NEW YORK — Mark Vicente feared for his life and the lives of family members after he left NXIVM in 2017, the filmmaker testified Wednesday at the federal trial of Keith Raniere.

"I was incredibly afraid," said Vicente, a former "senior proctor" in NXIVM who was part of the group for more than 12 years. "I realized my life could be in physical danger."

Raniere, NXIVM's 58-year-old co-founder known as "Vanguard," is the only one of the original six defendants standing trial in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, where he faces charges including racketeering, sex trafficking and forced labor.

Vicente, 53, formerly of Halfmoon, said he believed members of a secret "master/slave" group within NXIVM operated like a "terror cell" and could be commanded to cause him harm.

The remark prompted an objection from Raniere's attorney, Marc Agnifilo, that was sustained by Senior U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis.

Vicente said he already was worried about rumblings of the "secret society" within NXIVM, in which women were required to put up "collateral" — damaging information about themselves or naked photos — as part of their initiation. The secret club was called Dominus Obsequious Sororium or DOS, which translates as "Lord/Master of the Obedient Female Companions."

He approached Raniere and expressed concern about what he had heard about the secret society. "I don't know what is going on with you and all these women, but I have concerns it could all blow up," Vicente recalled telling NXIVM's co-founder.

He said Raniere said he had no such concerns about the women and that while other things might blow up, that would not.

Vicente testified that he learned high-ranking NXIVM member Allison Mack, a television actress, agreed to surrender all children she may have and all her possessions to Raniere if she ever defied or broke from NXIVM.

Mack, who was revealed to be one of the organizers of DOS, pleaded guilty in April to racketeering and conspiracy charges.

Vicente said he was prepared to attend an 11-day "intensive" NXIVM class in Los Angeles in April 2017, when he expressed his concerns to two coaches in the class. He said the men had girlfriends he believed were joining the master/slave group.

"I said, 'You have to get your girlfriends away from Albany. ... They have to protect themselves. They're in danger,'" Vicente testified.

Vicente broke down and needed to compose himself while recalling his conversation that April with a friend in NXIVM identified only by her first name, Sarah. It appeared to be a reference to Vancouver actress Sarah Edmondson.

When Vicente asked Sarah about the master/slave group, she said that if someone belonged to such a group, that person probably could not speak about it.

"I said, 'Have you been invited into this thing?'" Vicente testified. "She just got very quiet. She said she had been invited in."

"I said, 'Get out!'" Vicente testified. "She said, 'I can't.' I said, 'Why not?' She said, 'They have too much on me.'"

Vicente said Sarah told him she had given collateral to her "master," NXIVM official Lauren Salzman, who is one of Raniere's five co-defendants. She also told Vicente she was going on little sleep and needed to constantly be on alert for orders from the group.

"In essence, she felt trapped," he testified.

Vicente said he told Sarah he was working on a project with an organization called the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking.

"This is trafficking," he recalled telling her.

Sarah also told him she had been physically branded with a symbol that contained Raniere's initials, which were intertwined with the initials of Mack. Edmondson has stated publicly she was unaware that the moniker was the initials of her NXIVM confederates.

"I was just horrified," Vicente testified. "In essence, the walls came tumbling down."

He said he told Sarah to prepare for the possibility that her collateral could be made public — and that it was better than staying in the master/slave group.

Raniere, clad in a black V-neck sweater over a light-colored dress shirt, watched the testimony of his former trusted associate with his hands folded.

Vicente said Raniere once told him he viewed the filmmaker as a possible successor to lead NXIVM.

Earlier in 2017, while walking with Raniere, he told the NXIVM spiritual leader he was having doubts about the organization.

After Raniere spoke to him, Vicente said he told Raniere, "You could be a psychopath and say those same words."

He said Raniere appeared excited at the remark and said, "I could be."

Raniere told him, "There's absolutely nothing you could ever do to break me."

Vicente said he submitted his resignation to NXIVM officials in three separate emails, including one to Raniere, on May 22, 2017.

Vicente said he did not divulge that his resignation was due to the discovery of the master/slave group. He said he feared the group could turn on him, or threaten his wife and his mother.

"There was no way I was going to do that," Vicente testified. "That would release, I don't know what, on me. I believed my life was now in danger."

Vicente said he also helped a woman identified only as Catherine — an apparent reference to actress Catherine Oxenberg, whose daughter India was lured into NXIVM and became a member of DOS.

"I believed her daughter was involved in this. I said (to the mother), 'She needs help. She's in danger,'" he testified. "We needed to get her out."

Vicente said he finally reached out to the FBI in Albany, but it was unclear from his testimony if that office took any action. He said a ceremony was being planned in Albany in June 2017 to brand five new members of DOS.

During cross-examination, Agnifilo played a recording of segments of a 2012 meeting of the Society of Protectors, an all-male group within NXIVM that Vicente helped found. On the recording, Vicente and Raniere were speaking about the subject of collateral.

"It can't be financial. It's got to be a bond of some kind," Vicente said on the recording.

On Wednesday, Vicente testified: "Certainly, I wasn't suggesting where this thing ultimately went," referring to the future master/slave group, which was formed in 2015.

Agnifilo suggested in his questioning that his client believed the collateral was irrelevant and that it was an exercise about people being true to their word.

On another portion of the recording, Raniere referred to the SOC becoming an "order" of noble men.

"Eventually, we would be able to influence elections, countries," Raniere said.

Prosecutors had earlier played a portion of the same recordin,g in which Raniere said: "The more powerful we get, the more afraid people will be to defect."

Agnifilo quizzed Vicente about a letter the witness wrote in 2009 to then-Saratoga County District Attorney James A. Murphy III. Vicente had alleged that NXIVM defector Barbara Bouchey had "flagrantly defamed" Raniere and NXIVM president Nancy Salzman.

Vicente told Murphy, now a judge, that he believed Bouchey went "unhindered" by the legal system -- and effectively accused her of extortion. Bouchey had been one of the "NXIVM 9," a group of nine women who left NXIVM in 2009 because they were concerned, Vicente previously testified, about money they were due and that Raniere was sleeping with members of the executive board.

Earlier, assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Lesko played for the jury Raniere's outline for a movie called, "The Good, The Bad and The Mentor" involving characters based on Raniere and Vicente. Vicente said the plot revolved around a "good" man and a "mentor" in an organization searching for a psychopath in its ranks — and that in the end, the mentor turned out to be the psychopath.

Vicente said the pitch appeared to be a "sick practical joke" by Raniere who, he believes now, was telling Vicente what was really happening in a mocking way.

Asked about the film concept, Vicente testified, "I think I just lived through it."

Agnifilo objected to the remark and the judge sustained the objection.

Vicente, the second witness to testify in the trial, is expected to complete his testimony Thursday.