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Keith Raniere has courted the rich and famous for years through his leadership of NXIVM, the secretive Colonie-based "executive success program" that critics have described as a cult. Now, he has everyone's attention.

NXIVM is making news worldwide after Raniere was arrested on March 25 on multiple federal counts of sex trafficking and forced labor. On Friday, Raniere and actress Allison Mack both were indicted by a federal grand jury in Brooklyn.

For complete stories on the NXIVM investigation, go to timesunion.com/NXIVM

Raniere, the group's founder — who is referred to within NXIVM as "Vanguard" — was arrested at a $10,000-a-week villa in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where he fled last November as the federal investigation took shape. Video of that arrest is shown below.

The U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of New York is leading the grand jury investigation of Raniere and NXIVM. Numerous people involved with NXIVM have been subpoenaed to testify in Brooklyn.

The faces of NXIVM have changed through the years. People on various rungs of the ladder of celebrity have been in the inner circle and have been courted for its success courses.

And as some of his followers are expected to rally around him, others are distancing themselves.

The following profiles are culled from news reports in the Times Union published over the past six years, including the February 2012 Times Union Special Report, "The Secrets of NXIVM."

ALLISON MACK

Mack, 35, is an actress who is widely known for her role in the television series "Smallville," which ran from 2001 to 2011 on the WB and the CW. Prior to her indictment, she was listed in the federal criminal complaint against Raniere as his unidentified co-conspirator.



She is allegedly part of an internal group within NXIVM known as DOS or "Dominus Obsequious Sororium," which means "Master Over the Slave Women." The women in the group, according to the federal complaint, were lured into the club by other female NXIVM members, including Mack, and were required to provide "collateral" in order to join. Women were branded with a symbol that includes the initials of Raniere and Mack, one of those branded told the Times Union. Mack is shown in the video of Raniere's arrest, footage provided by Buffalo-based journalist Frank Parlato, the publisher and editor in chief of Artvoice and a former publicist for NXIVM.

EMILIANO SALINAS

A NXIVM leader and venture capitalist, Emiliano Salinas is the son of former Mexican President Carlos Salinas. His connections to NXIVM are detailed in the 2015 Times Union report "NXIVM hacked billionaire's emails with Hillary Clinton, world leaders." Officials for the Mexican branch of NXIVM's Executive Success Programs, which Salinas heads, recently said their operations may be turned over to another corporation.

NANCY SALZMAN

Raniere met Nancy Salzman in the late 1990s after the collapse of his earlier business, Consumers' Buyline Inc. He said he chose Salzman to become president of NXIVM in 1998 after searching for seven years and interviewing hundreds of people to be the person to duplicate and teach his model. With Raniere going by the title "Vanguard," she is known as "Prefect."

In the hours preceding Raniere's court appearance in Texas on March 27, FBI agents spent several hours combing through Salzman's residence That FBI raid signaled a wider criminal investigation of NXIVM — likely including its finances.

THE BRONFMAN SISTERS

Clare and Sara Bronfman are heiresses of the family that controls the Seagram Co. business empire. They have homes in the Capital Region and used tens of millions of dollars to underwrite Raniere's activities and help the group purchase about a dozen buildings and homes in the region.

They helped arrange for the Dalai Lama to speak in Albany at a 2009 event that drew Raniere to the stage.

The Times Union reported on March 25 that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office was conducting a separate investigation of a nonprofit foundation associated with NXIVM that allegedly sponsored brain-activity and other human behavioral studies without any apparent oversight, according to court records. That investigation has been suspended due to the federal criminal investigation, officials said.

The nonprofit Ethical Science Foundation was formed in 2007 by Clare Bronfman, who owns a horse farm in Delanson and is listed in public records as the trustee of and donor to the foundation. A state Supreme Court justice recently signed an order directing Bronfman and Dr. Brandon B. Porter, who is involved with NXIVM and conducted the human studies, to turn over all documentation associated with the research. Read more in a 2012 report "'The girls' back NXIVM with millions."

SARAH EDMONDSON

Actress Sarah Edmondson of Vancouver, in a state complaint, said at least 20 women associated with NXIVM were lured into DOS, the "secret" club within the organization that required them to consent to being branded in their pubic area.

Edmondson and another woman also involved with NXIVM separately told the Times Union that they were brought into the club and subsequently branded. Edmondson listed two other women in her complaint that she said were branded with her that night.

Edmondson, who was associated with NXIVM for 12 years, left the organization in June of 2017 after she learned the brand that she received contained the initials of Mack and Raniere. The osteopath who performed the branding on many of the women, Dr. Danielle Roberts, also works for NXIVM. Roberts worked at St. Peter's Hospital from 2012 to 2015 through an employment agency. Read more: "Women scarred by study, branding"

ROGER STONE AND MORE

The for-profit corporation NXIVM is based on a self-improvement curriculum called "Rational Inquiry." Other high-profile names — including Republican campaign strategist and self-described political "dirty trickster" Roger Stone, former State Majority Leader Joe Bruno, former state Health Commissioner Antonia Novello, and writer-producer Mark Vicente — have taken NXIVM's executive success courses or were found to have ties to the organization, according to Times Union reporting.

Read more about the powerful people who have attended NXIVM seminars in the 2012 story "NXIVM courts rich, powerful and influential."

KRISTIN KREUK

Another "Smallville" actress, Kristin Kreuk, wrote on Twitter on March 29 that she took an "intensive" NXIVM session when she was 23 and left the program about five years ago. "The accusations that I was in the 'inner circle' or recruited women as 'sex slaves' are blatantly false," she wrote. "During my time, I never experienced any illegal or nefarious activity. I am horrified and disgusted by what has come out about DOS."