Clare Bronfman, the Seagram heir and NXIVM financier, was sentenced to 81 months in prison on Wednesday. She pleaded guilty last year to charges related to immigration fraud and identity theft, following her arrest in 2018 in connection with Keith Raniere’s notorious sex abuse and racketeering ring.
During the sentencing hearing at a federal courtroom in Brooklyn, Bronfman sat silently while nine women spoke of the horrors she and Raniere inflicted, the New York Daily News reported. The New York Times noted this week that the hearing was the first chance for many NXIVM victims and former members to speak to U.S. District Court judge Nicholas Garaufis, and that it was the first major hearing in the courthouse since the coronavirus pandemic began.
“In my opinion you’re a predator,” said Susan Dones, a former NXIVM member, while in tears. “You should feel shame, self-loathing…You should understand there are lives you destroyed.”
“As long as you support K.R. [Keith Raniere], there is no forgiveness for you,” another former member, Sally Brink, said. “You’re not going to heal with K.R. in your life. You have to take back your power. You have no sense of self without him.”
Bronfman had been involved with NXIVM, a professed self-help group, since 2003. She left her career as an equestrian to move to the organization’s upstate New York headquarters. Prosecutors had asked Garaufis to sentence Bronfman to five years in prison, according to NBC News, claiming that her tens of millions of dollars in financial backing were crucial to NXIVM’s existence. The group became more commonly referred to as a cult and pyramid scheme last year when Raniere was convicted of charges including sex trafficking, racketeering, and possession of child pornography, and it emerged that some women in the organization were branded with his initials.
“There can be little doubt that Raniere would not have been able to commit the crimes with which he was convicted were it not for powerful allies like Bronfman,” prosecutors said in court papers, according to NBC.
Bronfman’s sister, Sara, was also involved in NXIVM but has not faced criminal charges and is still allowed to profit from the Albany property she owns that was used by the organization. In 2010, Vanity Fair reported that as much as $150 million was taken out of the Bronfman sisters’ trusts and bank accounts to support Raniere and NXIVM.
The Times noted that many NXIVM victims were upset with Bronfman’s guilty plea because the charges downplayed her organizational role. Prosecutors said that she used fraudulently obtained visas for young Mexican women to work for NXIVM and helped Raniere maneuver financially by using his dead girlfriend’s credit card and bank account.
Bronfman’s lawyers had argued for only probation, claiming that she did not directly participate in NXIVM’s most disturbing crimes and that her health conditions meant that coronavirus would pose a heightened risk to her in prison. Bronfman wrote in a letter to the judge last month that she “never meant to hurt anyone, however I have and for this I am deeply sorry.”
But she also continued to pledge loyalty. “Many people, including most of my own family, believe I should disavow Keith and NXIVM, and that I have not is hard for them to understand and accept,” Bronfman wrote, according to the Times. “However, for me, NXIVM and Keith greatly changed my life for the better.”
Bronfman already forfeited $6 million in her plea agreement, and prosecutors have said the heir’s fortune is worth $200 million. She is the first defendant sentenced in connection to NXIVM. Raniere is currently awaiting sentencing, as is the Smallville actor Allison Mack, who pleaded guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy after recruiting women for NXIVM.