Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.

It took just four and a half hours for a Brooklyn jury to leaf through a four-page verdict sheet, finding a leader of a cultlike group guilty of all seven charges listed on it, including sex trafficking, racketeering and forced labor conspiracy.

Over six weeks this spring, prosecutors in Federal District Court in Brooklyn had rolled out a damning case against Keith Raniere, the co-founder of Nxivm. Prosecutors said the self-help organization, based near Albany, enabled Mr. Raniere to steal money and to keep a harem he had starved, branded and blackmailed into a lifetime commitment together in a secret sorority known as the Vow or D.O.S.

I covered just a few days of testimony late in the trial, but during my first day in the gallery, lawyers pored through lurid WhatsApp and email messages from Mr. Raniere, 58, to a young woman named Camila, which were projected on screens for jurors to read. (Mr. Raniere struck up a sexual relationship with Camila before she was 18.) He had also sent Camila a photograph of a woman on all fours, with her hands and legs in restraints.