3.Closing Argument — Defense (Part 1)

MR. AGNIFILO: So more than most cases, I think it's very important that you look at each of the charges and you link each of the charges with the evidence.

It's a very difficult job you have to do. It's quite frankly a very difficult job that I have to do. I have to sort through all the different evidence in the case, very powerful evidence, evidence that causes strong emotional reaction. And what we have to do, though, and I have to try and do it myself, is to go through the charges and actually really go through what is actually charged, what is not charged, what is charged. And let me just give you an example.

Keith Raniere is not charged in any way, shape or form with having sex with Camila. It's just not one of the charges. He's charged with the photographs. He's charged with possessing the child pornography. But he's not charged with having sex with her. That's just one example.

So what I want to do is I want to take you step by step -- the Government started this, so I'm just going to finish it -- going through the charges. Now one of the things that you heard in the Government's opening statement is that this case is about, and this is how they charged it, an enterprise. It's not about Keith Raniere alone. It's about an entire enterprise.

And it's basically the enterprise, as I understand it, I think that's the way they described it in their summation, is Keith Raniere and all the people in that circle of people in the poster that was sitting here during the Government's summation. And what you guys have to figure out is, is that right? Is that true? Does that make sense? Does that hold together?

Because the reason we're in federal court with a racketeering charge, racketeering charges, is because the Government is basically saying to you, Keith Raniere didn't work alone. That's their theory. That's what they have to prove to you. He didn't work alone. He worked as part of an enterprise.

And Judge Garaufis -- when I finish, my colleague Mr. Lesko, goes, and then we're done. And then Judge Garaufis takes over. And judge Garaufis instructs you on the law. And I agree wholeheartedly with what my colleague, Ms. Penza said, if I say anything that is somewhat legal, it's Judge Garaufis that instructs you on the law and nobody else. So if I venture into legal principles, it's really with an eye toward marrying the evidence to the legal principles. The most important thing is when you hear the Judge's final instruction, listen to everything obviously that he says, then put it in context with everything else.

What Ms. Penza did, did I'm going to do something similar. I'm going to talk about discreet legal principles. At the end of the day, listen to the instruction in one shot. That's what Judge Garaufis is going to give to you. And what the Judge says is what is the law is and nothing else.

So for sake of this part of the discussion, the Government has seen fit to charge and now has to prove an enterprise. Again, not that Keith Raniere worked alone, that he was part of an enterprise.

And one little part out of the racketeering statute that I want you to focus on, it's simply two words: Common purpose. Common purpose.

When Judge Garaufis instructs you on the law, probably sometime tomorrow, he's going to tell you many things about enterprise. One of the things he's going to say is that the different people in the enterprise have to have a common purpose.

And what I want you to think about as you go through the evidence the way Ms. Penza described it to you, the way I'm going to describe it to you, do we have that?

Do we have common purpose? Who has a common purpose with Keith? Is his purpose common to anybody else? Is his purpose common with Karen Unterreiner? Is his purpose common with Pam Cafritz's purpose? Is his purpose common with Nicole's purpose in this case?

This isn't just a technicality, this is the charge. This is how the Government is able to bring all these different charges together in one case. This is how the Government is able to say, well, you were involved in identity theft by Daniela coming into the United States from Canada in 2004. You were involved in this in 2006; you were involved in this in 2008, and 2010, and 2015, and 2017. This is how they are able to bring all of this together because the racketeering statutes, Counts One and Two, RICO conspiracy, the Judge will tell you how those statutes work, allow them to bring all of this together. So we don't just have a trial on what happened in 2004. We don't just have a trial on what happened in 2006. We don't have a trial in what happened in 2008. We have a trial on the whole thing. But the reason we can have a trial on the whole thing is because they have charged and now must prove an enterprise.

I'm going to get into that a little bit. Common purpose. Two words. It will be the heart of what I think you have to decide when you decide is there an enterprise, is there a common purpose.

What is the common purpose between NXIVM on the one hand and DOS on the other? NXIVM is a business that is about making money. NXIVM is a business that opens centers around the world. There is centers in Mexico. There is centers throughout the United States. Mark Vicente when he testified did a good job taking you through some of the different locations where the centers are. But it's a true business. NXIVM is a business.

There is nothing, nothing whatsoever business like about DOS, nothing. NXIVM makes money. NXIVM has employees. DOS is a social group. It has nothing to do with commerce. It has nothing to do with making money.

And so one of the things I'm going to want you to ask yourself when you go back to the jury room and try to figure out, is there an enterprise in this case, what is the common purpose. What is the common purpose between DOS on the one hand and NXIVM on the other? What is the common purpose between the different people that are involved in the alleged enterprise? Is there a common purpose?

So we're going to start -- I'm going to basically, and Ms. Penza got a good running start because she did a good job going through the charges, I'm able to save some time -- we're going to start with the first Racketeering Act. The first Racketeering Act is identity theft conspiracy of someone named Ashana Chenoa. That's the crime.

This is why I said we have to focus on the crime. The crime is not whether or not Keith Raniere helped Daniela get over the border from Canada the United States on Christmas Eve 2004. That's not the crime. The crime is specific, a conspiracy, an agreement, the way Judge Garaufis will describe it to you, an agreement that Keith Raniere and others, were going to have Daniela get across the border by using a fake identification card of another real person, living or dead. All of those elements.

It can't just be any identification card. It can't just be, we're going to make an identification card for Daniela that's fake. That's not identity theft.

I want to read you, before I go any further, I want to read you portion of Daniela's testimony on this point. The reason I'm going to read it to you is because at no place, and this is very important, at no place in her testimony does she ever say that Keith was involved in helping her get across the border by means of an identification other another real person. So because I want you to focus on what she doesn't say, I'm going to read certain parts of it.

I'm looking now at page 2409 of the transcript, line 16. "The defendant Keith Raniere says he came up with a plan, he came up with a plan to bring me back. It was an exciting time for me. I mean that Keith wanted me back so bad that he was planning this strategy. He was the one that, like, he was, he was figuring out maybe you can come through Canada and then, you know, do this and that. And he told me that he was, he told me he was coming up, like he was going to have someone have an ID for me. So his plan was this. He had like a master plan for bringing me back."

Going to the next page 2410.

Question: "And so was he telling you this plan while you're in Mexico?

Answer: "Yes.

Question: "And he's communicating all the details?

Answer: "Yes.

Question: "Did you, do you have any other conversation that you remember with anyone else while you were in Mexico about this plan?

Answer: "Not that I remember.

Question: "So what happened? What does the defendant actually tell you the plan is? Answer: "He tells me the plan is that I will fly to Canada. At the time a Mexican did not need a visa to fly and stay in Canada, so that wasn't going to be an issue. So I would fly to Canada and in Canada he would send someone to meet you. That someone in this case was going to be Kristin. So, and Kristin would bring with her a fake ID for me. And I would be crossing the border on the U.S. to the U.S.A. as American. So it was going to be like with a fake ID. It is, wasn't a fake visa, it was a fake ID. The plan was that this was going to happen on Christmas Eve. So like the holiday rush would kind of things would be busy, so maybe there would be more like, it was like, the likelihood of it succeeding it would be higher and that would" -- that's her testimony.

No talk about a person. So even if you believe every word she says, and for the next five minutes I'm going to go through why you shouldn't because there are objective problems with what she said, we'll put that aside for a second. If you believe every single thing she says in the testimony, Racketeering Act 1 is not proven.

Because there is nothing in the testimony that Keith Raniere was involved in a plan that involved a fake identification card of another person, living or dead.

So let's get into the type of evidence that does exist. That's it. That's the testimony. There are no e-mails. There are no text messages. There is no other written evidence connecting Keith Raniere to any aspect of Daniela crossing the border. And there is certainly no evidence of him using a bogus sheriff's ID card for this purpose. There is no evidence. There is no testimony. There is nothing in the record as well. Daniela is really the only source of information on this point.

Now here are the problems, I submit to you -- and just so you probably picked this up already -- I'm going to make a lot of suggestions in the next two hours, whatever it is. You guys decide what is what. If I tell you, I think a witness is truthful or untruthful, you know what, it doesn't mean anything. It's my suggestion. It's what you guys think.

I think the first thing I ever said to you guys when I gave my opening statement, I said, the case is two things: All of you and it's about him, the man who is behind the screen there. That's really what it is about.

You guys are really, I agree with my colleague who said you're sort of an unusual jury. I've never had a jury for six, seven weeks be here on time every single day. Every single one of you -- I've been doing this a while -- you've been paying close attention, and I appreciate it.

And now the hard work, you have to go into the jury room and figure out what do you guys believe regardless of what I say, regardless of what Ms. Penza says, Mr. Lesko says, Ms. Hajjar says. What do you believe. Really dig in, don't just accept it. You're on the jury to be critical thinkers.

A couple of things I want you to think about. Do you remember what Daniela said about what how she flew to Canada? Here she is saying Keith comes up with a master plan, don't you think somebody in NXIVM would pay for it, Keith, Clare, somebody? No. Her testimony is her father paid. Her father pays for her ticket to go to Canada. She says clearly, her father paid for the ticket. She says Kathy Russell met her in Canada and gave her this ID card. In the name of Lisa Chenoa. I don't know what it means, Lisa Chenoa, different name than Elana Chenoa. Same date of birth, but there is a Elana -- sorry, Ashana, I keep saying Elana -- Ashana Chenoa, that's the person who is a real person. Ashana Chenoa is the one who has to exist for this to be a crime. The person has to exist. We know she existed, we saw her driver's license and obituary. The name on the crossing is not Ashana Chenoa, it's Lisa Chenoa. Is it Ashana Chenoa? Lisa Chenoa? I don't know. I don't know. You may not know either.

So she says that Kathy Russell goes to Canada and she gives her this identification card in the name of Lisa Chenoa. Two problems with that. There is no record, there is no record of Kathy Russell leaving the United States or coming back to the United States. I can see missing one. I can see with all the people going back and forth across the border, maybe one person doesn't get entered into the system. You don't get entered in the system either time? I don't know. That seems sort of suspicious. Because there is no record of Kathy Russell -- remember what she said, Kathy Russell drove in a car over the border, went to Canada, gave her the ID card. They did shopping, made it look to the border guys they were shopping, then drove back together. So Kathy Russell crosses twice, presumably in the same day, and there is no record of either one. It's hard to believe. It's hard to believe.

So what does it mean? Well, I submit it means Kathy Russell didn't go to Canada and meet her with an identification card. Because if she had, one of those two crossings would be captured in an official document, and neither of them are. So that means Daniela made her own identification card? Well, let's run that down for a minute.

Do you remember the cross-examination of Daniela? I think one of the first thing I asked her -- she didn't say a word about this on direct examination -- one of the first questions I asked her, didn't you make a fake identification card for your sister? Didn't you make a fake identification card for Camila so that she could cross the border? She said no -- yes, I did make it, I did make a fake identification card. A fake Mexican national identification card for Camila in 2017 so that she could travel around Mexico.

And she got into details about how she did it. She had a contact with her mother. She made it in a certain place. She didn't mention it on direct.

I asked her, did you tell the Government about it? I think I did. I think I didn't. I don't know.

That's a big thing. You would think you would remember that, that she made a fake Mexican identification card. Did she do it again? Did she do it before? Is that how she got this identification card?

What are the different possibilities? I see three, maybe there are more, but I see three.

One, is that Kathy Russell did go to Canada, and didn't get logged in either time. Remote.

Two, someone else did make the identification card and mailed it to her? Sent it to her somehow? That doesn't make sense, though, I'll tell you why. Remember what she says, she says it was like amateur hour. It was a terrible identification card. It was really, really bad. And the terms she used, it was like amateur hour. So I submit to you, if someone is going to mail her a really bad, an amateur hour, identification card ahead of time, she's going to say, I'm not using this. I don't want to get in trouble. She would wait until she got a non-amateur hour identification card. So that one doesn't make sense either.

So the third possibility is she made it herself. That's an interesting possibility, because that's inconsistent with what she testified to here. Because what she testified to here was that Keith came up with this master plan, those are her words, came up with this master plan to get her back into the United States. So what part of the master plan involves her making her own identification card? One of the things that she couldn't remember, and Ms. Penza referred to this in her summation as well, is that Kristin Keeffe was there. I don't think that's just a mere oversight. Because what we know, and I'm going to talk quite a bit in my talk about Kristin Keeffe, that Kristin Keeffe does the operational things.

When you go back in the jury room and you're given that box the box of stuff that was found in Nancy Salzman's house, you go through it and what you're going to conclude, I submit, in very short order is that's Kristin Keeffe's stuff. You're going to conclude it for a few different reasons.

One, as Special Agent Wenniger testified a couple of days ago, in the written notes that seem all to be in the same handwriting, there are references to Gaelyn, her son with Keith Raniere. And the references to him as her son, not some other kid. And you'll just be able to tell.

What I'd ask you to do is actually go through some of the handwritten notes. Because it's very important, in my opinion, for you to understand her. You have to understand, in my opinion, how she thinks, what she does, what she's like. And she's not here, obviously she didn't testify at the trial, but that doesn't mean you can't kind of look at different things that she has written in her notes see how she does things. And she, I submit to you, is busy, she's active, she's always doing something. She's 24/7. She does not take a break. And so I submit to you that she played some role, rather than Keith Raniere directly, she played some significant role in trying to get Daniela back into the country. And we know that she was in the Niagara Falls area. If I'm not mistaken, there is a receipt from a Denny's restaurant from Christmas Eve from December 24, 2004, that she submitted for repayment.

Now I have no doubt that Kathy Russell was in the area, I just have a doubt as to whether she went to Canada, is my point.

Because what we know is that Kathy Russell was in the area, because there is a credit card receipt of her buying gas off of Route 80, in some town Clifton Springs, New York, which is kind of like on the way near Rochester, you're getting close to Niagara Falls. I have no doubt that two people went to meet Daniela coming across the border, and those two people were Kristin and Kathy.

How can Daniela -- think about how Daniela -- think about the level of detail, and I say this because what I'm asking you to figure out is, is she making it up because the level of detail of her crossing the border is so clear.

She says she's in a car. She's in the passenger side of the card. And that Kathy Russell is driving. They get to the border patrol guy and she reaches over and she gives Kathy her identification card. And Kathy gives both identification cards, very important thing. If the border guy is going to miss putting Kathy into the system, but puts Chenoa in the system, he has both cards, that's her testimony. I hand both cards and the border guy is looking at the card, scrutinizing my card, I get nervous and I say, what is the weather ahead. I distract him. She remembers that level of detail, but she doesn't remember who drove her back to Albany.

Does that really make any sense? That she remembers that level of detail about the interaction with the border patrol agent, but she doesn't know if Kristin Keeffe alone or Kristin Keeffe with Kathy Russell drove her back to Albany. It doesn't make any sense. I submit to you, she's trying to keep Kristin Keeffe out of it, for whatever reason.

But what she doesn't know, Daniela doesn't know, as she's saying I don't remember if Kristin drove me back is she doesn't know there is a receipt. She doesn't know there is a receipt from a Denny's in Niagara Falls from Christmas Eve 2004. The story starts to fall apart.

At the end of the day, though, you don't need to get into that level of detail. I gave you the whole thing because I wanted to give you the whole thing.

The easy answer for Racketeering Act 1 is there is no evidence in this record that Keith Raniere was involved in getting Daniela over the border by means of an identification card in the name of another person. There is just nothing in the record.

Racketeering Act 2, 3, 4 are the Racketeering Acts that are related to the photographs of Camila. I'm going to come back to those.

Racketeering Act 5 relates to a conspiracy to commit identity theft in regard to -- first it's a conspiracy. So one of the things when you get the verdict sheet it will make sense, these Racketeering Acts they are sometimes called sub-predicated, so they will be three different ways in this instance that Racketeering Act 5 is charged. It's a conspiracy, then it is a identity theft for James Loperfido, then identity theft for Edgar Bronfman, and it relates to Daniela's efforts to do keylogging.

The question is obviously not whether Daniela was engaged in keylogging, we know she was. She says she was. There is e-mail between her and Kristin Keeffe about it.

The issue that you have to decide is what, if any, role did Keith Raniere play in this. Let's talk about Loperfido first.

Loperfido testified. He seems to be a lovely man, but he doesn't know Keith Raniere very well. And I submit to you that there is no reason for Keith Raniere to be in any way involved in trying to get into James Loperfido's keylogs and see what key strokes he's making on his computer. That is just not really a Keith Raniere issue. There is no reason for him to do that. They don't have any real connection. I think Loperfido's testimony is that he met Raniere twice, both in regards to some investment that Raniere was talking about.

I submit to you James Loperfido is just not somebody who is on Keith Raniere's radar screen. And it just doesn't make sense for him to be involved in that. You might think, well, if Kristin Keeffe is involved in it, at this point, I think at this point, Keith is living with Kristin Keeffe, Marianna and Pam. But, you saw in the e-mail just a couple of days ago at one point in regard to the CannaPro business, the Canadian company from Quebec that was basically defrauding Clare Bronfman by getting bogus bank records.

At one point Kristin Keeffe sent an e-mail, don't send these to Keith anymore. Keith is off of this.

I submit to you that the way that Kristin Keeffe did her job, in any way, you'll see this from the e-mails and in that one particular e-mail she just does it, she's not necessarily sharing it. Sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn't. There is no indication in this case that she did with James Loperfido. There is no indication she did with Edgar Bronfman either. That's the other sub-predicated act of Racketeering Act 5. There is no indication that she sent him any information.

That's in contrast to what we're going to get to in a few minutes, Racketeering Act 7, which is the keylogging of Marianna's Facebook account. And the difference is that in connection with the Marianna Facebook account, she sends, if you remember, she sends Keith the actual keylogs, she e-mails it to him.

And so there is no doubt that Keith Raniere knows about that because Daniela e-mails Keith the Marianna keyloggings. So as Marianna is going on Facebook and making key entries, because of the keylogger Daniela is capturing that then she sends that to Keith.

Now, how does Daniela explain that she didn't do the same thing with Loperfido and Bronfman? Because we know she doesn't e-mail it, because there is no e-mail. She says, I don't email. She says, I put it on a thumb drive and I give it to him. But no, you don't. No, you don't. Because you e-mailed it, you e-mailed him the Marianna one. So you don't put it on a thumb drive. You do e-mail it, if he's involved. With Marianna he was involved. We know he was involved. He got an e-mail from her, we'll get to that in a minute.

The Edgar Bronfman situation seems to be related to this the Rick Ross who testified here. When you go through the Kristin Keeffe box, you're going to see an absolute obsession with everything that is Rick Ross. There are handwritten notes of Kristin, Rick Ross' P.O. box, his phone records, where he goes, who he speaks to. She's absolutely obsessed with Rick Ross.

So I submit to you that what the evidence shows in total, is that this is Kristin. This is Kristin and this is Daniela doing these keyloggings. I'll get to the Marianna in a minute.

In terms of Loperfido and in terms of Edgar Bronfman, this is really Kristin and Daniela, that's what the e-mail shows you. When you go in the back and you get all the evidence, you'll see the e-mails between them. There is a lot.

You'll see the one where I think at one point Kristin gives Daniela e-mail addresses. And it's just between the two of them. There is really nothing, there is really nothing connecting Keith Raniere to this. I submit to you that he's not involved in these key loggings.

Racketeering Act 6, relates to the videos. The videos that Mark Vicente testified to in the beginning of the case. And I submit to you the Government's proof on this is, with all due respect to my colleagues, very confused, very indefinite, and does not amount to proof quite frankly of anything. Let me tell you why I'm saying that.

Mr. Vicente testified on page 710, to what he recalls about sort of these glitches and all the four different ways of making, taking, jiggling the cord or whatever the four ways are.

But what he can't do, and I submit that he's an honest guy, he doesn't really remember, and he says that. But what he can't do is he can't really link the videotapes that he himself altered or had other people alter, and those being the same videotapes that got turned over in discovery. He just can't do that.

On page 710, at line three, I asked him the following question and he gave the following answer: "And you have no specific recollection, you don't know what tapes were altered at the end of the day through the process you described this afternoon? Answer: Specifically, no. Not all these years later I can't say with absolute certainty." That's his testimony on that. He can't say with absolute certainty. If he can't say with absolute certainty, you guys can't say with absolute certainty, you just don't know. You don't know because there is nothing in the record that shows that the actual videotapes that he and the video unit did the stuff to, glitched whatever it might be, are the same videotapes that got turned over in the Ross litigation.

And if it's not the same videotapes, then it's not the videotapes.

The Government is going to say, Mr. Lesko when he gets up in this on rebuttal, but it's a conspiracy. It's a conspiracy. It doesn't have to be the same videotapes. He can be wrong with the videotapes, as long as there is an effort to do that.

He's right about that. Let me talk about that. I think what you can glean from Mark Vicente's testimony is that there are a number of projects all going on at the same time. You remember -- you'll get all of it when you go back to the jury room -- a bunch of emails and then a memo. Then there was a reference to, I think the never-ending project.

MR. AGNIFILO: All right. "The Never Ending Project." And I asked Mr. Vicente what's "The Never Ending Project"? And he said, well, it could have been, it could have been the project we were doing for legal for Kristin, okay? I said, well, weren't you doing a long project for Keith? And he says, yeah. And I said, wasn't the long project you're doing for Keith related to digitizing all of these old tapes that you had because, as we all know, Keith wants everything that he says preserved for the rest of time. And so, what he wanted is he wanted the full digitization of all of these different things that he said in all the different forms that he did. And you'll see reference in the e-mails to this project going on for over a very long period of time.

So I submit to you that when Mr. Vicente, and I think he refers to in one of the e-mails as "The Never Ending Project." The Never Ending Project is this long-term digitization project that he and the other people in the video unit were working on. Which has nothing to do with what Kristin Keeffe is going in the legal department, whatever that might be, about trying to eliminate something that Nancy Salzman said that is somehow bad in whatever way, shape, or form.

Now, Vicente is clear that Keith never mentioned anything to him about tapes being changed in connection with the lawsuit, all right? And that's a very important part because that's the crime. The crime here is essentially a form of obstruction of justice. It's that these tapes were changed not for any other reason, but because they were being provided in a lawsuit, and by changing the tapes in connection with the lawsuit, you know, you cheated in terms of the discovery process. You committed fraud, you committed corruption against the Court.

So at the end of the day, this is a crime against the Court, all right? So if it's not linked to that, if Keith wasn't involved in that, then he's not involved in that crime. And so, let me read you another part of Mr. Vicente's on Page 11457 starting at Line 8.

"QUESTION: And do you recall him specifically telling you that these videos were being turned over in discovery in a lawsuit?"

"ANSWER: I don't recall him saying that specifically."

"QUESTION: All right. So you have no specific recollection of Keith Raniere saying to you that these videos were being turned over in connection with a lawsuit, am I right?"

"ANSWER: That's true. Because I only realized about the actual lawsuit later."

"QUESTION: Isn't it true that the person who told you that was Kristin Keeffe?"

"ANSWER: Later, she shared with me that it was in relation to the Stephanie Franco case."

To be even more clear, a few pages later, Page 1171 I asked Mr. Vicente question on Line 3 of 1171.

"QUESTION: Your sole basis for believing that this tape dubbing was in connection with a discovery in a lawsuit is base on what Kristin Keeffe told new 2017?"

"ANSWER: Yes. I think in addition I did some reading and then I came to that conclusion."

"QUESTION: What did you read?"

"ANSWER: I cannot remember. "

Okay. So to the extent that Mark Vicente got in this courtroom and took the witness stand and said that these tapes that Keith somehow knew these tapes were going to be provided in discovery. He certainly didn't get that from that Keith Raniere. And she's very honest about it. He said he got that from Kristin Keeffe years later. These are tape projects going in, what, 2006, 2007, 2008.

He got this information about the lawsuit in 2017 from Kristin Keeffe, okay? So he didn't get it from Keith Raniere and there's no indication that Keith Raniere had any idea, or had any involvement, in tapes being corrupted that are being provided over as discovery in a lawsuit. There's just no evidence of it.

Okay. Racketeering Act 7. That's the Marianna key log and it is an identity theft. One of the things that you have to conclude in order to find that this has been proven is that there was no authorization from Raniere to do this. Who is Marianna to Keith Raniere? They have a child together. We know that. They live together for many, many years. We know that. They've been in a very close, loving relationship for many, many years. We know that. Marianna certainly didn't come in here to say that he wasn't authorized. How do you know it was unauthorized? I mean, you might not be happy that your loved one goes on your Facebook. You might not be happy that the man or woman that you've within with for ten years goes on your Facebook. It doesn't sound like a crime. And there's no indication that he had criminal intent. What it seems to be, if you remember, and I think this is the way Daniela described it. There were indications from the key logging that Marianna was trying to get into Keith's, you know, sort of Facebook or one of his computers. I think she testified to that and I think that's in the key log materials that Daniela actually e-mailed to Keith. So she's doing it, he's doing it, you know, that's what they're doing. These are two people that have been together a very, very long time and there's no indication that it's not authorized to do it. Maybe he's being a little bit of a pain in the neck kind of by getting into her Facebook, but there's no evidence that she's objecting to it.

Racketeering Act 8. The trafficking of Daniela for labor or services subpredicated with document servitude, okay.

This is where it's important to keep in mind how what's charged and what's not charged because it's not charged with somehow keeping Daniela in a room. That's not a charge. It's not a kidnapping charge. It's not a false imprisonment charge. He's charged with a specific thing of keeping her in a room trafficking her. So you have to find in the first instance that her staying in her family's house with her family is trafficking. You have to reach that conclusion.

And second, that the purpose of this was for labor or services.

And I submit to you that that is absolutely inconsistent with everything that the Government has said is their theory of why she's in her room. There's been no evidence at this trial that Daniela was put in a room so she would work. That's not why she was there. The theory, as I understood her testimony, and it's your understanding that matters, not mine, is that this is some form of punishment. That it's punishment. And that the way to get out of the room was to do certain things and fix certain, you know, ethical breaches. Certain things that she maybe did wrong in the eyes of different people that she would have to repair.

Now, one of the things that I think has been conveniently ignored in describing this room situation is that Daniela has a family and this is the family's house. She has a father, she has a mother, she has a brother, she has sisters. And it kind of ignore that and say, well, you know, Keith did it, let's blame Keith, Keith did it, is to ignore a pretty big fact.

Daniela told us about her father. The father is a very successful businessman. He's a very successful businessman with a very successful business in Mexico that's involved in drilling. He's educated, he's smart. I think she said he went to college on a scholarship. He seems to be an eminently capable man and father. She describes him as being very involved in her life growing up. And in her brother and sister's lives growing up. He made sure the all got educations. He made sure they all played sports. He was very on the scene, he was very involved, and he's there. There is a dad. You know there is a dad in this equation.

And there's no evidence in this record that somehow dad had got overwhelmed, got overcome, above the bowled over, got run over by Keith Raniere. There's just no evidence in the record at all, okay? And the dad is involved in this situation. The dad is living at the house. At times, he goes to Mexico, at times he comes back. He's living at the house. He's living at the house with the mother, which at some point goes into the other room. But the dad is there and the dad is a factor and the dad is not to be ignored. The dad is on the e-mails. Some of the e-mails when I think Daniela is being driven to Mexico by the dad, okay, we'll talk about that in a minute. When Daniela will being driven to Mexico by dad and Kristin Keeffe there are e-mails back and forth involving the dad. And the dad is expressing real frustration with his daughter Daniela. And as relationships between fathers and daughters go, there's a world of facts that the dad knows that none of us know because he's her dad. We don't know what he knows. We can glean some of what he knows because he writes some of it in an e-mail. And he says at one point that he's says it in sort of angry tones, you can read the e-mail for yourself, that Daniela stole money from him and hacked into his Facebook. This is the dad, this is the dad talking about his daughter. All right? She stole money from me and she hacked into my Facebook.

And what I submit to you is that by this point the dad's frustrated because these are not, and I'm not doing this to pick on Daniela, I'm just giving you the facts that I think have been developed during the trial. I think there's certainly enough evidence in the record for you to conclude that the father is frustrated because there's a course of conduct, all right? It's not just the $6,000 in cash that she stole from Karen Unterreiner's drawer when she was younger. And I say that because at one point she wrote a little kind of one-page thing that we looked at that, I think, Ms. Penza showed her on direct and I showed her on cross. All the different things that she kind of did wrong and she was trying to make amends for.

And one of the things that she said she did wrong is she says, she has an entry, she say, "Pay back what taken." "Pay back what taken." And then she lists a number of stores. All right? And the only reason she would do that is because she stole from the stores. There's no reason for her to write this down, "Pay back what taken," and then write, Havers, Walmart, Arlene's, Marhsalls unless two things existed. One, she stole from those stores. And two, someone other than her knows it or else why mention it.

So I submit to you have every reason to believe that both of those things are true. She stole from the stores and someone other than her knows it. And you know who that someone probably is? It's probably her father. This doesn't seem like a real, you now, Keith matter. You know, I'm not saying you should steal from Walmart, that's not my point. But that's like a dad issue. And so, by the time that the dad expresses frustration with her for stealing from him, which she admitted, and for hacking into his Facebook, which she admits, I think we're at the tail end of a series of things that have caused the dad to be frustrated.

And so, why is all of this Keith's fault somehow? How is this all on him when there's a dad. We heard reference to the fact that once Marianna did something wrong, she got grounded you know. She's an adult child. And he's her dad.

Now, one of the things, I submit to you, that the dad could have been frustrated about, and you guys can reach this conclusion on your own or not. Let's say that Daniela really did steal from those stores. Why didn't she just admit it? You wrote on your sheet of paper, "Pay back what taken from Marshalls, from Walmart, from blah blah blah, from blah blah blah. Yeah, yeah, I wrote that down because I stole from those stores. That's what seems to have happened. She lies about it. She doubles down. No, I don't know why I wrote it. Yeah, that's my handwriting. I don't know if I wrote it, but that is my handwriting. Of course you wrote it. Of course you wrote it. Why did you write it? Were you making it up? Did you think you stole from Walmart and you didn't it? You wrote it because you wrote it, just say it. She just doesn't say it.

The other part of Racketeering Act 8, this is sub-B, relates to her official documents. And what you'll see in the e-mails that she's asking her father, her father, her father for her documents. If you remember, after she left the room and she went to Mexico. And remember how she got there because the dad is involved, the dad drove her, Kristin Keeffe and the dad drove her to Mexico. She testified that the dad had an accountant for his company waiting on the other side of the border for her. So he's not just leaving her to fend for herself, but he is sending his adult daughter back to Mexico, all right? And think for a minute, how did you she get herself into this problem? All right. Because as an adult, as an adult, she made a decision. She made an adult decision to come into this country illegally. Yes, with help. Yes, with help. She made an adult decision to come into this country illegally.

And then, if you remember, there's an e-mail, I think it's from 2008, where the dad says to the daughters. This is a lawyer, a lawyer involved in the lawyer e-mail, you might remember it. He basically says, To my kids, I want you, if you have any issues, I want you to try and take care of them, you know, and he sends to Fluffy and I think he sends it to Marianna. I can't remember all of them.

But the e-mail gets forwarded at one point to Daniela and I asked her about it on cross. I said you get this e-mail forwarded from your father about if you have some issues with your status in the country, and the e-mail chain has a lawyer on it who is an immigration lawyer, did you do anything about it? No, I didn't do anything about it. I just stayed here illegally. I made an adult decision just to stay here illegally. And now what? I want to be a victim. I mean, come on, that's not right. And this bit, you know, she's playing the game. She goes to that clinic. She goes to the women's health clinic. She's not honest with them. She says, I'm just visiting. I live in Mexico. This is in 2006. She's not visiting, she's living in Clifton Park, New York. She's not visiting. But she's -- she plays the game. She plays the game. She has it in her when a border patrol officer is staring at her identification card, whoever made it, and it's starting to get a little hot. Hey, officer what's the weather ahead? She's slick. She's slick.

And she knows how to play the game and she knows how to go to the medical office and lie to the staff. No, I'm not from here. I'm visiting because I might go to college here. I live in Mexico. You don't live in Mexico. You live in Clifton Park, New York.

So I don't think you should necessarily, and I'm not going to say this for every witness. I think a lot of the witnesses actually came here and told the truth. I don't know that she did. I don't. I think there's ample basis to believe that she wasn't fully honest with you. About everything because to conclude that she wasn't fully honest.

All right. We're going to skip over Racketeering Acts 9 and 10 because they relate to sex trafficking and we're going to go to -- is this a good time do you want to do the break now?

MR. AGNIFILO: Thank you, your Honor.

Before I get too far away from this key logging business, I just want to point out a couple of documents which are already in evidence for you guys.

Government's Exhibit 1515 is from Kristin Keeffe to Daniela has two different Pacific e-mails on it that I are think are going to be key logging efforts. Neither of which is Mr. Loperfido or Mr. Bronfman's.

So the point is there's lots of key logging efforts going on. It's not just Marianna or Mr. Bronfman or Mr. Loperfido. There are a number of them. There is Kim Snyder which seems to be related to them trying to figure out where Kristin Snyder is because she seems to have been dead but they didn't though she was dead. She was figuring in these articles, these anti-NXIVM articles. So there's a lot of different efforts, you know, out there.

But what you'll see from these e-mails it's really communication between, you know, Daniela and Kristin. And Daniela basically you know would go to these different cafes and use the public WiFi and she would talk to Kristin if that.

All right. So we're going to Racketeering Act 11.

Racketeering Act11 is kind of a complicated racketeering act because it's basically charges that Keith stole Mariana's identity for the purpose of committing income tax fraud so we have to kind of run down both of those things.

So my first question is, is there any evidence in this record whatsoever that Keith Raniere didn't have the authorization to use Mariana's credit card or bank account?

Now, we know that while Marianna was alive because you saw when Rick Guerci, the investigator for the U.S. Attorney's Office testified, I think, on cross-examination I took him through certain credit card records from when Marianna was alive. And for those credit card records where there were airline flights, the names are actually on the credit card record unlike if you it a store, you go to the A&P, there's no name on to. If you buy airline tickets at Delta, there will be three names on it if three people were traveling.

So especially what the travel records show from the credit card records is that on Mariana's, I'm sorry, on Pam's credit card there were travel, there were airline tickets and related airline ticket things for Keith, for Marianna and for Pam.

So, obviously, what seems to be the case is that Pam financed Marianna and Keith's lifestyle because that's what it looks like from the credit card records. So really, all that happens is Pam passes away and Keith just doesn't do anything different. You know, it's they stole the credit card, he uses the credit card the way he's always used the credit card. And Marianna uses the credit card the way she's always used the credit card. The three of them were living together. Keep that in mind. These aren't strangers, these are far from it. Keith and Marianna and Pam were living together. And I think you can look at the evidence and conclude they had a three -- you know, they were intimate, the three of them, that's what the evidence shows you.

MR. AGNIFILO: So, there's nothing in this record to suppose for even a second that Pam would not have wanted this to happen or wouldn't have authorized it because she let it happen while she was alive, she let them use the credit card, she bought things on the credit card for their travel, their names are on the records, you can look at the records yourself.

Interestingly, after Pam dies and there's still the bank account open, Keith does write checks on Pam's account but without fail, without fail he signs Keith Raniere. This is Government Exhibit 721 and I happen to be looking at page 377 but you really virtually can look at any page. Keith Raniere -- you probably can't see it way in the back but it's Keith Raniere, he signs Keith Raniere. He doesn't forge a name, he doesn't forge Pam's name.

Ms. Penza showed you some checks with Pam's name after she died. I submit to you if you look at it, it looks like a stamp but that does not seem to be how Keith does it because when you look at the checks Keith signs, Keith Raniere on Pam's account. And as I asked Investigator Guerci, I said: Did you have any indication based on your investigation that the bank didn't clear those checks? He said: No, they cleared the checks. So, everybody knows the deal, the bank knows the deal and they've all been together a long time, I think Keith and Pam were together for 30 years, so no one is doing anything different. This isn't like some scheme, you know, somehow to steal Pam's identity and then somehow commit income tax fraud. I mean he's doing what he's always done, there's just -- there's no change, there's no change whatsoever.

The important thing, and I submit to you this really cuts to the heart of the government's theory on this particular racketeering act, is that Keith is getting the entirety of Pam's estate, right, so think about that. Pam passes away, there's a will, we put the will into evidence, you can see it if you want to, and the will makes reference to a trust and the trust has Keith Raniere as beneficiary, so Keith is getting Pam's entire estate. So, what interest would there be for Keith Raniere to loot Pam's estate that he's getting anyway. It's his money, I mean it's his money, he is taking his money and he's writing checks based on his money because he's beneficiary of the estate. So, there's no indication, there's no evidence in this record that this is somehow identity theft or that Pam doesn't authorize this. There's literally no evidence in the record that this isn't fully authorized and there's every indication in the record that Pam is fine with this because she's been fine with it her whole life.

The other part of this racketeering act is this identity -- the way they charged it is the identity theft has to be with the intent of committing income tax fraud, okay. Has there been any evidence -- did I miss the evidence of what the income due on using another person's credit card is, has anybody gotten on the witness stand and said when you use another person's credit card it's income. There's no evidence in this record that this is income. And there's no evidence in this record of if it's income, what the income would be. And when the judge charges you, when Judge Garaufis charges you on this particular racketeering act, listen very carefully, like I know you will for all of the charges, in a tax case, there's a special charge in a tax case and in a tax case in essence -- and Judge Garaufis when he charges you, that's the law, not what I'm about to say -- the government has to show that the defendant knew that there was an income tax due and that he willfully, willfully didn't pay the income tax that he knew was due, that he knew he had an obligation to pay the income tax. And the problem for the government, in my opinion with the state of the record as it is, there's no evidence in this record that there's any income tax due, there's just nothing.

I mean the government called Investigator Guerci, I think he was an IRS agent for many, many years, 20, 30 years, I can't remember how long but a long time, he's a very good, experienced agent, they could have asked him, hey, when you use someone else's credit card, is there income due? They didn't. They didn't ask him. As a result, you don't know because there's no evidence in the record. All right. We are going to segue now into DOS and we're going to talk about DOS in conjunction of the extortion and the sex trafficking together. So, where does DOS come from? Why is there a DOS? What's the start of it? And I submit to you that the closest thing that we have in the record to the kind of like intellectual foundation of DOS is an audiotape that we played for you I think during Mr. Vicente's testimony that was made on October 29th, 2012.

And if you remember, this is going back now toward the beginning of the case, we played this audiotape and it's basically -- it's the Society of Protectors, SOP, which is the men's group, having a meeting where they're trying to figure out what SOP was going to do and I think at this meeting we have Keith Raniere, we have Mark Vicente, we have Mike Baker, we have Damon Brink and I think we have Jim Del Negro, I think it's those five and they're basically just talking about what are we doing, if we create this SOP what's it going to do, how is it going to be, what's our mission, how are we going to do it, what does it mean to be a member and they're kind of going through all the different things that you would think of when you're trying to create such a group.

And you can listen to the tape if you want to but basically Keith does 90 percent of the talking and he's basically giving his view of what this SOP group would be and he talks a lot about commitment, okay. Now we're talking in the context of a men's group, this is three years before DOS is, you know, germinating in anybody's mind. We're talking about a men's group and he's talking about commitment, power of commitment and he says: It's the power of commitment, the potency of commitment. And he talks about the commitment at great length, commitment is virtue, commitment builds character, commitment is personal power, all right. He's basically saying, I'm not even talking about what you might be committed to yet, I'm talking about the actual act of being committed, of feeling commitment and he's talking about that saying this has to kind of be the glue of our group, this commitment, individual commitment and then commitment as a group and then he kind of gives the flip side, he says: Without commitment everything falls apart, without commitment there's no character, without commitment there's no personal potency, okay.

So, the reason -- I submit to you this is very, very important because when we get to DOS it starts to look like, wait, the collateral is coercive, the collateral is blackmail, the collateral is extortion, wait a minute, think about where this came from, and I get back to what I said to you guys my first few minutes of my opening statement, the most important thing in this case is what you guys think he thinks, what he's intending, this whole case comes down to his intentions.

A lot of people have taken the witness stand and they said what they think, I thought this was going to happen, I was thinking this, I was afraid of this. That's all valuable, that's good to know, it's important but it's not how you decide guilt and innocence. You decide guilt and innocence by what he thinks, by what's in his mind literally.

The judge is going to give you a long instruction on how you go about figuring what someone intends. Listen carefully, it's a very important thing to do but here you don't have to work quite so hard because you have Keith Raniere telling you in his own words what commitment is about.

And then he talks about collateral, he uses the same word, collateral, in the context of the men's group, SOP, in 2012. And what he says in substance is that the collateral doesn't matter because the collateral is part of the commitment, the collateral is so you keep your word. He's not talking about collateral -- and this is him talking, this is him now, he's not talking about collateral as something that instills fear, he's not talking about collateral as something you can hold over somebody's head. He's talking about collateral as giving weight, as giving substance, as giving more content to the commitment. You know, and I think I might have said this in the opening, it's sort of a silly childish example but it's an example, if you challenge my word on something, you know, I climbed to the top of that tree, no, you didn't, cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye. We used to say that as kids. What does that even mean. But it's a way of saying, no, no, I'm serious, I'm serious, and may I be lying if something bad happened to me, I'm not going to hope to die and stick a needle in my eye but I want to instill in you that somehow I'm serious, I'm doing something to kind of give my word additional weight. That's really all it is. That's really all it is.

There's no suggestion in SOP that this collateral is going to be used with bad motives, that it's going to be used to hurt anybody. It's a function of the commitment, it's part of the commitment.

Now, what's going on at this general time period, and we've heard a lot in this trial about the fact that NXIVM got very popular in Mexico and it specifically got popular in Mexico with affluent and influential Mexican citizens and one of the things that kept getting brought up was kidnappings because it is a major issue and there's evidence in the trial about this. It's a major issue and I submit to you that because of the connection to Mexico and because of the fear of kidnappings and because of the desire to have something in place should a kidnapping occur or should something untoward happen in Mexico, the group started to develop certain characteristics. One of them is readiness. And you guys heard the evidence about readiness. Readiness isn't meant to be abusive, readiness isn't meant to wear down your will, readiness isn't meant to keep you sleepless and to harm you. Readiness is a real thing and if you live in Mexico and you have to deal with these things and you're part of a group, it's not such a bad idea, you know, it's not such a bad idea.

So, a lot of these concepts come from very tangible places and kind of come into the stream, you know, that ends up being DOS. So, one of the things that I hope you'll consider doing is listen to the tape, listen to the SOP tape from October 29th, 2012, and listen to Keith's voice, his voice, not someone talking about what I think he might do, what I thought might happen. Listen to him, listen to him talking about commitment and collateral. That, I submit to you, that's your best evidence, that's your best evidence of what he really thinks, of what he really feels about this, not what someone else says about what I thought he might do, you know, so, and we have it, we have it in the record, it's a piece of evidence that's there for you.

All right. Let's move ahead a few years. There are a number of audiotapes where Keith is talking about the creation of DOS. And let me be very clear, if I haven't been already, I do not for a second walk away from the very clear reality that Keith had a very direct connection to the creation of DOS. He did clearly, there's no doubt about it. Does that mean he runs DOS. I don't know that DOS is run that way. I don't know that it is a corporation with a CEO, I mean DOS doesn't have a CEO but Keith's concepts are clearly baked into DOS at a very deep level. And you know this because the taped conversations, which (A) they taped and (B) they kept, show that Keith is speaking with a bunch of people, I mean Allison Mack is on one of the tapes, you know, I think Monica Duran is on one of the tapes. There's a bunch of people. It's Keith maybe and like, you know, three or four women and there's one particular vignette I think that kind of sums up kind of what Keith's role is vis-a-vis everybody else

I think at one point Nicki Clyne is coming up with some idea of like a game, talking about the game, and Keith doesn't apparently think that much of the idea and he basically says something along the following lines: You can do one of two things, this is what Keith says, you can use your own brains or you can rent my brain. I would rather you use your own brains. And this is on one of the tapes and that's pretty much a quote and I think that pretty much sums it up. I think he wanted them to do it but they weren't doing it to his satisfaction so he did it and he clearly did it, he was clearly involved at a very deep level in the creation of DOS. So, if you listen to the tapes that's basically what you're going to hear, you're going to hear Keith saying this is what I think it should be, it should work like this. You'll hear him saying, well, but what do you guys think, what do you want to do. And you know what, they don't really know. The women just aren't clear, the women don't fill the breach and sort of say this is what it's going to be, so Keith ends up doing it.

So, now why DOS, why does it happen? There's evidence in the record, there's evidence in the record that at one point Camila cut herself, cut her wrist, possibly trying to commit suicide, possibly not, I mean it's not terribly clear, and I think the evidence, as I recall it, is that Keith sort of finds this out and wants her to make a commitment to something and I don't know that a commitment to him is really going to get it done so what he basically says and I think -- if I remember, I think Lauren testified to this, that he creates a group, he creates a group and the commitment is going to be to the group and the group ends up being DOS

And the reason I think that resonates to a certain extent is because if you listen to these tapes, you'll hear, you heard it already, you can go back and listen to them again, is that Keith is saying to Monica and Nicki Clyne, hey, I want Camila in the group, I want Camila in the group and he says that and that's kind of met with not a whole lot of enthusiasm, they don't seem to want her in the group, you know, but Keith pushes it, no, I want Camila in the group.

And I think they say something, well, she doesn't really hang out with us, she doesn't really socialize with us. And at one point I think Keith, you know, takes it to the next level and is like, I'm not forcing you to, this is words and substance, I'm not forcing you to but I'd really like you to, I'd really like you to.

And so, I think there's some truth to it but the evidence to a certain extent is anecdotal, you know, but the tapes aren't, the tapes are very clear. The tapes are that Keith is creating this group and he's trying to work Camila into the group and the other women, you know, are a little lukewarm to it but that's one of the ways that DOS is created and kind of gets to the next level.

All right. So, what I'd like to do is to take you through a couple of actual relationships that you've heard about from people who have testified at the trial. One of the things that this trial features is there's some evidence sources where it is a witness and the witness comes here and tells you his or her story and then because it's a RICO trial and there's lots of evidence from lots of different sources sometimes there is no witness, sometimes it is just an email, sometimes it's, you know, it's a chat, it's a WhatsApp message or whatever but without a witness

So, let's go through some of the actual relationships that Keith had and the reason they're important is because what I submit to you is that there's no uniformity. You know, I know the word "cult" has come up at this trial a couple of times. I don't think that helps you. If you go back in the jury room and you're trying to figure out is it a cult, is it not a cult, I think that's kind of a dead end, I think that's just a word. I think you guys have to look at the content, you know, and not be so swayed by that word.

But what I would suggest to you is this, is that each of the relationships with different women that you've heard about, because the women have come here and testified, are absolutely unique. There's not one type of relationship, they're not all one way, you know, they're absolutely unique and I want to start with Lauren, all right, Lauren Salzman. That's the longest relationship of the ones that I'm going to discuss where people came in and testified to their relationship with Keith Raniere. This is a long-term serious relationship. She testified that she and Keith Raniere had a life commitment to each other, that was her testimony. You might remember I think early on in her testimony she was asked a question, if her relationship with Keith Raniere has ended? And her answer I thought was interesting because her answer was: For me it has. For me it has. Has your relationship with Keith Raniere ended? For me it has. For him it hasn't. I asked her about it on cross-examination, I said: Why was that your answer? And I think what she said was: Well, we had a life commitment and I never had the chance to talk to him about it. What she said was after he was arrested in Mexico she never had the opportunity to speak to him about it so she doesn't know how he feels.

I thought -- in my opinion, I think Lauren came here and told you exactly how she feels. I think she told you the absolute truth about her feelings and I think her feelings are that she's hurt, I think she's heartbroken and I think you can see that. She's not just imparting information. She didn't just come in here, take this witness stand and impart information almost like a typical witness who's just telling a story. I think in some ways she came here and she broke up with Keith Raniere in front of all of you and I think there's a way of looking at her testimony in that light and let me tell you why I say that, and I'll frankly never forget it.

I think it was before lunch one of the days she was testifying and she was being asked about the arrest in Mexico and I don't know what you guys thought, I thought that was incredibly powerful testimony, incredibly powerful, from the heart, unvarnished, from a very deep place in her soul and she took you guys through it and, quite frankly, I sat there and listened just like you all did.

And I think she went through that story for a reason, because I'm not even sure that really a question was asked that would cause her to go on, what, a seven-minute, ten-minute long detailed emotional answer about her being in Mexico with Keith, the Mexican police coming in with machine guns, in black hoods and the only thing standing between these guys with machine guns and Keith is Lauren Salzman.

And what I think, that was her way of saying, you know what, we're done, I'm not doing it anymore, I'm breaking up with you, my life commitment is over. Because she went through with you all the things she went through with him, all the frustrations, all the heartbreak and now she's done and I think part of her testimony was her breaking up with him right in front of your eyes.

The reason it's important, the reason it's important is because it was a relationship, it was a real, deep, substantial, very important relationship. I think my colleagues with the government asked her at one point: Who is Keith Raniere to you? And her answer was: He's the most important person to me. There's something incredibly clear and just basic and pared down and real. I mean think what that means, the most important person -- no -- no conditioning, no the most important person I ever met in the last five years, he's the most important person to me.

Now, my colleagues at the government might say, well, that's because, I don't know, he had undue influence over her, but I don't think that's it. I'll tell you what I think it is, and this is the hardest part, in my opinion this is the hardest part of this trial to really grasp because here we're all sitting in 2019 and everybody who gets on this witness stand has had a tremendous change in perspective, and I'm going to talk about that in a little while, a tremendous change in perspective. The way they saw it in 2015 and 2013 and 2017 is not the way they see it now. And so, the hardest thing to do is to almost like teleport you guys, if I could, teleport you guys back to when NXIVM was NXIVM, you know, pre-DOS when NXIVM was NXIVM and I think your only chance of really seeing what that's like is to appreciate the testimony of Lauren Salzman in this way: Every witness who got up here said amazingly positive things about what they thought NXIVM was doing and Lauren is certainly no exception. I thought Lauren was incredibly emotional about how much of her heart she put into this. You know, this is -- I mean she is a NXIVM marine, you know, she is all in, I mean she is leaning in and this is her life and when she says Keith Raniere is the most important person to me, that's because for a long period of time he made her life possible. That's not an overstatement. He made her life possible and here's what I mean by that; we know that she went to the -- she taught I think it was a 16-day or an 11-day in Monterey, Mexico and we know that because we have a photo of it and it's I think the one when Daniela, you know, the first course that Daniela went to.

Think about what's happening, that's one little window into her life, she's flying all over the world, she's flying to Monterey, she's flying to Vancouver, she's flying to San Francisco and she literally thinks sincerely in her heart and soul, I am doing something to help humanity, that's really -- that's what she believes, and not only do I get to fly around the world doing things that help humanity, I get paid for it, I get paid for it and what makes it all possible is that Keith Raniere has created this curriculum. He makes it all possible. He made her life possible. He made her life difficult, I'm going to get to that too, he made her life difficult but he made it all possible and he didn't just make it possible for her, he made it possible for everyone, all right.

So, they don't love him because his picture is in the center. They don't love him because he's called Vanguard. These are fairly successful, sophisticated people, you know, who are attracted to NXIVM. I mean there's talk of Richard Branson coming and Edgar Bronfman took courses, I mean these are smart people with tremendous opportunity and capability. You know, if this is just a, you know, not a serious program they're going to know and it wasn't for everybody but they're going to know. But everybody who really tried to make their careers, to really sort of hitch their wagons to NXIVM, to say, you know what, I believe in this, like Mark Vicente said.

Mark Vicente, I think you guys, you know, size him up however you want, I think he's a seeker, I think he's trying to do something special and he said he was and, you know what, I believe him. I think he's trying to do something special, I think because of where he comes from in South Africa and he saw an abusive government, I think he realizes I want to do something good, I want to do something important and he took to NXIVM hook, line and sinker because he believed it and they all did, they all believed and what they believed in, warts and all, was Keith Raniere because Keith Raniere made it all possible

So, when Lauren Salzman says he's the most important person to me, that's what she's talking about. And what I'm going to really ask you guys to do, because it is so important, is always keep that part in mind. I know everybody gets on the witness stand and looking back at it now, this is what I think. No, no, no, not looking back at it. Let's talk about the "it," let's talk about the time you were there, let's talk about what life was like in 2001 and 2010 and 2015 and 2017, because they did things they believed in, they did things they thought were important.

All of these different things, the Mexico peace initiative that they tried, it was important. I think that the school, the Rainbow -- now I can't remember the names but it's wonderful, the Rainbow Garden, wonderful, wonderful. I mean there's been a lot of testimony about it so let me comment on it. In my opinion, if you can have one idea that actually could change things in the world, it's not about armies, it's not about us against them, it's not about any of those things. You know what it is, it's about taking little kids when they can still learn languages and still learn cultures and exposing them to lots of different languages and lots of different cultures when they're young so they can learn to speak Mandarin or Cantonese or Arabic or, you know, Thai or French or whatever it might be so they would be, as Mark Vicente said, citizens of the world, citizens of the world. It's not us against them, it's us, it's us.

MR. AGNIFILO: I think it's a beautiful side, and I think more importantly they thought it was a beautiful idea. I think the Mexican peace process was a beautiful idea. And more importantly, they thought it was a beautiful idea. They were in it because it was real. It was real to them and it mattered to them, and they didn't thank Vanguard because they were a bunch of robots. Again, it's a borrowed concept, you know, it might be a little corny but whatever. They thanked him because he created a curriculum, and they were, in fact, thankful. So it's very hard. I think it's almost impossible for you guys sitting in a courtroom to see Keith Raniere remotely the way they say Keith Raniere back at that time. I think it's almost impossible to do.

So when Lauren Saltzman comes in here with as much emotion as she had, and you know, let's go through the bad part, too. I asked her, I said, you know, she said, I found myself being attracted to Keith. She said she was attracted to Keith first. She said she found herself feeling jealous that Keith was getting attention from other women and she wanted to be in a relationship with Keith. And I said, But didn't you know Keith was living with three women at the time? Yeah, I knew.

Didn't you know that in addition to living with thee women, Keith had all these other women seemingly on the side? Yeah, I knew.

Why? Why did you do it? And she wanted to do it. She said that she made a choice. She made a choice, and I think the choice brought her some happiness. I think the choice brought her some frustration, but it was a choice. And that -- that's the key. I think that people are making choices. I think it's very easy to take a way out now and say, Well, you know, I didn't know. I was coerced and all these things. I just don't thing. I think they were making choices.

I asked her -- I asked her, Did Keith ever abusive to you? She said, Well, one time he was trying to pull my pants down, and I said, no, and then I said no again, and he stopped. And that was the only thing she pointed to in what, 18 years? So there's nothing in the record. There's nothing in the record -- I'm going to go through all of this -- you know, that Keith was abusive to his long-term relations. No, nothing. I mean, you know, and Lauren certainly didn't say anything like that.

It's imbalanced. Keith lives a lifestyle that is in some way inconceivable. You know, I mean, who in their right mind can really even imagine saying, I'm going to be with as many women as I want and you have to only be with me? I mean, it's amazing you get the words out of your mouth, you know, but he did and they agreed. That's what he did. And it was his lifestyle, and it was well-known by everybody. But also keep in mind this: No one really, no one took the witness stand, there's no evidence in this case that being with Keith is linked to, you know, being elevated in NXIVM or in DOS or anything like that. I mean, Rosa Laura Junco, no relation with Keith. That's clear. But I think a few women said that, no intimate relation with Keith. She is a high-ranking proctor. It -- it doesn't -- one has nothing to do with the other. I mean, Keith has just lived a lifestyle -- let me see if I --

Do you guys still have your chart?

Oh, one second.

MR. AGNIFILO: Okay.

All right. So -- all right. Pam Carfitz, we know, long-term relation; Barbara Jeske, the same; Karen Unterreiner, the same; Kristin Keeffe, the same. But then Kristin Keeffe left and then took Gaylyn, their son; Dawn Morrison, the same. Nancy Salzman, there's some evidence that back in the day there was some intimate relationship. Lauren Saltzman, we know. Barbara Bouchey had a relation with Keith. Kathy Russell, the same; Daniela, we know. Marianna, we know. Camila, we know; Monica Duran; Ivy Nevares; Loreta Garza; Clare. So -- well, let's just stop right there. All of these women are pre-DOS, okay? So there's no shortage. There's been no shortage of intimate partners for Keith Raniere pre-DOS. He doesn't need DOS to create, to generate intimate partners because he has had them his whole life, and he's has them while he was doing everything else. While he was building NXIVM and growing NXIVM and one has nothing to do with the other. This is just his lifestyle. For better or worse, this is his lifestyle and has nothing to do with the business.

Nicki Clyne, I think, is also pre-DOS, at least that is what I think Lauren Saltzman. Rosa Laura Junco, is I think the only woman on her who hasn't had sex which him, and she hasn't suffered professionally. She's doing well in NXIVM. You know, I guess that's -- she's a proctor. So, obviously, that's not dispositive.

So what does it mean? It means that I think you have to separate out what his lifestyle's been for 30 years and what his designs are, you know, in the last the four years. I mean, because I don't think that is anything to suggest that he created DOS so that he could have sex with people. In the instance of Lauren Saltzman, he had sex with her in 2001. He doesn't need to have DOS to have sex with Lauren Saltzman. I mean, it doesn't make any sense. Sarah Edmondson, very successful, ran the Vancouver Center. No relationship to Keith.

Keep in mind, this is very important. None of Lauren Saltzman's slaves had any sexual relationship with Keith. So this notion somehow that DOS is like this cross-the-board, you know, sort of thing for sex, is just renders untrue just by that alone. I mean, it's all individualized you know.

I submit to you that Allison Mack's group was doing something that none of the other groups were doing, at least certainly to the same extent. I don't know why exactly. I mean I know that -- we know that Allison had a sexual relationship with Keith. That's beyond any dispute. We know that she had a sexual relationship with Keith along with Dani Padilla, you saw an email along these lines. So is this something that Allison's doing, you know, sort of with her people. Is she, you know, encouraging this? That seems to be reasonable, because we know that Lauren Saltzman is not engaging it, and as a result, Keith isn't have sex with anybody in Lauren's group. All right. Let's go ahead. Nicole. Nicole had what I think is very characterized based on what Nicole has said about it, a casual intimate relation for a limited period of time with Keith Raniere.

Now, in terms of what the Government summed up on, what Nicole testified about as to anything on the table, okay, she was estimating a date, but I submit you based on the e-mails, on e-mails that she sent, I think we can pinpoint when that was. And I'm looking now at an e-mail that Nicole sent to Allison Mack on May 25, 2016. That's her May 25th journal entry. It's Government's Exhibit 659. I'm looking on Page 3.

I have an audition tomorrow. I's so excited. It's a national GMC commercial, nothing crazy, but I miss commercial auditions and commercials so much, and I'm excited to play, engage where I am at and how I've grown.

I had a great and changing talk with KR today. A gave me the mission of putting myself in a vulnerable position and submitting to KR, and wherever the walk led, which I did. It led many places, and I was completely exhausted by the end of it. I am embarking on some new discipline starting tomorrow scheduling and improving-wise. We should see how it unfolds. Now, keep in mind one very important fact, that for a period of time, Nicole was not telling Allison that Nicole was having an intimate relation wit Keith. So this notion that somehow this is like a function, you know, like there's commercial sex somehow because of Allison's involvement in this situation, for a long time Allison didn't know it. So here's what I think is happening in this e-mail, in this journal that she sends. And she says certain things, you know, directly, I had a great and challenging talk with KR today, all right? So, obviously, she saw Keith and had a challenging talk with him. A gave me the mission of putting myself in the vulnerable position and submitting to KR. Okay? That's what she says and then she sends it to Allison. Then she writes, Wherever the walk led -- which it did -- it led many places.

I don't think she's talking geography. I don't think she's talking about where they actually went on the walk. I think she's talking in somewhat of a coded sentence about the fact that she did something with Keith recently right before she wrote this journal entry that she's making a journal entry about, but not explicitly telling Allison that she did, which is why she's writing it that way. And then he ends it by saying I was completely exhausted by the end of it.

In all of the journal writing and all of the e-mails, she never says anything about an unwanted encounter. She never characterized this as unwanted, as outrageous as something she, you know, didn't want. And then she proceeds to have a relationship with Keith. Now, I heard her testimony, too, that she felt she had to and she wanted to make the best of it. But I think she had more opportunities, she had more options than that like many of the people that we've spoken to in this case. She had a wonderful, loving family. You know, they seem to have several homes, including vacation homes. She spends a lot of time with them. If she wants to leave Clifton Park and just leave, she can leave. And she doesn't, you know. She gets into a relation with Keith that seems, for the most part, to be sort of a sweet, caring, casual relationship. You know she, sends him nice notes. He sends her nice notes. They're sweet to each other.

They find time to spend together. She arranges to have pizza together. They go on walks together. You know, sometimes Keith, I think, asks, What do you want do? Do you want to go to the library or do you want to go on a walk? And she goes, I want to go on a walk, and they go on a walk. And it's a relationship like many other relationship. Theres nothing unusual about it. I mean, it's just Keith having a relationship and she's having a relationship with him.

I think the end of the relationship is sort of significant just the way it happened. She drives to Clifton Park and she meets him there. And she's waiting for him, she's waiting for him. She's rents the car and she doesn't want to stay too late, and Keith is kind of keeping her waiting because of volleyball or whatever he's doing, and they find each other. And they have what I would character as sort of a heart-to-heart talk. And Keith really just asks her two questions. And the questions he asks are: Am I ever going to see you again? Am I ever going to speak to you again? And are you going to say bad things about me? And she leaves, and the way she describes it, You know, the sun is coming up and she said, The drive back to New York is very beautiful and their relationship ends. And it's a relationship, just like he had a relationship with a different time with Lauren, he has this relationship with Nicole. And here's what I think is interesting, before Allison invites her to join DOS, and Ms. Penza commented on this in her summation, Nicole is battling some pretty serious feelings, and she wrote about it in e-mails and sort of journal entry that she has. You know, she said she was struggling with depression. She was struggling with, you know, suicide, she said it. And Allison -- there's no reason to think that Allison saw her as vulnerable and went and caught her, you know. There's no reason -- there's nothing in the evidence that would make you conclude that. I think the conclusion is that Allison actually cared about her. Allison actually liked her. Allison was actually worried about her, and Allison really believed that DOS would help. And that's why Allison drove to New York and made time and spent time and tried to help Nicole. The balance, if you look at all the e-mails and whatnot and her journal entries and listen to her testimony and I think what you will conclude is that she never did quite eased into DOS. It was really never quite for her, you know. Some people took to it. Allison took to it. Nicole Clyne really didn't quite take to it that way. You know, she always kind of struggled with it. It was always like, one eye on the door type of thing, you know. And then ultimately, she was let out and nothing happened. Nothing was released. You know, Allison told her what if -- nothing would ever happened to your family, what if we're never going to release the collateral? And she said, that's what I've been waiting to hear. Thank you. They had a nice exchange, and it ends. There's no hard feelings. There's no threat. There's no hard edges. You know, it's sort of loving and understanding and the relationship ends.

I think you saw the same thing with Lauren and Audrey. Do you remember when Lauren testified, We went through a series of chats between her and Audrey, and at one point it's just apparent to Lauren that Audrey doesn't want to stay. This is now in the spring of 2017, you know, everything is kind of hitting the fan, things are starting to change and it's apparent that Audrey wants to leave and she leaves. And if I remember right, some of the last communications they had was, I love you. I love you. I'll miss you. I'll miss you.

Where is the extortion? Where is the extortion? You know, extortion is purely theoretical, but it's not in anybody's heart is my point. You can't have extortion and pressure like that that exists only in a theoretical realm. You actually have to have it in your heart. You have to have in you heart, If you this, I'm going to hurt you. I'm going to hurt you. I'm going to hurt your family. I'm going to hurt your reputation. I'm going to hurt you forever. That's just not in this case. It's just not. Extortion is in the heart and there is nobody here who has extortion in their heart. There's no evidence of that.

There's no threats. No one testified to a threat. No one testified that they got threatened. No one testified someone said to me, If I do this, I'm going to release your collateral. No one said that. That's not in the evidence, because no one said it. Because that was never the point. That was never the point.

Now, the Government makes a compelling case, and I hear them, that you know it's almost like, Speak softly and carry a big stick. It's there. You don't have to threaten me because it's there. But it's not there to be a threat, because if it were there to be a threat, it would have been threatened. And if someone would have actually been threaten, the Government, who is very capable, would have found that person and put them on the witness stand and said, They threatened me. Someone looked me dead in the eye and said, If you leave, I'm going to release your collateral and I'm going to make your life miserable. They would have found that person. They are very good at what they do, and they didn't find that person because there isn't that person.

What I think you see, though, is that -- getting back to Nicole for a second -- is that even though she kind of struggled with DOS and everybody took to it, you never saw the same kind of dark e-mails again. You didn't see the same kind of dark journal entries again. In the days before she joined DOS she was saying some dark things. She didn't say things like that again. So maybe, maybe it worked.

It's not for everybody. DOS isn't for everybody. If your life is great and your life is perfect and you're happy, there's no reason -- DOS is not for you. It's just not your thing. It's strong medicine and it's strong medicine but it has to be used in the right circumstances and with the right people at the right time. In terms of forced labor with Nicole's situation, I think she testified about something called Deli-It's, which was the business that India Oxenberg had, which was basically like you call them and they can do different things for you. And I think what she said is that she worked for Deli-It's for a period of time and she got paid. You know, so here she is working and getting paid. It's hard to see how this can be forced labor when she's actually getting paid for her work.

All right. When we get to Jay, Jay is really sort of a very quick, but I think, an important story. And the story is this: The story is Jay was asked to do the assignment. India said, Go seduce Keith. Jay thought that meant have sex with Keith and she was out. Not for her and that's it. Again, no collateral released. That's really the upshot of Jay's testimony. Is that she joined DOS. She loved NXIVM, she's all about it. Great humanitarian organization. Finally I found something that's kinds of in accordance with my view of the world. She really liked it, thought the world of it, was totally in hook, line and sinker and then she gets confronted with this assignment, no, not for me and she leaves. She writes Keith a very nice card either because it's sincere or because it's strategic, we don't really know which. It's kind of a lovely card, you'll have it back in the jury room, you can look at it. She said that she was being strategic and maybe she was, maybe she was, maybe she meant it. She said she meant some of the things when she testified, but it wasn't for her and she left. And that's the bottom line because there is a choice. There is a choice. And it's obvious there's a choice because people made the choice and nothing happened.

Now, the Government spoke about commercial sex. Commercial sex is a very important concept in this case, and the Judge is going to give you an instruction on sex trafficking that is -- the Judge is going to discuss commercial sex. And if I have my thing here -- all right. Yeah, I'm just going to read a portion, a very small portion of what the Judge is going read you tomorrow. And the important thing, when the Judge reads it, it's part of your overall charge and you have to listen to the whole thing. I'm just going read you the section on the statute of the commercial sex -- I'm sorry, sex trafficking. Whoever knowingly in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, recruits or entices harbors, transports, provides or obtains by any means a person; or, two, benefits financially by receiving anything of value from participation in a venture which has engaged in an act just described, knowing, okay, knowing that force, fraud, or coercion will be used to cause the person to engage in a commercial sex act shall be punished.

Okay. The force, fraud or coercion has to be used to cause a commercial sex act. So it's not enough that there's force, fraud or coercion and then a commercial sex act. What the statute says very clearly is one has to cause the other. All right?

And so let's talk about commercial sex for a second and we'll do that for five minutes and then Your Honor, I'll have a little bit more tomorrow. The statute requires commercial sex and the Judge again is going to instruct you on commercial sex is, okay? When you're thinking about it and it's in exchange for something of value, all right, if you take that to the extreme, what wouldn't be commercial sex? If you're having sex because you want the person to love you, being loved has value. Does that make it commercial sex? No. What are the limits? What are the limits of commercial sex? And do you have commercial sex in this case? Is this really what's behind this? Was DOS created to cause commercial sex? And I think there's absolutely nothing in the evidence that suggests that. That this is some way of getting money? I mean, DOS is created so that someone gets money or someone gets something of -- of -- that's valuable. Someone gets some sort of property. Someone gets some sort of work product by creating DOS? That just doesn't make any sense and this is just not what this evidence, I submit, is showing you. You know, that this isn't a commercial undertaking and what the Government, I submit, is trying to do is and the conduct looked at objectively is pretty out there. Okay? I mean, it's really pretty out there. I mean I'm not telling you something you guys have not thought of already. You know. You have this situation, you know, where people are getting branded and, you know, there's the assignments that some people are getting to seduce Keith Raniere, it's pretty out there. That doesn't make it a crime? It might just be pretty out there. There's a lot of stuff that's pretty out there that's not a crime. So I know I said this to you guys in my opening statement, there's a lot about this case you're not going to like, that's going to offend you possibly, that's going to make you upset and there really is going to be a certain number of things that Keith Raniere has done that you don't like, that make you upset, that offend you, and I am not looking to talk you out of that. I'm not. Your standards and your morals are your standards and morals and we put you on the jury because you're good jurors and you're right jurors.

But that's not the whole issue. The whole issue is, is this, is all of this sex trafficking? Is all of this really at the end of the day about commercial sex? And I submit to you when you listen to all of the evidence and you listen to the arguments that have been, you know, put forth forward to you, I think you're not going to think so. That's just not what it is. It might be distasteful. It might be offensive but it's just not commercial. That's not what it is. It's a problem of a different nature.

Your Honor, this would be a good time to break.