The leader of the American sex sect NXIVM (“Nexiam”) Keith Ranier gave his first interview since the court sentenced him. In particular, he justified the branding of the sect's followers with their own initials. His interview was aired on NBC's reality show Dateline and posted on the newspaper's website.
Ranier said the scorched initials of his name above the bikini line of the cult victims were “a tribute.” According to the leader of the group, this even confused him at first.
The man claimed that he had not invented the stigma and that there was no coercion in stigma in the sect, and that he did not like tattoos. “They even decided to do it without anesthesia in order to feel it,” Ranier said.
According to the Daily Mail, the court provided audio recordings in which he said that the procedure for applying the stigma was supposed to be similar to the ritual of sacrifice. At the same time, he clarified that the victims themselves had to ask him about it, calling him “master”, so that it does not look like coercion.
Ranier was given 120 years in prison in October 2020. He is accused of violence, including a 15-year-old teenager and sex slave trafficking. Nearly two dozen women testified against the sect leader and told how they were branded, starved, enslaved and extorted for money.
Nexiam was founded in the late 1990s as a personal training organization for businessmen. In fact, many of the trainings were very brutal. For example, women were forced to live on 500 calories a day. In order to enter the class, it was necessary to provide their own nude photos and other incriminating materials to ensure the silence of the participants at the end of the program.
