kept nine "first-line slaves," women who were longtime blind followers of Raniere and NXIVM, prosecutors said.
He's a "con man, predator and crime boss," prosecutor Moira Penza said in her summation earlier this week.
Raniere made sure to collect nude photos and other embarrassing information from victims to use as blackmail in case they ever wanted to leave.
The prosecutor called out Raniere and his top deputies for using over a 15-year period "tactics that destroyed their victims' sense of self," including turning "victims into victimizers."
Prosecutors cited a former member who was confined to one room from 2010 to 2012 and became Raniere's sex slave, forced to "sexually perform on the defendant's demand," and ultimately spy on his enemies, including her older sister, who was in Raniere's harem.
Raniere's lawyer Marc Agnifilo had argued that Raniere's abhorrent lifestyle and comments were not criminal.
"You might find many things about him distasteful ... but most of them aren't part of the charges," the defense lawyer argued. "Disgusting lifestyles aren't criminal."
Raniere was busted in 2018 while hiding out in a secluded village in Mexico.
Among those who followed his trial were former NXIVM member India Oxenberg and her mother, actress Catherine Oxenberg. The former "Dynasty" star has written a book about her effort to save her daughter from the group.
Raniere faces up to life in prison.
