NEW YORK — His devoted followers in NXIVM knew him as "Vanguard," the smartest man in the world. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have described him as a con man capable of bruising sexual and emotional cruelty.

On Monday, a defense lawyer for Keith Raniere used a new term for the purported self-help guru from Halfmoon: a sweet guy.

The attorney, Marc Agnifilo, pressed a 31-year-old actress from California who was a member of the defendant's "master/slave" group about Raniere's treatment of her.

Last week, the woman testified that Raniere blindfolded her, instructed her to disrobe and drove her to a home where he tied her to a table and asked her intimate questions as he watched her be sexually violated by a stranger.

On Monday, Agnifilo asked the woman, "Wasn't Keith sweet to you?"

She appeared to awkwardly answer in the affirmative, but hedged.

In the "master/slave" group, the woman needed to provide "collateral" to actress Allison Mack — letters with devastating false claims about her parents and an ex-boyfriend that would be sent to newspapers if she ever betrayed her masters. She also made a sexually explicit video recording.

On redirect questioning, Assistant U.S. Attorney Moira Penza asked the woman if Raniere, the alleged "grandmaster" of the group, had returned the collateral to her after she left NXIVM. She said he had not.

"Do you think that was 'sweet?'" the prosecutor asked.

"No," the witness replied.

The testimony came as the trial of Raniere entered its sixth week in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. The 58-year-old is charged with racketeering, sex trafficking, forced labor and conspiracy.

On Monday, the witness — who was physically branded with Raniere's initials — described her life after breaking ties with NXIVM and the "master/slave" group.

"I feel like I'm actually living my own life," she testified, as her mother and sister sat in the courtroom.

There was "not a single second I'm not grateful (that) I'm not in that situation," she said.

The witness said she is now working at a job related to nutrition and cognitive therapy, attending New York University and studying psychology.

She previously testified that in February 2016, Mack talked her into joining the "master/slave" group under the guise that it was a women's empowerment group. At the time, the woman had just expressed thoughts of suicide to Mack, who told her the group was "exactly what you need."

"Trust me, you will be okay," she recalled Mack telling her.

She joined a group called "The Vow," which would later be known as Dominus Obsequious Sororium (DOS), a Latin phrase which translates to "Lord/Master of the Obedient Female Companions."

Mack soon used the collateral as a means to control her, the witness said.

She said Mack, known as "Madame Mack," revealed to her that she could not leave the group — and that she needed to provide more collateral on a monthly basis.

The woman said she left DOS in the summer of 2017 after numerous members of the group and of the larger NXIVM community defected. She said NXIVM at that point was "imploding from the inside out."

She testified last week that she left DOS after she sent an email to Mack. She then drove to the Knox Woods apartment complex in Halfmoon where she spoke to Mack and three fellow "slaves" for two hours and withstood their strong push for her to stay. She also spoke to Raniere afterward in what she described as an awkward conversation.

She said she later spoke to a friend about getting back her collateral — but did it gradually.

"I was still scared," she said.

In the fall of 2017, she sent an email to Mack, which was shown in court Monday.

"I would like to peacefully and quietly remove myself from everything. I do not want any drama," she wrote. "Please get back to me on this or I will be forced to a different course of action if I don't hear from you in the near future."

She told Mack her family was the most important thing to her, and that "if you were my friend at all and the person I thought you were" Mack would agree.

The witness said she learned for the first time Monday that Mack forwarded the letter to Raniere —whom Mack listed under the name "John" — as well as Seagram's heiress Clare Bronfman, NXIVM's director of operations.

Mack and Bronfman have both pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges in the case.

During cross-examination, Agnifilo asked the woman if Raniere had ever yelled at her or threatened her. She said no, but quickly added that threats were not Raniere's style — he had "others" handle such tasks.

Agnifilo reminded the woman she had spent many nights in Raniere's former so-called "executive library" at 8 Hale Drive in Halfmoon. He said Raniere and the woman had been in a romantic relationship, and produced a text message in which she told Raniere she wanted him to "f__ her" before being branded.

"Why did you say that?" he asked.

"No idea," she responded.

The woman, however, stuck to her past testimony that while she had sex with Raniere, she did so because she believed it was part of her role as a "slave" for Mack, who was in turn a slave for Raniere.

When Agnifilo asked the woman if she had been intimate with Raniere, she replied "sort of ... I don't think there's an actual name for it."

The witness said Raniere also told her repeatedly that she was "prideful," "defiant" and that he needed to "break me in order to rebuild me."

She said she needed permission from Mack and Raniere to cut her hair.

The witness said Mack, a former star of the television series "Smallville," asked her to sign several contacts in March and April of 2017.

One of them asked her to agree that she had been willing to join something that could result in "physical or psychological injury, pain, suffering, illness, disfigurement, temporary or permanent disability including paralysis, economic or emotional loss or death," according to a copy of the document displayed in court.

Mack also wanted the woman to sign non-disclosure and non-compete agreements and an assign-and-transfer agreement in relation to personal property.

The woman is "eternally grateful" she never signed them, she told jurors.

Another DOS slave, identified only as "Jay," began her testimony later Monday, and is expected to continue when the trial resumes Tuesday.

The 29-year-old actress from Los Angeles said she was surprised she was able to receive a "very unusual" amount of time with Raniere after she joined the NXIVM community.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Lesko asked he if she has an opinion why she was afforded such time.

"My understanding now is that I was being groomed to be part of his harem," she testified.