BALLSTON SPA — Nearly a dozen members of disgraced NXIVM leader Keith Raniere's "inner circle" shared the purported self-help guru's penchant for trying to dodge taxes, records show.

The 58-year-old Raniere and at least 10 past and present loyalists have faced state and federal tax liens totaling more than $715,000 over the past two decades — the majority of which remain unpaid, according to court documents filed in the Saratoga County clerk's office, as well as records filed in New Jersey and Alaska.

Raniere, a former Halfmoon resident known within NXIVM as "Vanguard," not only avoided paying taxes but encouraged his flock of devotees to do the same, according to testimony at the federal trial in Brooklyn that ended last month with his conviction on all counts.

Raniere faces life in prison after being convicted of sex trafficking, forced labor, racketeering and more. The racketeering charges included several underlying acts, one of which was identity theft related to Raniere's use of a credit card belonging to his late lover and confidant, Pamela Cafritz, after her death in 2016.

"Why did he use Pam Cafritz's credit card after she was dead to fund his lifestyle? To avoid paying taxes," Assistant U.S. Attorney Moira Penza told the jury in her closing statement. "Because he didn't want to take that money into his own name, because the defendant was obsessed with not paying taxes."

Cafritz herself faced tax liens of $15,796 in 2011 and $15,721 in 2010. She paid both before her death.

Penza told jurors, "The ultimate goal for the company was zero tax. That was the ultimately goal for the defendant as well."

And records show it was a goal many of Raniere's closest associates tried to mirror.

At the trial, Penza and her fellow prosecutors Tanya Hajjar and Mark Lesko showed jurors a list of 25 Raniere associates in NXIVM that they described as his inner circle. Some of the individuals have since left the organization; three testified against Raniere.

Two of the women on the list were "first-line slaves" in Raniere's secret master/slave group, known as Dominus Obsequious Sororium (DOS) or The Vow, in which the women had his initials branded into their pelvic areas by a cauterizing pen.

The NXIVM leader's efforts to avoid tax responsibilities did not keep him from facing a $41,991 judgment from the state tax commission in 1998, the year he started NXIVM. The bill was paid.

Court records show past and present Raniere associates faced the following tax judgments:

Kathy L. Russell: The NXIVM bookkeeper and Raniere co-defendant hasn't paid federal tax liens of $4,150 in 2019 in Saratoga County and several federal tax liens in Alaska: $36,714 in 2012, $5,575 in 2012, and $9,631 in 2006, according to to the Recorder's Office in Anchorage. Russell paid a state tax lien of $2,830 in Saratoga County in 2013. Russell, who pleaded guilty to a felony charge to resolve her case, is awaiting sentencing.

Karen Unterreiner: A high-ranking NXIVM official tied to Raniere since attending RPI decades ago, she still owes a New Jersey state tax lien of $97,118 from 1999, according to the county clerk's office in Mercer County, N.J. Unterreiner paid a $47,711 New York tax lien filed in Saratoga County in 2000.

Dawn Morrison: Identified at trial as a high-ranking NXIVM official, she still owes federal tax liens of $151,341 this year, $8,066 in 2009, and $13,243 in 2003.

Lauren Salzman: The daughter of longtime NXIVM president Nancy Salzman and a former first-line DOS "slave" who testified against Raniere still owes federal tax liens of $32,548 from 2017. She paid federal tax liens of $23,210 from 2011, and state tax liens of $1,651 from 2008 and $157 in 2017.

Kristin Keeffe: NXIVM's formerly devoted legal liaison, who has a son with Raniere, left NXIVM abruptly in 2014. She incurred federal tax liens of $29,466 in 2018 and $16,638 in 2009, and a state tax lien of $22,213 in 2013.

Monica Duran: Identified during the trial as a first-line DOS "slave," she still owes a state tax lien of $2,195 from 2018.

Jim Del Negro: The high-ranking NXIVM official faced tax liens of $2,486 in 2014 and $202 in 2013. He paid both.

Barbara Bouchey: A former high-ranking NXIVM official who became a primary target for the group's ire owed a tax lien of $10,205 in 2011 before paying it.

Barbara Jeske: This NXIVM official faced a whopping $126,953 federal tax lien from 2008 that remained unpaid when she died in 2014.

The Times Union reached out to attorneys for Salzman and Russell and to Unterreiner, Morrison, Duran and Del Negro for comment. None could be reached. In 2012, the Times Union reported that Bouchey and Susan Dones, a former NXIVM trainer, testified in sworn depositions that Raniere told his close associates to go "off the grid" and avoid paying taxes.

Dones said in the deposition that Jeske had bragged "about the fact that she's off the radar with the IRS and has not paid taxes for years," and added, "I believe Barbara Jeske has adopted Keith's views of taxes."

Bouchey said in a deposition: "There were a number of people in the group who he encouraged to ... get off the grid, meaning not to have a tax ID number, not to file their tax returns, so he had strong opinions about things that I think the government would take issue with."

The group's disdain for paying tax was raised at various times during Raniere's trial. One former insider testified that when NXIVM students paid for classes with cash, the money was placed in a drawer in Unterreiner's desk under the category of "Scholarship Admin."

Asked why, the insider — a Mexican woman who spent nearly two years confined to a room in her family's Halfmoon townhouse — testified, "The point was to not pay taxes on the cash. So the cash

would not be on the books."

Former NXIVM accountant James Loperfido testified that while attending NXIVM's annual "V Week" — an annual week-long celebration on Lake George to celebrate Raniere's Aug. 26 birthday — NXIVM officials showed a documentary that claimed taxes were unconstitutional.

"Did that concern you?" Lesko asked Loperfido.

"Very much," he replied. "I asked if I could at the end of movie — once I understood what the film was about — if I could address the audience. And I was worried that the documentary was showing a one-sided slant on this idea of not having to pay taxes because of constitutional issues."

"Were you allowed to address the crowd?" the prosecutor asked Loperfido.

"No," he said.