ALBANY — A federal judge in New Jersey delivered an unwelcome birthday present to NXIVM leader Keith Raniere on Monday: an order demanding the organization pay more than $1.3 million to an investigative firm it hired to dig up dirt on a cult expert.

Senior U.S. District Judge Katharine S. Hayden ruled in favor of Interfor, a New York-based company that NXIVM recruited in 2004 to — among other tasks — investigate Rick Ross, leader of the Cult Education Institute, who NXIVM had sued the previous year.

The judge, who presided over a 2017 non-jury trial on the matter, ordered NXIVM to pay $1,360,157 to Interfor, which is headed by Juval Aviv, a former Israeli intelligence officer. The figure includes legal fees and other costs.

The ruling fell on the 59th birthday of Raniere, known as "Vanguard," who was convicted on all charges — including racketeering, sex trafficking and forced labor — at the end of a nearly two-month trial this spring in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.

On Monday, the judge noted that before Aviv's firm agreed to work for NXIVM, he required the purported self-improvement group to adhere to a contractual indemnity clause requiring it to immediately bear financial responsibility for Interfor in the event of "any claim, lawsuit, obligation, action, cause of action or cost or expense, of any amount and nature whatsoever be incurred by or imposed upon Interfor."

Initially, NXIVM had kept to the agreement. When Ross countersued NXIVM and Interfor, NXIVM retained a New York City-area law firm, Friedman Kaplan Seiler & Adelman, to represent the investigations company. NXIVM paid $165,619 to comply with the agreement.

But in 2007, NXIVM lawyer Paul Yesawich notified the law firm that NXIVM would no longer comply with the agreement, arguing that Interfor's work "went beyond what the parties intended would be done, and beyond what NXIVM authorized Interfor to do," the judge said.

The judge disagreed, ruling that NXIVM initially hired Interfor to probe the 2003 disappearance of former NXIVM student Kristin Marie Snyder, whom police believe intentionally capsized her kayak in Alaska and died at age 35.

NXIVM expanded Aviv's assignment to focus on Ross' "anti-NXIVM campaigning and related activities." Interfor, which went through Ross' trash outside his home to obtain information, provided NXIVM with a biography on Ross and his contacts. The Times Union has reported that the information included Ross's Social Security number, birth date, medical and psychological history and details from his personal checking account and phone records.

At one point, Interfor conducted an attempted "sting" to draw Ross into a meeting, the judge said in the decision. Former NXIVM official Kristin Keeffe informed NXIVM president Nancy Salzman, who informed Raniere about the effort, the judge said.

"No one at NXIVM objected to the meeting," the judge stated. "These events demonstrate the alignment of NXIVM and Interfor in the investigation of Ross; Interfor's transparency about what

steps it was taking for the investigation; and NXIVM's acceptance of Interfor's

undertakings."

NXIVM also asked Interfor to investigate the background of the family of Michael Sutton, a former member of the group whose parents hired Ross to extract their adult children from NXIVM, which sued the family, including Stephanie Franco, Michael Sutton's sister.

In 2007, Interfor's law firm filed a cross-claim against NXIVM, and later settled the legal suit with Ross for $25,000. Interfor paid $5,000 of that cost — now part of the money NXIVM owes the firm.

"Here, Interfor and Ross settled without an admission of liability or wrongdoing on Interfor's part, and it was never established that Interfor acted with an intent to harm Ross," the judge stated. " That alone eviscerates NXIVM's trial position and obligates it to indemnify Interfor pursuant to the indemnity agreement. But, even had Interfor and Ross not settled, NXIVM has failed to put forth one scintilla of evidence showing that Interfor intended to injure Ross."

Ross told the Times Union in a phone interview Monday that Interfor was "not deserving of anything. ... But nevertheless, it's a victory against Keith Raniere and NXIVM, and it's further proof of how he abused the judicial system in dragged-out litigation."

Ross also wondered if the investigations firm would ever see the money considering the significant forfeiture agreements struck by NXIVM officials, including Salzman and Seagram's heiress and NXIVM director of operations Clare Bronfman, as part of the guilty pleas they made prior to the start of the trial, in which Raniere was the lone defendant.

NXIVM went dormant not long after Raniere's arrest; it's unclear how many of its basic corporate functions are still operating.

Ross said of all the legal claims against NXIVM, he believes Interfor's was the weakest. Far more deserving, he said, are the women who became member of the "master/slave" group within NXIVM who were branded with Raniere's initials.

"Interfor was in the business of doing Keith Raniere's dirty work — and that included going after his perceived enemies, down to collecting garbage and going through it," he said. "And they were paid handsomely for it. ... If the judgment were to be paid on an ethical basis, I would think that Interfor would be paid last."

Ross testified at Raniere's federal trial about his assessment that NXIVM's program did damage to the people who fell into the group's orbit.

Monday's ruling stood in significant contrast to the way Raniere and his loyal disciples used to annually mark his birthday with "V Week," a 10-day series of celebrations, discussions and performances held on Lake George.

Raniere has been in federal custody since March 2018; he's currently incarcerated in Brooklyn awaiting a sentence that could include life in prison.





