1.Mark Vicente — Direct (Part 2)
937 linesCOURT CLERK: Case on trial.
Counsel, state your appearances, please.
MS. PENZA: Moira Penza, Tanya Hajjar, and Mark Lesko for the United States. Good morning, Your Honor. Also at counsel table is Special Agent Michael Weniger and Paralegal Specialist Teri Carby.
THE COURT: Good morning.
Everyone may be seated in the gallery.
MR. AGNIFILO: Good morning. Marc Agnifilo, Teny Geragos, Paul Der Ohannesian, Danielle Smith for Keith Raniere, who is with us in court today.
THE COURT: Good morning. Please be seated, everyone. I have only one housekeeping matter before we bring in the witness and the jury and that is that there's been a request from the press to receive transcript of the sidebars. I have no objection, as long as the sidebar is not sealed.
Is there any objection to the sidebars being provided?
MR. AGNIFILO: Not from us.
MS. PENZA: Yes, Your Honor, we have no objection generally, but we would like to just review the sidebars thus far to make sure that we don't want to request that any of them be sealed.
THE COURT: All right. Can you let me know by tomorrow morning?
MS. PENZA: Yes, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Thank you.
All right. And the list that's been admitted into evidence of names, the Court would like to have a copy of that for the bench.
MR. AGNIFILO: And we have no objection to it being in evidence, but obviously, unlike all the other evidence, it won't go back to the jury at the end of the case. I'm assuming that's what the Court intends, but that would be our request.
MS. PENZA: I don't think that there is any need for it to go back to the jury right now.
THE COURT: All right. Then we won't discuss it any further. Thank you.
MR. AGNIFILO: Thank you.
THE COURT: If there's nothing else, let's bring in the witness, please.
MR. LESKO: May I approach?
THE COURT: Sure.
MR. LESKO: (Handing.)
THE COURT: Thank you. Thank you very much.
MR. LESKO: Thank you.
Your Honor? Did Your Honor receive the list of photograph exhibits we sent that --
THE COURT: Yes. Actually, I have it right here. Thank you so much.
And the other side received it as well?
MR. LESKO: Yes, we sent it to the other side as well.
THE COURT: Okay.
(Witness takes the stand.)
THE COURT: I take it you won't be providing any photographic or video that would require the monitors to be facing away from the public today; is that right?
MR. LESKO: Actually, Your Honor, on that topic, could we have a -- we don't necessarily have to deal with it right now, but we would like a sidebar on that issue because that will come up later.
THE COURT: Okay. Well, we can do it at a break.
MR. LESKO: Very well.
THE COURT: Okay. Thank you.
I would just ask the witness to speak a little more slowly.
MARK VICENTE: Yes, Judge.
THE COURT: Thank you.
(Jury enters.)
THE COURT: Please be seated, everyone.
Good morning, members of the jury.
JURORS: Good morning.
THE COURT: At this time, we are going to continue with the direct examination of Mark Vicente.
You may continue the examination of your witness, sir.
MR. LESKO: Thank you, Your Honor.
THE COURT: I remind the witness that he is still under oath.
MARK VICENTE: Yes, Your Honor.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LESKO: (Continued.)
MR. LESKO: Good morning, Mr. Vicente.
MARK VICENTE: Good morning.
MR. LESKO: So, Mr. Vicente, when we left off yesterday afternoon, you were describing the various modules of an intensive as you understood them at the time; is that correct?
MARK VICENTE: Yes.
MR. LESKO: Do you have a different understanding of the nature of the curriculum now?
MARK VICENTE: I do.
MR. LESKO: What is that understanding?
MARK VICENTE: My understanding is, now, that in some ways it was a trap of sorts.
MR. AGNIFILO: I'm going to object to this, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Overruled.
MARK VICENTE: You know, for example, I think in the -- one particular module -- I think it was Pride and Prejudice -- there was talking about speaking with honor, you know, that the most important thing was speaking with honor and that if you were unable to speak with honor, it suggested that you had a problem with pride or that you were, what was termed, "suppressive." And what was interesting to me is that, I found out in later years that, it seemed quite okay to speak dishonorably about other people, but not Vanguard, not Raniere. One could never speak dishonorably about him because then you would be considered to be prideful, so there was a trap that seemed to be built in.
The other thing that I remember from -- I think it was the fifth day in the mission module, is we were told that this was to make a better world, et cetera, et cetera, and they even brought up the word "cult" and said, Look, the word doesn't exist, there's no definition for it, and anybody who uses the word is clearly suppressive as well.
So, in essence, I began to realize that if you said anything against the curriculum, against the educational model, or against the founder, you were considered suppressive.
There was also -- when you got to the end of the five-day and continued on, I think it was a module called persistence where you were being evaluated on how persistent you could be, so one of the things you would do, you would check in with your coach every single day and there became a system of accountability that happened all the time; you constantly had to be checking in with people.
There was also -- this was particularly disturbing to me later -- there was also a module that taught you about psychological projection; so, in essence, if I thought a person was, you know, being mean or nasty or I thought they had some bad intent, you were told basically, well -- given the understanding in the methodology that anything you think about somebody else is actually you, you were told: Well, actually, you're the problem.
And I recall the very beginning, I think it was around my third day of the intensive, I remember going to Nancy Salzman and saying: I think you guys are up to something. I think there's something nefarious going on. It's all this shiny outside.
And she listened to me and at the end finally said, you know, You do understand that you've just told me about yourself; that you're the one with nefarious intent, and what if the problem is you can't accept that there's this much goodness in the world and you're the one looking for badness, you're the one looking for evil, you're the one looking for these nefarious things, and what if that is your limitation?
And at the time I was very shocked and I thought, oh, my god, is that true? Is that what's going on? Is this the noblest organization that's ever existed? Is this indeed -- is the Vanguard the noblest man that has ever walked the earth? Am I really the problem? And I -- the education steered us to: I have to become more like him. And there was, you know, constant feedback; and my concern later, not at the time -- at the time I thought this was, wow, I want to be this kind of person, but later I realized there were all these things built into the system that if one had any issues, it was pointed back at you and then you had to do, you know, a lot of different methodologies with people to heal this problem that you had. And, in essence, all of these things, I felt, became a trap where if you spoke out against -- excuse me -- anything you thought was a problem, indeed this was an indication of your issues that needed to be resolved and one couldn't question the higher ranks and questioning the Prefect or questioning the Vanguard was seen as a very, very bad thing. You know, if you questioned, you were clearly a suppressive person.
MR. LESKO: Was the curriculum manipulative?
MARK VICENTE: I think so. You know, in the end, I mean, I think that there were -- there was also a coaching curriculum where you were taught to deal with what people were saying to try and turn it around. You know, if somebody came to you with what they thought was a legitimate concern about something, you know, your job, for instance, as a coach, was to try to help them understand how this was actually their issue of perception and their limitation and something to do with their life; that, you know, as a coach, what we were doing was the noble great thing, so clearly the issue must be yours, therefore, you should have more EMs, you should talk to your coach, you should do some Level 2 curriculum, you need more curriculum. You know, the issue is you are still what they would term "disintegrated"; you need more curriculum.
MR. LESKO: You mention that you and others, initially at the start of an intensive, completed a psychological form or profile.
Do you remember that?
MARK VICENTE: Correct.
MR. LESKO: I think you mentioned specifically that it was modeled after narcissistic personality disorder.
MARK VICENTE: My understanding later, I stumbled upon a --
MR. AGNIFILO: Your Honor, I object. Can we have a sidebar very quickly? It will take 30 seconds.
THE COURT: All right. We can have a sidebar.
(Sidebar.)
(Continued on next page.)
(Sidebar conference held on the record out of the hearing of the jury.)
MR. AGNIFILO: I have no objection to this witness talking about his personal observations, but when he says things like, I found out later or I read something, he's starting to move into the expert area of being an expert. He's not an expert. He can talk about what he did. I suppose he can talk about how he felt and how he feels now, but he can't tell the jury about the research he did or things he found out later, we don't know what those sources are, and that's what is in the nature of our --
THE COURT: I understand your point.
Yes?
MR. LESKO: Your Honor, the witness is allowed to testify about his own understanding and that understanding evolved and it may have been informed by what he learned later, but we are not offering him as an expert to offer an opinion on whether this questionnaire constituted some sort of psychological survey. It's his understanding of questions he answered in the nature of the survey, that's what we're offering.
THE COURT: All right, well, let me just say this: I think that it would be useful to have more of a foundation as to the -- when he says he changed his mind, for instance, you know, to inquire as to -- based on what did you change your mind, he's entitled to read. Even if you are not an expert, you are entitled to consider whatever else you do to figure out what's really going on in your life, so you are not barred from doing that as a fact witness about your experience. And certainly the defense will have an opportunity to cross-examine the witness as to the foundation of his knowledge, but I'm going to allow this to go forward with the understanding that you will have broad ability to go into how he reached those conclusions as a lay witness. So, you know, you will have your chance; you will have your chance; the jury can evaluate based on the overall testimony.
Let's keep going.
MR. LESKO: Thank you.
(Sidebar end.)
(Continued on following page.)
(In open court.)
THE COURT: All right. Mr. Lesko, you may continue your examination of the witness.
MR. LESKO: Thank you, Your Honor.
BY MR. LESKO:
MR. LESKO: So Mr. Vicente, how did you reach the conclusion that the initial survey was akin to or like -- pardon me -- some sort of questionnaire related to narcissistic personality disorder?
MARK VICENTE: I was researching narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial disorder and I came across a survey that was a -- I believe a narcissistic personality disorder survey, and when I looked at it, I realized, to my horror, that it was actually the same survey that I had been filling out for 12 years. I was a bit surprised. I was told originally that the survey was an independent survey that was sent off to some independent third party. I was just surprised that it was actually a narcissistic survey; I couldn't understand why.
MR. LESKO: So, in essence, it was the same set of questions?
MARK VICENTE: To my understanding, it was -- I can't be absolutely precise, but almost exactly the same.
MR. LESKO: So did you, yourself, complete that survey?
MARK VICENTE: Many, many, many, many, many times.
MR. LESKO: And did you include in your answers personal information?
MARK VICENTE: I don't think the information in those surveys was substantive because they were multiple choice types of things. It was a very difficult survey to fill out because, you know, both answers were not really correct, but one had to choose one.
MR. LESKO: Did the questions relate to you, however? Did you have to answer them about yourself?
MARK VICENTE: I didn't have to -- well, it's difficult to answer that because, for instance, you know, it would say things like: Would you -- do you like to blend in, or do you like to be the center of attention? And so based on how you would answer that, it would obviously reveal something about my nature.
MR. LESKO: Did you complete other forms in connection with your participation in NXIVM that revealed personal information?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, I did.
MR. LESKO: Confidential information?
MARK VICENTE: Yes. Sometimes very confidential.
MR. LESKO: Do you know where that information is now?
MARK VICENTE: I have absolutely no idea. Many of these forms -- they were called intake forms. Generally they were called intake forms. There was one particular what's called a Level 2 intensive -- it was either 2C or 2D, that was the name of it, compassion or civilization -- and they -- it was the -- an intensive where you would share, you know, some of your deepest, darkest secrets; and we were told it was completely anonymous. I have no idea if it was or not. In retrospect, I was worried that it's not.
But yes, we -- our forms we would fill out, you know, things like "what's the worst moment of your life," you know, basically the -- you know, "what are you least proud of," in essence, revealing all my shame, all my embarrassment, all my -- all the secrets that I wouldn't want the general public to know.
MR. LESKO: Was there a privacy policy at NXIVM?
MARK VICENTE: Well, we were told that it wouldn't be shared. I don't recall -- I don't recall ever signing a document that said, you know, "we will never divulge to anybody what you've told us"; I don't remember signing that.
MR. LESKO: How do you feel today about having shared your deepest darkest secrets in these various forms with NXIVM?
MARK VICENTE: It's a combination of things: I feel bamboozled; I feel fooled; I feel that so much about myself was collected, and many other people over the years that I was there; I feel concerned that they built a psychological profile of what am I ashamed of, you know, what makes me angry, what makes me afraid, what am I embarrassed about, what's the most terrible thing I can imagine happening.
So I feel exceedingly vulnerable about the information that they have on myself and many, many, many other people, but I feel also, honestly, stupid that I went along with it assuming that it was, you know, all the best of intent, and I'm not sure anymore if it was the best of intent.
But, you know, you have to understand that it was -- it was built -- it was built into the education. There was a module earlier on called Trust Invincibility, and the idea was, you know, to truly be invincible, you should have no fears about what anybody knows about you, so, in essence, holding onto your secrets is not a good thing; holding onto secrets you're actually vulnerable. And the idea was letting go of your secrets, you become invincible, which, at the time, I thought, wow, that's a really unique perspective. Now I think it's just horrible. It's a horrible twisted idea to somehow make myself and others, like, give all kinds of information about myself thinking that somehow this would make me, what, more invincible, I guess, and I don't -- I don't believe that's true anymore, but at the time in that structure, I went along with it.
MR. LESKO: I'm going to show you Government's Exhibit 1008 on the ELMO.
MARK VICENTE: Yes, this is the mission statement that was read at the beginning of every Ethos class and the beginning of every intensive day.
MR. LESKO: So approximately how many times, if you can estimate, have you read this out loud at various programs at NXIVM?
MARK VICENTE: Anywhere from 500 to a thousand.
MR. LESKO: Can you explain briefly, sort of, the process that surrounded participants reading the mission statement?
MARK VICENTE: Well, generally speaking, and it's been a while, but generally speaking, you know, what would happen is, you know, people would be wearing sashes at this point, sashes indicating rank. The highest ranking member would -- class would be in session, the highest ranking member would hold their hands up, the highest coach in the organization would hold their hands up. If I was the highest ranking member, I would clap my hands, the coach and everybody else would then clap their hands together, then they would bow to each other and then do a huddle, like a football huddle, and then we would say: We are committed to our success.
And then after that, everybody would turn to either that document on the back of their binder or, you know, if there was a printed poster in the training room and begin reading that whole statement, and once the statement was done, we would all say, Thank you Vanguard, and we would begin the session.
MR. LESKO: How does looking at that mission statement and reading it make you feel here today?
MR. AGNIFILO: I object to the form of the question.
THE COURT: Please rephrase the question.
BY MR. LESKO:
MR. LESKO: Could you briefly read Government's 1008 to yourself. Let me know when you need me to move it up.
(Pause.)
BY MR. LESKO:
MR. LESKO: Mr. Vicente, what is your reaction here today to reading that mission statement?
MARK VICENTE: It's a fraud. It's a lie. It's -- it's this well-intended veneer that covers horrible evil is how I feel and I'm ashamed that I ever read it. And honestly, this has been -- my belief is this has been hurt -- been used to hurt a great many people who -- well-intended people who wanted to make a better world, who wanted to improve themselves, and this thing's evil.
MR. LESKO: Okay. You ready to go forward?
MARK VICENTE: (No verbal response.)
MR. LESKO: Let's talk about EM, okay?
MARK VICENTE: Yeah. Just give me a second.
MR. LESKO: Are you ready?
MARK VICENTE: Yes.
MR. LESKO: So you mentioned EMs. Could you describe what an EM was?
MARK VICENTE: So an EM is an exploration of meaning, and for instance it's based on the understanding -- we were taught a lot about, you know, things called Pavlovian links. You know, for example, you know, you see a -- I don't know, you see a bottle of water and suddenly you're afraid, you know, it makes no sense; or you see a spider and you have a terrible reaction, and that was termed a -- you were having a physiological response at an unconscious level to an external stimulus.
So in the five-day intensive when you got to day four, you would be asked, you know, Could you bring us a reaction you have to something, something simple, you know, let's say it's a phobia, and let's say it seemed like it was a phobia that didn't make sense, you know, like, a car driving towards you about to hit you, there's a natural, you know, flight response, but let's say it was one of those things where, I don't know, you know, you saw a bottle of water and you suddenly were terrified and you began sweating and, you know, you were just shaking; and that's the kind of response that doesn't really make a lot of sense and, you know, you were taught that honestly that may not help you in life because let's say you were at an important meeting and suddenly somebody puts a bottle of water on the table and you are terrified because there's the object of your terror, which makes no sense whatsoever.
So an exploration of meaning was basically a discussion to try and find out -- there's this external event and then there's this -- my internal physiology, and, okay, so we now understand that when I look at this thing, I have a physiological response, you know, of getting hot and shaking and being terrified and I suddenly have these thoughts. And it was explained to us that that happens at a very unconscious level because, you know, we were told, for instance, you know, how long -- you know, asked, like, How long have you had this fear of -- whatever it was, you know -- and you'd say, Well, years, and they'd say -- well, so they would begin a discussion and -- to try and understand on a very -- this wasn't a term that was used in the methodology, but this is something I'm using -- at a very subconscious level, what are you making that thing mean that's causing you to have this response? And if we can get you down to on a very, very deep level to what that means, you may find that it doesn't make any sense really but you've never examined it in your life.
And so during this process of questioning, what was, at the time, really amazing to me and quite unique was that you would be asked certain questions and eventually you would -- it was almost like you slipped into a trance-like state -- they termed it "deep structure," you are moving into deep structure -- where you couldn't process intellectually very well anymore. It was almost like they said you were in, like, a child-like state; and somewhere in there, as they kept on asking you the questions, you would suddenly have this sort of "uh-huh" realization, you know, maybe you would have flashes of drowning in the pool, I think I'm drowning, but I wasn't really drowning; oh, I'm actually fine; and you suddenly have this, like, release -- you know, it could be laughter, it could be crying, it could be a number of things.
And then the idea was once you had this release you would go now and test it. We were told this was a scientific method and you would go test it and see. Well, now how do you feel when you look at the water? And they'd say -- I'd say, Okay, I feel fine. They go, Well, what if we put it right here, how do you feel now? I go, I feel fine. And they go, Great, that's done.
Those were the kinds of things that were simple things that were done on the fourth day, and honestly when I saw that, I was like, this is incredible. I definitely want to learn how to do that because I had never seen anything that was quite that effective.
MR. LESKO: Who conducted EMs?
MARK VICENTE: So EMs were conducted by people called EMPs, exploration of meaning practitioners. There were -- I found out later, there were 12 levels of EMP or EM levels, I should say. A person who is an EM7 was allowed to -- for money -- do EMs.
In the trainings, people that were lower level could EM people in the trainings, but you had to have training, you couldn't just -- you couldn't just do it, there was a lot of training involved.
MR. LESKO: So lower level EMs, people who were on the 12-step process --
MARK VICENTE: Correct.
MR. LESKO: -- could conduct EMs in intensives and similar trainings; is that what you're saying?
MARK VICENTE: Correct.
MR. LESKO: And there were a certain group of EMPs who had achieved a certain level of training who could do EMs for money?
MARK VICENTE: Correct.
MR. LESKO: So how would one arrange for an EM with an EMP for money?
MARK VICENTE: Usually if you needed an EM, you would ask, you know, who is available, you would sort of ask the other coaches who was available, and they would tell you the following people. And then, you know, you might call them or you might also find out, well, maybe that person is too expensive, maybe I will try and go with this person, and then you would book an appointment or -- you would book a single appointment or you would book -- you would buy a package of appointments. For several hundred dollars, you would buy a package and you would get a slight discount.
MR. LESKO: How much did EMs cost?
MARK VICENTE: My recollection is anywhere between, you know, at the very lowest levels I think maybe 65 up to -- I think it was in excess of 175. I think I -- the most I ever paid was between 175 and 200 for an EM.
MR. LESKO: So the EMPs that you were aware of, did any of them have any formal medical training?
MARK VICENTE: No. My understanding -- no, but my understanding was that Nancy Salzman had some training, I think, as a -- as a nurse. It was confusing because I was under the impression that she had had some psychological training as well, but I'm not sure if that's the case.
MR. LESKO: Were any EMPs licensed therapists, to your knowledge?
MARK VICENTE: Not to my knowledge, no.
MR. LESKO: Were any licensed psychiatrists, to your knowledge?
MARK VICENTE: No. Psychiatrists and psychologists were -- psychiatrists and psychologists were usually not allowed to attend the program.
MR. LESKO: So the process for becoming an EMP, was there a baseline requirement to be eligible to be trained to be an EMP?
MARK VICENTE: Yes. You had to be a coach, I believe it was a two-stripe coach -- I will explain that later -- a two-stripe coach in good standing, which meant fully paid dues; and at that point, you were eligible to begin training and you would start at what is termed, like, basically EM0 and you would do drills with other people and the drills were in the nature of specific questions.
And over a number of years, you would -- you would move up the ranks. Many people on this path, you know, wanted to get to the level that they could get paid for it.
MR. LESKO: And the levels of training went from zero to twelve; is that how that worked?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, except I don't -- I mean, my understanding was that Raniere was a 12. I don't think anybody had ever got, you know, above eight or nine. I think that Nancy Salzman was maybe a nine, I think.
MR. LESKO: What was the level where an EMP could charge?
MARK VICENTE: So my understanding was at a Level 7 an EMP could charge.
MR. LESKO: Did you ever get to a certain level?
MARK VICENTE: I got to what was termed "five plus." That's five and -- it's between, I guess, five and six, five plus.
MR. LESKO: Did you ever get to a level where you could charge for EMs?
MARK VICENTE: No. What happened is I -- you know, I had worked very hard to get to five plus, and we were all told that there was something -- a miss in the system and that we all had to start again, which upset me quite a bit because we had already paid a lot of money to get there and then we were back at zero and so I had just decided to never try and re-qualify.
MR. LESKO: So you paid for the EM training?
MARK VICENTE: Correct.
MR. LESKO: Approximately how much did the EM training cost?
MARK VICENTE: I don't recall. It wasn't -- it wasn't tremendously expensive that part of the training. Maybe -- maybe 3- to 4,000.
MR. LESKO: You mentioned the term "feedback." What was feedback in NXIVM?
MARK VICENTE: So feedback was, you know, we were told, you know, things like -- there are certain things about yourself you can't see, so when you first come in as -- as -- as a student, you are asked in the very beginning, you know, What's your feedback number. In other words, ten being you can tell me anything -- anything, I don't care; zero being don't ever talk to me. And basically the idea was, you know, How open are you to feedback. In other words, If we see something about you, would you like us to tell you.
You know, for instance, if you have -- the metaphor was if you have spinach in your teeth, wouldn't it be good if somebody could share that with you. So that's how feedback began.
And then on the actual -- what's termed "the stripe path," you know, as you move up the sashes and the colors, you know, when you were a proctor you needed to really be able to take feedback in. When you got to what's called the green, which is what I was, you know, you had to receive all feedback with no resistance whatsoever. So at -- when you were given feedback, if you argued in any way, that was a problem. You know, once you were on the stripe path, once you were a yellow -- not when you were a white, that was still understandable, but once you were on the stripe path, it's like talking back, you know, to an officer kind of thing. It's -- you don't do that. You take it in, and if you can't take it in, clearly it's a pride problem, you know, perhaps it's a tribute problem that you have, but you have a problem.
MR. LESKO: So let's talk a moment about your first intensive, okay?
What year was your first intensive?
MARK VICENTE: 2005.
MR. LESKO: And did you take an entire 16-day intensive?
MARK VICENTE: I did. I was intending to only do five days. I was in the middle of preproduction on some things, so I thought I could only afford five days, but once I got to day four, I was -- I was pretty blown away by the EMs and so I expressed to Nancy Salzman -- and I think Barbara Bouchey -- that I would like to stay and continue.
MR. LESKO: Did you pay for that intensive?
MARK VICENTE: I did not pay for that intensive.
MR. LESKO: What was that -- how was that arranged?
MARK VICENTE: They really wanted me to do it and I said, Look, I'm a film maker, I just spent everything I have on this last film, I don't have any money at this point; and they said, We'll take care of it, you know, we'll figure something out type of thing. It was a very vague arrangement.
MR. LESKO: I think you mentioned this, but who led your first intensive?
MARK VICENTE: Nancy Salzman taught my first intensive. I was told -- well, she told me that the reason that she was teaching was because I was very, very difficult and I needed somebody to handle me.
MR. LESKO: Did you meet the defendant during your first intensive?
MARK VICENTE: I met -- I met him on the tenth day of the intensive. I actually was wanting to meet him earlier, but I was told I wasn't ready yet, that I needed to have a certain amount of the education before I was ready to meet him. I believe it was the tenth evening at the end of the day that I met him.
MR. LESKO: Where did you meet the defendant?
MARK VICENTE: I met him at Nancy Salzman's house. I met him on Grant Hill Drive or something like that where she lived at that time. He came over at the end -- you know, in the evening, and I sat and spoke to him for a number of hours.
MR. LESKO: And what did you discuss with the defendant?
MARK VICENTE: There were a number of things. I mean, there was a lot of very sciency geeky-type things. I remember we spoke about dark matter, quantum mechanics. We spoke about -- he was talking to me about a certain kind of mathematics. I said I had never heard about it before, he said, well, actually I invented this mathematics and I said, oh, that's amazing. Not being a mathematician, what do I know.
I was also with my girlfriend at the time, she was there as well. We spoke about rapport. I asked him how is it that you're able to -- to have so much insight into me, because I was sharing a lot about what I wanted in my life. And he described to me that, you know, he was -- he would be with people in different ways. Like, you know, if he was talking to my girlfriend at the time, he would have a certain physical aspect; when he spoke to me, he would change it and he was explaining to me that there are ways to train you, and others, as to how to really connect with people on their levels so that those people really feel that you are trustworthy.
MR. LESKO: Did the defendant ask you to do anything during that initial conversation?
MARK VICENTE: He did suggest that I move to Albany, and I said I had no desire to move to Albany, it was an ugly place, you know, I enjoyed the West Coast. And he said to me, well, you know, it's dark out right now, I mean, who -- that could be LA out there, you know, why do you need that?
And it was interesting because, at that point, you know, during the training up to that point, you know, there was a lot of -- having us understand that our -- a lot of our issue was the things we thought we needed. You know, you need a certain place, you need a certain type of person to be with, you need certain kinds of food, all these needs you have are impediments to your -- and to your growth and self-fulness. Why do you need LA to be out that window, we could be anywhere. So he said, you know, it would be good if you spent time here, so he -- and that was a -- that continued for quite -- quite a while. A lot of people wanted me to move there.
MR. LESKO: So you mentioned you participated in EMs in your initial intensive --
MARK VICENTE: Yes.
MR. LESKO: Did you discuss a particular phobia that you have?
MARK VICENTE: I did. I talked about claustrophobia. I had a particular issue at the time which was when I was in traffic, very, very heavy traffic and the traffic wasn't moving and especially if I was in the middle lane, I would have a complete panic attack and basically freak out. And it was difficult for me because, you know, I was -- I was in LA, freeways are huge, and I was taking side streets every day to get to work and it was really a problem for me, and I was ashamed that I had this problem as well.
MR. LESKO: Did you work on that phobia during your EMs?
MARK VICENTE: I did. I don't think it was the first, necessarily; it may have been, but I worked on it with Nancy Salzman and I felt an enormous, you know, freedom in that moment when I thought about the traffic and I thought about me being stuck, I felt suddenly like, wow, I think this is better. And she said to me, well, you know, we need to test this, this is a scientific model. When you leave, you know, you can report back to me and then I did eventually report back to her.
MR. LESKO: You discussed not having to pay tuition for your initial intensive. Did participants generally have to pay fees or tuition to participate in intensive?
MARK VICENTE: Generally, yes, but I found out later that there were rare occasions when they did the same as they did with me with other people. But generally, yes, there was tuition involved.
MR. LESKO: What was the tuition generally?
MARK VICENTE: So in Albany, where I took it, there were tiers of tuition. In other words, the full price of the 16-day was $7,500. If you signed up outside of 30 days, you got a discount, it was 6750 -- 6,750. And then, if you were the kind of person that, you know, when you first heard the pitch, you know, somebody gives you the pitch for the first time and within 48 hours you make the decision to pay, it was $6,000, so it was a 20 percent discount.
THE COURT: What did that include?
MARK VICENTE: That included basically attending -- attending the intensive. I believe that it included breakfast and a light dinner, and I think that we would pay for our own lunch. It was the privilege of, basically, having the education and spending time in the space doing the education.
THE COURT: And you made your own way with regard to accommodations?
MARK VICENTE: Most people did, yes. I cannot recall if that particular time I flew myself or if they flew me. I'm not certain anymore.
THE COURT: Thank you.
All right.
MR. LESKO: Thank you, Your Honor.
BY MR. LESKO:
MR. LESKO: So during your involvement, during the time when you were involved with NXIVM, was new curriculum developed?
MARK VICENTE: A great deal of new curriculum. I mean, I think I was told by the time I left that there were 2,000 modules, 2,000 two-hour modules, somewhere in that region.
MR. LESKO: Can you describe how new curriculum was developed in NXIVM?
MARK VICENTE: Yes. My first experience I didn't know how it was. Nancy Salzman would describe that she would get what she termed "a download" from Raniere. The download was -- she said him basically discussing a number of philosophical concepts and asking her questions, and then she would record it, transcribe it, and turn it into some piece of education.
Later, when I was shooting -- and by "shooting," I mean with video cameras -- shooting Nancy Salzman and Raniere, I would actually witness this. I would witness the discussions that she would have with him. I also later witnessed the discussions that he would have with the leaders of Jness, the women of Jness, and that they would take his words and these ideas and turn them into, you know, a written format. That was generally what happened.
And then, what I finally was privy to was what would happen is, they would go into the intensive, generally they would teach and then they would call him in between and he would ask, you know, how are they responding, what's going on. And then, apparently -- I mean, not apparently, I saw this, he would -- he would modify things on the fly or add additional things in to deal with the ways that people were responding to the material.
MR. LESKO: And who would typically conduct the first session of a new program?
MARK VICENTE: All first intensives -- in ESP, which was the 16-day, all the Level 2 intensives, when they first started, my understand wag that Nancy Salzman -- not only my understanding, that's what I saw -- Nancy Salzman would teach the first intensive. She may teach it one or -- once or twice, and then if she wasn't going to teach it, usually like Lauren Salzman or Karen Unterreiner would teach it.
MR. LESKO: Did the defendant ever participate in the initial sessions of new programs?
MARK VICENTE: I was told, before my time, that he did and then, in terms of my time there, he would train -- the first trainings of the Society of Protectors, he would train those.
MR. LESKO: Now, you mentioned break-out sessions during intensives where questions were asked. Do you know who created those questions?
MARK VICENTE: I believe Raniere created all those questions.
MR. LESKO: During the debrief sessions, or I think the term you used was disquisitions, were there strategies employed during those debrief sessions?
MARK VICENTE: There were strategies -- you mean in terms of the facilitators of the sessions?
MR. LESKO: Yes.
MARK VICENTE: There were strategies. I mean, one of the things we were taught to do is to really help them understand that they didn't have a clear definition of things. They -- we would talk about, you know, putting them sort of in what's called their doughnut -- don't ask me to explain it, it's too weird -- putting them in a state of, you know, uncertainty as to, you know, what they thought about things, to show them that they didn't have a clear definition. And, in essence, I later understood, you know, that by the time you came to listen to the debrief or the disquisition it was almost a kind of relief; like, okay, this makes sense, because I'm thoroughly confused, but this seems to make sense.
MR. LESKO: After an intensive, were there attempts to enroll intensive participants in additional programs?
MARK VICENTE: It was some -- yes. It was something that was done throughout the intensive. We were trained to, you know, if ever we saw a person struggling with, you know, let's say a person we discovered, oh, this person really hates themself; we would say, you know, you are eligible for a Level 2 intensive that takes care of this very thing. You know, the Möbius intensive will help you with self-love, and then you can continue to characterization and human pain and it's wonderful, wonderful, it will do wonders for your life. So that was one method.
And the other method was usually the last day, we -- we, all of us that were running the intensive, would do sort of sales sessions to encourage people to take more intensives to -- you know, maybe it's another 16-day or Level 2's, and there was a strong focus towards the end to enroll people in the next program to -- in essence, before they left -- left the room, left the building, that there was an application that was filled out.
MR. LESKO: Was pressure put on participants to enroll in future programs?
MARK VICENTE: Yes.
MR. LESKO: You mentioned Level 2 intensives. What were Level 2 intensives?
MARK VICENTE: Level 2 intensives were -- they were designed for specific issues that people have. There were groupings of intensives. These are just names, but there was 2A, anatomy of minds and body; 2B, breaches; 2C, civilization; 2D compassion. There was a set called traps, patterns, the cause. Another was Möbius, characterization, human pain, ascension. They were intensives that began to help people with what was termed "the deeper programming."
There was a commonality in all of those intensives and the commonality was that you were being led to understand that, in essence, you are -- you know, you are behaving somewhat like a reactive animal. You know, you are sort of like this robot that keeps responding and you are not thinking about things. You just -- you have this -- what was termed this viscera, this stuff in your guts, that is making all your decisions and making very, very poor decisions. So the idea was, in Level 2s, is to help you figure out like what's going on, like, in your coding, so to speak. You know, it's like trying to hack the computer in your coding, what is happening in here beneath your conscious awareness that's causing you to go astray. The examples that we used in some of our sales pitches was, you know, let's say you want to have love, true love and it's the thing you want more than anything else, and who here has a problem with love; like where you -- where you want love and then you meet a person and now you have this sudden feeling of intimacy and you are terrified and you just run for the hills. And a lot of people go, oh, yeah, that's me. And we go, well, Level 2's will help you with things like that. You know, there are almost animalistic responses you are having to things and the idea was basically you need to learn to think, you need to learn to override these -- these viscera, these emotional things in you that are not helping you. And so emotions and instinct and those kinds of things were minimized, you know, and you were told that's -- that is less evolved than just using your intellect.
MR. LESKO: Were two Level 2 intensives named compassion and civilization?
MARK VICENTE: Yes.
MR. LESKO: Did you have any concerns about those two intensives?
MARK VICENTE: I did, and I don't remember if it was civilization or compassion, but one of those was the one I mentioned where -- we were told we had blind mentor groups and so, what would happen is, you would -- he would write, you know, to your mentors about this -- you know, some terrible secret you had, which you would confess, and then, you know, they would write back to you. And there was -- there was education as well, but that was part of the process, and that's what concerned me later because I realized I had just believed that they were indeed blind mentor groups, but somebody was arranging --
THE COURT: And that "blind" meaning they didn't know who you were?
MARK VICENTE: Correct. Correct.
THE COURT: Go on.
MARK VICENTE: The thing that concerned me later, though, was that I had no idea that was true. And I -- I -- you know, although for myself, it's certainly not information I divulged is not -- you know, it's not illegal, it's shameful. And I assume many people, you know, were divulging all kind of things, and I had a concern about that. And the thing is, it was under the guise of unburdening yourself and recognizing, you know, well everybody has these, you know, there's a certain freedom in being able to unburden yourself.
MR. LESKO: Your Honor, if we could -- oh, before I get to that.
BY MR. LESKO:
MR. LESKO: Do you have an understanding now of the Level 2 intensives, the purpose of the Level 2 intensives now that's different than the understanding of them that you had while you were involved in NXIVM?
MARK VICENTE: I do.
MR. LESKO: What is that understanding today?
MARK VICENTE: It's my belief. My belief is that there -- there is a instinctual morality that most people with conscience have. My belief is that the Level 2 intensives did a number of things. The one is it minimized that morality; that it in essence played with our moral compass. And also a lot of things were introduced in terms of accountability, in terms of, you know, vows, in terms of penance, you know, where in order to correct something about you that was -- was shown to be a problem that you would endure some kind of pain to correct it. You know, if you said, for instance -- and there was an enormous focus -- the examples seemed to be a lot about weight loss all the time, and diet and that kind of thing, which I didn't understand until later. You know, we were told things like, you know, let's say you wouldn't eat the chocolate cake and you do eat the chocolate cake, you know, what's the thing you could do to try to remedy that; what's this commitment you will make if you do that, if you fail. You know, for instance, the person might take a cold shower, they may reduce their calories, you know, walk barefoot in the snow for an extended period of time, stand in the snow, that kind of thing. The whole idea was it was sort of a corrective measure you did as a promise to yourself.
My concern was that it moved from a promise to yourself to, in essence, like a promise to other people where people would say, well, you need to do a penance for that, whether you thought you should do it or not. If you were told by a higher ranking member or your coach or, you know, somebody at the very top of the consideration that really you should do this kinds of penance, you felt pretty compelled to do that as a corrective measure. And so there were those kind of things in the level 2's that concerned me, and also the hours were -- honestly, the hours were unbelievable. They were as long as if not longer than the days I would spend on film sets; 16 hours, sometimes 18 hours, and we were exhausted.
MR. LESKO: Did the Level 2 intensives, did they involve tuition or fees?
MARK VICENTE: They did. The fees were typically -- I believe it was around $6,000 per intensive, I think, and there were packages. You know, if you bought four intensives, you could buy four intensives for $20,000. The intensives were typically eight days long, but yes, there was tuition.
MR. LESKO: And getting back to the Judge's question, what did those fees pay for?
MARK VICENTE: Well, my understanding is you were paying for what is termed "the tech." You were paying for this information that was -- we were told it was rare and unique. You were paying for the ability to be in the training to -- and I guess for the -- you know, you're paying for the people that are working with you and the trainers.
MR. LESKO: Were there meals involved similar to the intensive process that you described earlier?
MARK VICENTE: There were. There was usually some kind of a breakfast that was part of the cost of the training and there was a dinner that was part of the cost of the training. Generally, lunch you went out on your own or -- usually you went with other people, but you paid for your lunch.
MR. LESKO: You mentioned that vows were used in NXIVM. Could you explain how vows were used?
MARK VICENTE: Well, many places, but I mean -- but in the Mobius intensive, which is termed the self-love intensive, you know, at the very end of the intensive, you would sit with your mentor group. You were in a mentor group. So there were break-out sessions, much like the other intensives, but in Level 2's you had mentors, there were usually three other people that mentored you. And at the very end of Mobius, as far as I recall, you were to vow something, you know, vow I'm never going to do this or I'm always going to do this. You know, it's a promise you made to -- to the group.
As things went along in human pain, which is part of that series, when you got to the end, you would form what was called a penance group. And basically, again, there was something that you identified or they identified about you, or your behavior, that needed to be amended and you would agree or you would come up with it yourself. And the penance group was a group of people that were bonded together, such that you made a promise to the rest of the group, you know, I'm going to make sure I do this thing every single day and if I don't, I'm going to, you know, have a cold shower for ten minutes, I'm going to do 30 push-ups or whatever it is, and then they also would have to do a penance for your failure. So the idea was that you were bonded with this group of people that if anyone one of you failed, everybody had to do this, in essence, punishment.
(Continued on the following page.)
EXAMINATION BY MR. LESKO:
(Continuing.)
MR. LESKO: Did the vows ever concern you?
MARK VICENTE: I think, honestly, early on less so. Much later, yes. But early on, I thought this was actually a great idea. I thought at first this is actually a cool way to be accountable because, you know, I felt like I didn't want to let the other people down, so I'm going to do to no matter what. Later, much later, the vows concerned me because I felt they were very, very damaging and they were trapping people into situations that I thought were not good.
MR. LESKO: Okay, we're going to talk a little bit now about the ranking system at ESP.
MR. LESKO: Your Honor if I could only publish this initially to the witness and by this I'm referring to Government's 1010.
May I proceed?
THE COURT: Yes, you may.
MR. LESKO: Mr. Vicente, I'm showing you an exhibit that's marked for identification as Government's Exhibit 1010.
Do you recognize that exhibit?
MARK VICENTE: I do.
MR. LESKO: What is that exhibit?
MARK VICENTE: It is a photograph that I may have taken or somebody else may have taken of the all the sashes on the training room wall. There was one wall for certain number of years that was painted blue and this is all the sashes. It was called a sash display, and this was in Albany. And this basically was a description of the entire what was termed "The Stripe Path."
MR. LESKO: And the training room was located in what room were you now?
MARK VICENTE: 455 New Karner Road, Latham, New York.
MR. LESKO: Okay. Does this photo fairly and accurately depict the sashes that were on the wall of the training room?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, it does.
MR. LESKO: We offer Government's Exhibit 1010.
MR. AGNIFILO: No objection.
THE COURT: Government Exhibit 1010 is received in evidence and published to the jury.
(Government's Exhibit 1010 was received in evidence as of this date.)
MR. LESKO: So what was the ranking system -- was there a ranking system at ESP?
MARK VICENTE: There was, yes.
MR. LESKO: And what was it called?
MARK VICENTE: It was called The Stripe Path.
MR. LESKO: And what was The Stripe Path?
MARK VICENTE: The Stripe Path was a method of marking and measuring one's growth and maturity and abilities in the company.
Basically, when you came in, in your first training, you would receive a white sash and there was an sash ceremony that happened either the first day or the second day where you would be given your sash.
MR. LESKO: So let me stop you there. Did the sashes signify progression up The Stripe Path?
MARK VICENTE: Correct, yes.
MR. LESKO: All right. So if you could direct me on the Government's 1010, where is the white sash that you're referring to?
MARK VICENTE: The white sash I'm referring to is on the extreme left.
THE COURT: You can circle it on your screen with your finger.
MARK VICENTE: Oh.
THE COURT: Can I ask a question? You said, "The Company." What did you mean by that?
MARK VICENTE: That would be Executive Success Programs/NXIVM.
THE COURT: Okay. Thank you.
MR. LESKO: And right now we're talking about The Stripe Path as to relates to ESP or Executive Success Programs?
MARK VICENTE: That's correct.
MR. LESKO: So what did the white sash signify?
MARK VICENTE: The white sash you would be called a student or a participant. It was basically you were, you know, a brand new person experiencing the methodology for the first time. And most people, well, everybody came at the beginning would receive a white sash and then what would happen from that point on there were certain achievements that they could make and they would get stripes. So in the case of the white sash, they would get red stripes, up to four of them, before a jump in rank.
MR. LESKO: And what did those stripes signify?
MARK VICENTE: In the very beginning, you would receive -- not in this order -- but you would receive a one stripe for enrolling one person, one stripe for enrolling another person, a stripe for finishing the five-day and then a stripe for finishing the 16-day. So that, you know, if you were very motivated you would enroll two people during your time you could get all four stripes in your first Intensive.
MR. LESKO: What was -- after a person received all four stripes on their sash, for instance, on a white sash, what was the next step on The Stripe Path?
MARK VICENTE: The next step was to -- what's called "Provisional Coach," and that was your yellow sash.
MR. LESKO: If you could circle a yellow sash.
MARK VICENTE: Well, there's two of them.
THE COURT: Just hold on. All right. Go ahead.
MARK VICENTE: (Circling). I've circled two of them because there is what's called a Sash with Edge and a Sash without Edge. A Sash with Edge, you would get -- if you enrolled two people in a 30-day period of time which indicated you were very motivated and a very good enroller, you would get an Edge. So there's one Yellow with Edge and one Yellow without Edge.
And, basically, in order to get there you'd have to do a Coach application. You would fill out a document I think it was probably ten pages of questions, very detailed questions. Those would be evaluated by the rank above you. They would look for certain things in your intake form, so to speak. And then, if you were going to be awarded that sash at the next Intensive you went to, you would then be given that new yellow sash.
MR. LESKO: And that was for initially Provisional Coaches?
MARK VICENTE: If you had no stripe, you were termed a "Provisional Coach." Once you had your first stripe you were termed an actual Coach.
MR. LESKO: So yellow stripe --
MR. LESKO: Strike that.
MR. LESKO: Yellow sash, one stripe, was a full Coach.
MARK VICENTE: A full Coach.
MR. LESKO: If we could erase the circle.
MR. LESKO: Thank you, your Honor.
MR. LESKO: So after the yellow sash, what was the next step in The Stripe Path?
MARK VICENTE: (Circling). That would be the orange sash. That would be the rank of Proctor. And again, to get there, you would have to achieve four red stripes on your yellow sash which were related to a number of benchmarks: Enrollments, maturity, different things called Life Issue Write-Ups, Life Issue Plans. There were a series of things that you needed to do to be able to become a Proctor and it was much stricter.
MR. LESKO: I think one of us can clear the circle without having to ask the Court.
THE COURT: Yes, you can go to the lower-left corner of the screen. That's it.
MR. LESKO: Figured it out.
MR. LESKO: So after the orange sash, what was the next step on The Stripe Path?
MARK VICENTE: (Circling). That would be a green sash, and that was called a Senior Proctor. That was the rank I achieved. And again, there were stripes on the orange sash. They were white stripes and there were benchmarks there as well. Things called Breach Write-Ups, Breach Plans that would then allow you enrollment and maturity and ability to work with people and lead people and then you could eventually get the green sash.
MR. LESKO: After the green sash, what was the next step on The Stripe Path?
MARK VICENTE: (Circling). That would be blue. The term was Counselor. Again, you'd have to achieve four stripes on your white sash, sorry, four stripes on your green sash. I'm less aware of what the requirements were, I only made it to one stripe and I was rather confused about that left.
MR. LESKO: All right. So after the blue sash, Counselor level, what was the next step on The Stripe Path?
MARK VICENTE: That would be purple that was Senior Counselor. Again, my understanding was you needed four white stripes on the green sash -- sorry -- four white stripes on the blue sash to get to the Senior Counselor sash. That was pretty much the highest rank other than the Prefect and the Vanguard.
MR. LESKO: So there are other stripes in between. If you could circle them all what did those other stripes signify, if you know?
MARK VICENTE: For the most part, I don't know. I asked about the brown sashes once and I was told they were speaker sashes. My understanding about the black sash was that you had to invent something that fundamentally changed humankind. That's as much information as I know.
MR. LESKO: To the best of your knowledge, did anyone attain those levels, the sashes beyond purple?
MARK VICENTE: Not that I'm aware of other than the Prefect who had a gold sash, and then the Vanguard who had the white sash that was double the length of the first white one.
MR. LESKO: Can you circle the gold sash, please?
MARK VICENTE: (Circling). I think that is the one she would be.
MR. LESKO: She is who?
MARK VICENTE: Nancy Salzman, also known as Prefect.
MR. LESKO: And do you see the sash you mentioned, the long white sash. Could you circle that?
MARK VICENTE: (Circling). That was what Raniere wore, also known as Vanguard. And he termed himself "The Eternal Student."
MR. LESKO: Did you ever actually see the defendant wearing that long white sash?
MARK VICENTE: I did see him wear that earlier in my time there during appearances that he would make.
MR. LESKO: Did you see Nancy Salzman wearing the gold sash?
MARK VICENTE: She always wore the gold sash during ESP Intensives.
MR. LESKO: Did you, yourself, wear your sashes including ultimately your green sash?
MARK VICENTE: I did at every Intensive, every Ethos class I did.
MR. LESKO: Was anyone at ESP in charge of The Stripe Path?
MARK VICENTE: My understanding, my recollection, I'm sorry, I'm just referring to a document. Lauren Salzman was the head of The Stripe Path. She was one of the people making the decisions about promotion.
MR. LESKO: And we'll get to it in a moment, but was there, from an organizational standpoint, were Stripe Path -- was The Stripe Path part of some committee in ESP?
MARK VICENTE: It was part of what's called "The Committee Structure" or "The Division Structure," yes.
MR. LESKO: Okay. We'll discuss that in a moment. So what did Coaches do at ESP?
MARK VICENTE: Coaches were the people on the ground in the Intensive. They were responsible for, you know, in essence, running the Intensive, making sure the food available, making sure the notes were where they needed to be, facilitating the students. There were a series of roles they had in the Intensive and they were sort of at the command of the Proctors or Senior Proctors. They had -- outside of the Intensive they had other roles as well. They had to be on a committee. They had to be, once they were actually an actual Coach, they had to be coaching people. They were required to take part in, you know, community events and different events that would happen. They would be part of the workforce taking care running those things.
MR. LESKO: Were Coaches typically paid?
MARK VICENTE: Coaches were not paid.
MR. LESKO: Did being a Coach involve significant hours?
MARK VICENTE: Many, many hours. There was a system of measurements. It was called, I think, The Coach Point System where the understanding that I was told was that you pay anywhere from, you know, let's say two to three thousand dollars a year to be in the Ethos program. You had to be in the Ethos program, you had to pay that due.
And then you would work all these hours as well. You had to work a certain number of hours I don't recall what they were. And what I was told at one point was, in essence, you're working this system, you're learning how to be a CEO, you're learning all the different things you need to have, abilities you need to have to run a company. And they said at one point: We're in essence giving you $24,000 of value for all this work you're doing and you're paying us, you know, two to three thousand dollars of membership. But really, this is something that will help you in your life.
MR. LESKO: How many Coaches or yellow sashes were there in ESP?
MARK VICENTE: I believe there was somewhere in excess of 200 yellows, I believe.
MR. LESKO: What did Proctors do at ESP?
MARK VICENTE: Proctors were in charge of the Coaches. Proctors evaluated the Coaches' growth. Proctors assigned Coaches to different tasks. But they would also, yes, they would Coach them and they would basically shepherd them or mentor them along The Stripe Path, give them feedback, EM them, have coaching sessions, set them on their trajectory up The Stripe Path and what they needed to accomplish in order to keep moving.
MR. LESKO: Did Proctors get paid?
MARK VICENTE: Proctors were the first time you could actually make money. So there were different ways Proctors got paid. When you came in, in order to become a Coach, you would enroll people and you would build an organization. You know, let's say I enroll two people, and they enrolled more people, and they enrolled more people that was your organization.
Once you became a Proctor, as long as you were in good standing, you were eligible for commission on any financial activity in your organization. So anybody that took a prom that was in your organization, you would get something called a Proctor override which was ten percent. Proctors could become head trainers if they wanted to be and those were paid positions for, you know, could obviously be, you know, EMPs as well. Proctors could be Field Trainers. I was a Field Trainer. Field Trainer is a person who trains the sales force. There were salespeople in the system and a Field Trainer is the person who trains those salespeople. That was another way to make money.
But people, in essence, wanted to get to Proctor because that's when they could begin making money because, in essence, they weren't making any money before then.
MR. LESKO: And to attain the level of Proctor, did that involve spending significant time as a Coach?
MARK VICENTE: It did. I mean, for myself, and I was told I moved very quickly, I did a year full time. That's pretty much all I did for the entire year. Other people, it could take a number of years because of different things that they were doing. But it's a significant amount of education.
MR. LESKO: And, again, the time period when you were a Coach you were not paid; is that correct?
MARK VICENTE: I was not paid as a Coach, no.
MR. LESKO: How many Proctors or orange sashes were there in ESP?
MARK VICENTE: I'm a little fuzzy, it's been a while. Somewhere between 30 and 40 Proctors, I believe. Perhaps up to 50. I don't recall exactly.
MR. LESKO: What did Senior Proctors or green sashes do at ESP?
MARK VICENTE: Senior Proctors were -- they were in charge of the Proctors and they were helping the Proctors shepherd the Coaches. Senior Proctors, Greens, were required to run a Division either on their own or with somebody else. They were seen as, you know, it's a very respected position, a high-ranking member of the company, to be involved in the community events to being involved in something called "V Week."
And, you know, Greens would meet once a week and, in essence, go over, you know, all the Proctors in the entire company. This would take many, many weeks where we would choose a certain city that there was a center and we would evaluate every single Proctor, and then we would also help our Proctors with their evaluations of the Coaches as well.
MR. LESKO: Were there financial benefits associated with being a Senior Proctor?
MARK VICENTE: They were the same as Proctor. There was one difference in you could not open a center or run a center if you weren't a green. Other than that, it was pretty much the same.
MR. LESKO: And what were the financial benefits associated with being able to open and run a center?
MARK VICENTE: So the way a centers work is you would start classes in a certain area. You wouldn't be a center yet at that point. You would be, you know, a satellite or a provisional center. And you would start to build your clientele. And what you were required to do is to have a hundred paying Ethos members in order to have a center. Once you could achieve that, and we all tried to achieve that, because, in essence, up until you reach a hundred, you were paying out of pocket for everything: You're paying for the rent and the electricity and everything. If you have a space which, of course, you need to have to run these classes.
Once you achieved a hundred paying Ethos members, you were then given a commission, so to speak, from head office of ten percent of those fees. You would also get ten percent of the actual training of whatever the training -- whatever money they were getting for the training, you would get ten percent of that.
So that's basically how we would try and offset the costs of actually having the center.
MR. LESKO: And after those costs were paid, was any amount left over for Senior Proctors?
MARK VICENTE: Theoretically, that was the plan. And in my case, sometimes you would have excess, but then the next month you would make less so. We were always running close to red all the time.
MR. LESKO: You mentioned salespeople and Field Trainers. Field Trainers oversaw the salespeople, is that how it worked?
MARK VICENTE: That's correct, yes.
MR. LESKO: Was there any sort of sales methodology at NXIVM, ESP?
MARK VICENTE: It was, generally speaking, when I came in, when I came in Barbara bra Bouchey was my Field Trainer, she taught me the ropes.
Generally speaking, the person, the Field Trainer that was responsible for bringing you in would teach you. In later years, many of us were taught by Raniere himself. He would teach us different methodologies, he wanted to formalize these introductory presentations, so he would spend a fair amount of time training us. In fact, at one point, I think we spent three weeks with him as he taught us how to best sell the product.
MR. LESKO: And we'll get into it in substance in a moment, but did the training involve a sales pitch?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, it did.
MR. LESKO: Counselors at ESP. What did counselors do?
MARK VICENTE: Honestly that was a little fuzzy. I didn't yet understand what they did. They seemed to be I think the grand poobahs who had more wisdom and more knowledge and would mentor the Greens in different ways. This was a term that wasn't used, but they were the elders that would teach us.
MR. LESKO: Do you recall anyone who was a Counselor or blue sash?
MARK VICENTE: Edgar Boone was a blue sash.
MR. LESKO: Putting up on the screen Government's 4 which has been previously admitted.
MARK VICENTE: That is Edgar Boone.
MR. LESKO: What did Senior Counselors do?
MARK VICENTE: Similarly, the elder, elders. They were seen as the wise ones that would be able to help us, you know, deep issues in our lives, that kind of thing. The actual description of the rank, honestly, to me, was always very fuzzy.
MR. LESKO: Do you recall who was a Senior Counselor?
MARK VICENTE: Pam Cafritz was a Senior Counselor, deceased. And Barbara Jeske was a Senior Counselor deceased.
MR. LESKO: Deceased, meaning, they're both passed?
MARK VICENTE: Both passed.
MR. LESKO: I'm showing you what's been admitted as Government's 12.
MARK VICENTE: That is Pam Cafritz.
MR. LESKO: Who was Pam Cafritz?
MARK VICENTE: Pam Cafritz, in my understanding, was one of Raniere's closest confidantes. She lived with him for, I believe, as long as I was there. She took care of him, she was with him all the time.
MR. LESKO: Do you recall whether Pam Cafritz was wealthy?
MARK VICENTE: She was from a very wealthy, very notable Washington, D.C. family. So, yes, she came from enormous wealth.
MR. LESKO: I'm showing you what's been previously admitted as Government's 31. Do you recall that photograph?
MARK VICENTE: Barbara Jeske.
MR. LESKO: And who was Barbara Jeske?
MARK VICENTE: Barbara Jeske was somebody also very close confidante of Raniere. She was a Senior Counselor, she helped train a lot of the sales force. I mean, I came to understand later the relationship with Raniere. I wasn't clear at first but later I found out.
MR. LESKO: What was that relationship, if you know?
MARK VICENTE: He described her as his, like, his wife. When she died, he said to me, you know, that was like I just lost my wife and I was, I was taken aback. I didn't realize they had that relationship.
MR. LESKO: I'm going to put Government's 1010 back on the screen. What did the Prefect or Nancy Salzman do at ESP?
MARK VICENTE: Well, she was seen as two things. One as the CEO of the company. I wasn't clear if it was ESP or NXIVM or both. I think it was both. She was seen as, you know, the mom of the whole organization. She was the person that was, in essence, for many years the head of education. You know, she was the one getting all of Raniere's ideas recorded and then transcribing it and then turning it into something that could be taught. She had a very, she was a very, very respected position.
MR. LESKO: And you mentioned that the defendant was known as the Vanguard what was the role of the Vanguard in ESP?
MARK VICENTE: There was -- he was considered the philosophical founder, the driving ethical, moral, humanitarian force behind the entire company. He was seen as somebody who was very, very wise because of the his reported accomplishments. And also, I learned pretty early on when I came in that, you know, people, if there was a question that was too difficult, they would have to consult him. He would be consulted on all manner of things I found out eventually. He was seen as, in essence, the wisest person in the organization.
MR. LESKO: Was there something called The Five Pillars at NXIVM?
MARK VICENTE: There was.
MR. LESKO: What were The Five Pillars?
MARK VICENTE: The Five Pillars were Raniere's theory on what you required to build a civilized world. The areas of endeavor that you needed to have and needed to be operating to have a civilized world and they were things like Commerce, communication, ethics, education, humanities, and they were, in essence, the divisions that made the company. And then these committees existed as well in every single center that was operational.
MR. LESKO: Okay. So let's break that down a bit.
So The Five Pillars that you've identified corresponded to divisions within ESP?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, the Pillars were seen as the philosophical things, so to speak. The divisions were actually, you know, manned by people. The divisions operated out of Albany, out of the head office.
MR. LESKO: So who led -- what type of person led the divisions in Albany?
MARK VICENTE: So, generally, it was Senior Proctors, Greens. Also, sometimes Proctors. And then everybody on the Executive Board of which I was a member was also running a Division as well.
MR. LESKO: Okay. Did the Executive Board oversee the divisions?
MARK VICENTE: That's correct, yes.
MR. LESKO: Did you, yourself, ever oversee a Division?
MARK VICENTE: I did. The last few years I was overseeing Communications before that it was Commerce.
MR. LESKO: And, if I understand you correctly, you have the Executive Board, the Divisions, and then were committees within Divisions?
MARK VICENTE: Yes. So, in other words, let's say, let's say you have the Executive Board and you have, let's say, the Commerce Division. Every single center had a Commerce Committee that reported and every single center in different countries had a Commerce Committee that reported to the Commerce Division in Albany. And the head of that Division would then report to the Executive Board who would then report to Prefect and then Vanguard.
MR. LESKO: So, ultimately, all of these committees at the various centers in different countries reported to Divisions who reported to the Executive Board who reported to the Prefect who reported to the Vanguard. Was there any authority above Vanguard?
MARK VICENTE: There was nothing above Vanguard.
MR. LESKO: Did NXIVM operate -- well, you mentioned this. NXIVM operated centers. What were the centers called?
MARK VICENTE: They were called centers. They usually were termed, like, the Mexico City Center, the Monterey Center, the Vancouver Center, the Albany Center, the New York City Center. It was usually by location.
MR. LESKO: So you've explained that NXIVM was the umbrella organization, and that ESP was one of the entities under that umbrella. Could you specifically explain the relationship between ESP and NXIVM?
MARK VICENTE: Other than NXIVM was the umbrella, the container in which ESP was, the term was used interchangeably. Sometimes it was called an ESP center sometimes it was called an NXIVM center. It was termed "NXIVM Civilization."
When I first came in, I believe the word NXIVM was used much more. I believe as the press got worse and worse over time, the preference was ESP Center or Executive Success Programs.
MR. LESKO: Why was that?
MARK VICENTE: My understanding was to because there was so much, you know, one of the issues that we had as salespeople and Field Trainers is, you know, if we mentioned certain key words to people they would go online and do a search so if we mentioned NXIVM, or other terms like "rational inquiry," they would go online, they would see all this negative press, and they would get very scared and basically back away. So there was constant attempts to figure out what words could we use that would not trigger them and make them run for the hills.
MR. LESKO: So what were the centers used for? What happened at the centers?
MARK VICENTE: Basically, to run the education. They were also used as community hubs. People would come and do Ethos classes, they would come and do classes called Origins which I hadn't mentioned. They would do intensives. There would be introductory evenings where presenters, I was one of them, would do presentations. They would hold events, you know, if there were special events community events that would be held there. That's also where usually the educational materials were kept in the center as well they were in a what's called a Proctor Room locked behind a door or in a safe or something. But it was the actual home in each place.
MR. LESKO: These materials that were locked away, what did that consist of?
MARK VICENTE: They consisted of facilitator notes, student notes, and then different technological devices like an iPods and tablets which would have the videos on them and those were locked as well. They would also have sashes and then we would have a lot of student notes. We would have the forms that they fill out in the beginning. And they would have student notes, each participant that came we'd have a file with their name on it and we would put their things in there.
MR. LESKO: So you began doing this in Albany, but could you describe may physical layout of a center?
MARK VICENTE: Well, I can talk about, I mean, in the case of Vancouver, which I was the co-owner of, you know, you walked into a front lobby area, our offices, the actual Proctor offices, were just around to the left. And then there was -- there were three smaller rooms that we termed "breakout rooms." They were like little lounges where we would send people for breakouts. And then we would have a larger training room which, in our case, we could hold up to maybe 60 or 70 people. There was a television at one end and the room was filled with chairs. And we had storage facilities and bathrooms and then a kitchen as well.
MR. LESKO: So the main room could hold quite a few people.
MARK VICENTE: In our case, 60 to 70. I think that Albany, the training room, I believe, we had up to a hundred people in that training room.
MR. LESKO: So how many people would attend, for instance, a typical Intensive?
MARK VICENTE: Honestly, it depended on the area. Anywhere from 20 to maybe 40. There were certain areas that would be a little larger. But a lot of trainers had to be flown in to do the larger ones. The preference was 30 to 40 if possible.
MR. LESKO: How many attended your initial Intensive in Albany?
MARK VICENTE: I'm thinking around 30 maybe.
MR. LESKO: So how many centers were there?
MARK VICENTE: I have to do this visually. These are not full centers necessarily, but there was in the U.S. we were in New York City; Albany; Canada, Vancouver; Los Angeles; Orange County and San Francisco were beginning; Seattle-Tacoma existed up until 2009. Moving south, Mexico City, Monterey. Guadalajara and Guatemala City in Guatemala. And there were various other attempts to start, they had hadn't really grown yet. There was an attempt in Miami, there was an attempt in London.
MR. LESKO: And Monterey, is that Monterey, Mexico?
MARK VICENTE: Monterey, Mexico.
MR. LESKO: Getting back a moment to the salespeople. Were there certain requirements that potential salespeople had to reach before becoming salespeople?
MARK VICENTE: Yes. I'm sorry, I'm searching my memory. A salesperson had to be a Coach and they had to have enrolled, I'm not sure if I'm correct about that, but they had to be a Coach. I may not be correct about that. They had to have enrolled six people and they had to have demonstrated that they could do it. In other words, they couldn't be ready to help to enroll a person, they would to demonstrate they were able to do it once they enrolled six people and they weren't paid for those six. Once they enrolled six, and they reached the qualifications to be a salesperson, they then could earn commissions.
So I said earlier only Proctors made money, I'm realizing it's not true. A Coach could, as a salesperson, and they would earn ten percent commission on the people that they enrolled directly.
MR. LESKO: And how would one qualify to become a Field Trainer?
MARK VICENTE: Becoming a Field Trainer meant building a certain number of salespeople. I think it was six, my memory is a little foggy on that. I think it was six. You had to basically build six salespeople, at which point or maybe it was less, at which point you were then termed a Field Trainer. A Field Trainer was a jump from salesperson at. As a Field Trainer, you were earning a 20 percent commission and then you were also negotiating with your salespeople and commissions, you know.
MR. LESKO: And you, yourself, was a salesperson?
MARK VICENTE: I was a salesperson and then I became a Field Trainer.
MR. LESKO: And so, is it fair to say that the compensation structure at NXIVM was based on commissions?
MARK VICENTE: Commissions and also, in the case of trainers, it wasn't commission based. Trainer, it was based on the amount of students you had in your Intensive which, I suppose, is kind of.
MR. LESKO: So if you had a certain number of students in your Intensive, were you paid, like, an hourly rate or did you get a percentage of that tuition?
MARK VICENTE: No, as a trainer, you know, your job was you rented the space. You paid for, you know, the breakfast and lunches. You had to pay for certain things. And then you were given a certain percentage of the gross. There was an online payment system and the company received the money from the clients. You would receive a percentage of the gross. I think it was maybe 30 -- I was not a Head Trainer, so I don't know. I think it was around 30 percent that you would receive. And out of that, you had to pay all your bills. And then, what was left over was, in essence, yours as a Head Trainer.
THE COURT: During what period of time were you doing this work as a trainer?
MARK VICENTE: So I was never a Head Trainer but I was a Field Trainer. I became paper Field Trainer maybe 2007. Up until the time that I left in 2012.
THE COURT: So was all of this in Vancouver?
MARK VICENTE: The Field Trainer is a bit like you're mobile. You can go anywhere, make calls to anywhere. So I could enroll people into Vancouver or Los Angeles. Pretty much any center that I existed I could enroll people into those trainings in those different cities or countries.
THE COURT: Is this a full-time job?
MARK VICENTE: At times to became that. So there were many, many jobs. So it was almost like there were many full-time jobs. I was doing a great many things simultaneously, so it may have been a full-time job for a month. But generally, I was doing too many things to dedicate all my time.
THE COURT: All the jobs were for the company?
MARK VICENTE: They were all for the company.
THE COURT: So you weren't working in any other field at that time, you were simply working for company?
MARK VICENTE: At the beginning, I was still working on another film, I was writing a book, but that began to fade as I became more, in essence, overwhelmed with the tasks at hand.
THE COURT: All right. Thank you.
EXAMINATION BY MR. LESKO:
(Continuing.)
MR. LESKO: As you described, Field Trainers were mobile?
MARK VICENTE: Yes.
MR. LESKO: Were salespeople also mobile?
MARK VICENTE: Salespeople could, yeah, go anywhere, you know, make phone calls anywhere.
MR. LESKO: You mentioned the term "Suppressives" previously. What were Suppressives?
MARK VICENTE: So just to clarify. You were never taught to use suppressive as a noun. It was more a type of behavior or strategy, you know, a person was doing a suppressive action. But it bled over to, you know, a person is being suppressive, a person is suppressive.
In essence, the idea that I initially learned was, you know, somebody who is trying to destroy goodness, destroy honor. You know, anybody that wanted to destroy tribute. They were described as having suppressive tendencies. They wanted to crush somebody else to feel better about themselves.
And so, the way I saw suppressive strategies was, you know, somebody who basically can't handle goodness or they can't handle somebody being better than them, so they had to suppress other people. That changed over time the way I saw what suppressive was but that was how it was initially explained to me.
MR. LESKO: And what happened to people who were labeled as being suppressive at NXIVM?
MARK VICENTE: There were different consequences if you were considered a suppressive person. But you were still in the organization, you know, maybe you had to go and fix it. You were told, you know, maybe you've committed a breach and you have to go fix that preach. Maybe you can't train Intensives anymore, or you can't EM anymore. There was maybe a dock in pay of some kind.
And there was also the disapproval of the entire community that was a very, very powerful that went on. If you spoke out in any way against the company, against the Vanguard, you know, it was more serious. It was, you know, you'd be shunned. Everybody inside was told to shun that person.
MR. LESKO: What was shunning?
MARK VICENTE: Shunning was basically you won't do business with that person anymore. You won't talk to that person anymore. You won't talk to people that that person talks to or talked to other people to try and talk to that person. Basically, you try about isolate them completely and the idea being, you know, you have to, you know, stand for what's right and in essence, you know, indicate that that person is doing is a real problem and it's event goodness.
MR. LESKO: So is it fair to say a person who is being shunned it was almost like they were dead to you and others at NXIVM?
MARK VICENTE: Pretty much. You know, because if anybody, you know, if somebody was being shunned then you spoke to that person it was very serious. You had to act as though they just didn't matter anymore. You know, maybe there were things they could do to fix it but I would never see that.
MR. LESKO: Who decided who would be shunned?
MARK VICENTE: Usually, it came from the upper ranks. It was usually a decision that was made very, very high up you know it would have been, you know, Nancy Salzman or Lauren Salzman or Raniere. There were people, there were people that were shunned that honestly I had no idea why they were being shunned I was told they had done some kind of a breach I was like, okay, but I don't know what this is but okay.
MR. LESKO: Can you provide an example of someone who was shunned by the NXIVM community?
MARK VICENTE: Barbara Bouchey was shunned when she left in 2009. She was spoken very poorly of.
MR. LESKO: Was someone related to Lauren Salzman shunned?
MARK VICENTE: Her father. She and her sister shunned her father. I'm not sure if that's still operational today but for many, many years they were would not talk to him or interact with him in any way.
MR. LESKO: Was the defendant involved in the decision to shun Lauren Salzman's father?
MARK VICENTE: I can't say for sure that I was at a conversation where I heard that.
MR. AGNIFILO: I object. I object.
THE COURT: Sustained.
MR. LESKO: You've used the term "breach" or "ethical breach." What was an ethical breach at NXIVM?
MARK VICENTE: Well, there were two levels to an ethical breach. The way it's described and the way it actually operated. An ethical breach, the theory, is that there is your true nature, your true essence, your true goodness.
Let's say, you're a person that, you know, believes yourself to be humanitarian and you say an unkind word to somebody or you're violent in some way that's an example of that's a breach. You did -- a this is not the word that was used -- but it's like you did a sin against your true nature. You know, there is goodness and things you're trying to stand for, and now you've gone against that.
But -- and you were told this breach you've done it is really against other people to affects the entire world, but it's also against yourself. And so, at first, I remember thinking, wow, this is really a profound idea that somehow I have this -- these values that I espouse in the world, and if I do something that goes against it, that is a problem. But what it seemed to turn into eventually is like anybody who basically disagreed could be seen as a person who has now done a breach. And most of the people I would hear that breaches were done against Raniere. Somebody had done something against him or had not supported him in some way. There was somebody years ago who had spoke in the press and didn't support him the way that they believed they should have supported him, a person was considered to have done a terrible breach. It became this mechanism of control and it was mysterious.
MR. AGNIFILO: Your Honor, I'm going to object.
THE COURT: Anything from, "it became this method of control," the jury will disregard.
You can ask your next question.
MR. LESKO: Well, you've been describing sort of the evolution of your thinking in terms of what an ethical breach actually was at NXIVM over time did that understanding of what an ethical breach was change?
MARK VICENTE: It became more mysterious to me. I understood it one way. It's this thing you do against civilization, against yourself. And then my understanding became more that, you know, if you spoke out against the company, or if you spoke against Raniere, that that was an ethical breach. For the most part, at the time, I didn't know what these breaches were. It was pretty mysterious. It was this person had done a bad thing and was being shunned by Raniere and other people.
MR. LESKO: You mentioned a person who didn't support the defendant in the press who was that?
MARK VICENTE: That was Ed Kinnam.
MR. LESKO: Who was Ed Kinnam?
MARK VICENTE: Ed Kinnam was a Proctor who was there the first few years that I was there and then left. And apparently, had done some kind of interview in the press. And I don't recall if he said something explicitly negative or just wasn't supportive but that was talked about as a huge problem.
MR. LESKO: Your Honor, we're going to move into another area.
THE COURT: Let's take our midmorning break. Let's take a ten-minute break. All rise for the jury.
(Jury exits courtroom at 11:29 a.m.)
THE COURT: All right. The witness may stand down. Please to not discuss your testimony with anyone.
MARK VICENTE: Yes, sir.
(Witness leaves the witness stand.)
(Defendant exits from courtroom at 11:31 a.m.)
(A recess in the proceedings was taken.)
THE COURT: All right. Let's bring the witness back. (Pause.)
(Witness resumes the stand.)
THE COURT: Ready?
MS. HAJJAR: Yes.
(Jury enters courtroom.)
THE COURT: Please be seated.
All right, Mr. Lesko, you may continue your examination of the witness.
MS. HAJJAR: Thank you.
DIRECT EXAMINATION (CONT'D.) BY MR. LESKO:
MR. LESKO: So, Mr. Vicente, let's get back to your -- to the completion of your first intensive, okay. What did you do after your first intensive ended?
MARK VICENTE: As I recall, I went back to Los Angeles, I had projects I needed to work on and finish up and I had a number of interactions with Nancy Salzman and I think Sara Bronfman who were wanting me to come back and continue. There was also discussions about if you really would like to learn the tech, you know, you should probably come back, you should try and spend more time here. So, there were a number of discussions like that.
Then I did eventually come back, I think it was within the year, it was less than a year, I came back to do another 16-day and I applied to be a coach and I was awarded the coach sash, the rank during my second 16-day intensive and the idea being we were told that in order to really absorb the material, you needed to do the intensive two and a half times, so that would be two 16-days and a 5-day and that was also to be eligible to do the Level 2 curriculum.
MR. LESKO: At some point did you have a discussion with Nancy Salzman about moving to Albany?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, she recommended that -- I had shared with her, you know, what I wanted in my life which was basically I wanted to grow, I wanted to be noble, I wanted to be -- I wanted to be a good man, a great man, I wanted to make films that would change the world and she said to me, as well as others, in order to be that kind of an artist, you have to clean up you as a human being to be the kind of person that could create those kinds of films that could move the world and what better way than to come and spend time in Albany and, you know, perhaps you could be mentored by Keith Raniere.
So, I was trying to figure out how to do that and eventually when I did come back, I made a plan to basically spend a year there, to take off from everything and spend a year living there so I could learn as much as I possibly could. My idea was that I thought, well, if I can learn how these EM-s actually work, I thought to myself, well, maybe I can make films that could actually EM people and that was one of the discussions I wanted to have with Raniere.
MR. LESKO: So, did you actually move to Albany?
MARK VICENTE: I did. I was at that time living in Ashton, Oregon. I basically packed everything up and I moved across the country and I went to live in an apartment in Knox Woods, which was a development, with another person who was in ESP as well.
MR. LESKO: When approximately was this?
MARK VICENTE: My recollection is 2006.
MR. LESKO: And what was Knox Woods?
MARK VICENTE: Knox Woods was like a development, I assume the same construction company developed the entire area, it was all the same kinds of townhouses in essence; it was a development in the city of Clifton Park, New York, just north of Albany, and I found out that many of the people, especially the high ranking people involved in the company actually lived there.
MR. LESKO: In Knox Woods?
MARK VICENTE: In Knox Woods, yes.
MR. LESKO: Was there another development or location where people associated with NXIVM lived?
MARK VICENTE: There were a few different areas, people lived in Halfmoon as well, there was a complex called like the Halfmoon Heritage Homes; there was a residential area where Nancy Salzman lived and a number of other people that was just next to Knox Woods but it wasn't called Knox Woods, I don't recall the name right now.
MR. LESKO: It was all in the same general proximity?
MARK VICENTE: It was, yes.
MR. LESKO: And this was all in Clifton Park?
MARK VICENTE: In Clifton Park and Halfmoon, they were right next to each other, it was in -- both areas, it was all walking distance.
MR. LESKO: Just to clarify, Clifton Park and Halfmoon are cities or towns basically?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, towns.
MR. LESKO: And Knox Woods is a development within Clifton Park?
MARK VICENTE: Correct.
MR. LESKO: Okay. And while you -- after moving to Albany did you maintain a residence in Los Angeles?
MARK VICENTE: Not at first but then later I did because I was wanting to open up a center in Los Angeles so I had a residence in both places.
MR. LESKO: And the person you first lived with when you moved to Clifton Park, what was that person's name?
MARK VICENTE: That person was Omar Boone.
MR. LESKO: I'm showing you what's been admitted as Government's 5.
Do you recognize that photograph?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, Omar Boone.
MR. LESKO: Who is Omar Boone?
MARK VICENTE: Omar Boone, I don't know if he was a proctor at the time but he certainly became a proctor. He was from Monterey, Mexico. He was the brother -- is the brother of Edgar Boone and he spent a lot of time between Albany and Monterey, Mexico and he became a proctor and a friend.
MR. LESKO: So, when you were residing in Clifton Park, where did you actually live?
MARK VICENTE: When I first moved there, actually my very first move there I lived in a house, I'm forgetting the address, for just a week or two; I moved to a townhouse on Monmouth Way, which was in Knox Woods, for I think it was maybe up under a year, and then I moved to 13 Twilight Drive which was a multi- bedroom house a few exits north of Knox Woods, a few exits north on the 87 freeway.
MR. LESKO: I'm showing you Government's 132 which has been previously admitted.
What does that photograph show?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, that's the signs of Twilight Drive, that's the entrance to Twilight Drive from one of the main roads.
MR. LESKO: I'm showing you Government's 133 which has been admitted.
What does that photograph depict?
MARK VICENTE: That is 13 Twilight Drive, the house that myself and a number of other members of the community lived in for a number of years.
MR. LESKO: Did you ultimately move from 13 Twilight Drive?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, I moved from 13 Twilight Drive to 7 Generals Way in Knox Woods, perhaps 2013, I don't remember exactly.
MR. LESKO: I'm going to show you Government's 120 which has been previously admitted.
Do you recognize that --
MARK VICENTE: Yes.
MR. LESKO: -- photograph?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, that's 7 Generals Way.
MR. LESKO: And is that also in Knox Woods?
MARK VICENTE: That is in Knox Woods, yes.
MR. LESKO: So, did the defendant reside at a location on Flintlock Lane?
MARK VICENTE: He did, it was -- when I first met him I asked him where he lived and he indicated that he sort of couch surfed but I did understand that it was -- number 2 Flintlock Lane was one of the residences and then another place that he spent time was 8 Hale Drive which was actually just across the road. And then much later he moved with two other people who were living with him at Flintlock, moved to 21 Oregon Trail.
MR. LESKO: And who were those two other people?
MARK VICENTE: Sorry, I'm just referring to something.
(Pause.)
MARK VICENTE: Marianna and Pam Cafritz.
MR. LESKO: Showing you Government's Exhibit 26, and if you could revisit the document you just reviewed; is that Marianna, Government's 26?
MARK VICENTE: That is, yes.
MR. LESKO: We previously looked at Government's 12, is that Pam Cafritz?
MARK VICENTE: That is Pam Cafritz, yes.
MS. HAJJAR: Your Honor, may we approach?
THE COURT: Yes.
(Continued on next page.)
THE COURT: All right, let's continue.
MS. HAJJAR: Thank you, Your Honor.
BY MR. LESKO:
MR. LESKO: You mentioned an address on 8 Hale Drive; is that correct?
MARK VICENTE: Correct, yes.
MR. LESKO: I'm going to show you what's been admitted as Government's 122.
Do you recognize that exhibit?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, that is 8 Hale Drive.
MR. LESKO: I'm going to show you Government's Exhibit 123.
Is that another photograph of 8 Hale?
MARK VICENTE: That is correct.
MR. LESKO: And I'm going to show you Government's 123-A which has been admitted.
Is that another photograph of 8 Hale?
MARK VICENTE: It's the wider shot of the same building, yes.
MR. LESKO: Was there a location within 8 Hale that had a certain name?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, the upstairs of 8 Hale Drive was termed when I first came the executive library.
MR. LESKO: Okay. And on Government's 123-A, if you can, can you circle where the executive library in that residence was located?
MARK VICENTE: (Indicating.)
MR. LESKO: So, for the record, the witness has drawn a circle around the left hand portion of the building and specifically the second floor of that building.
MARK VICENTE: Correct.
THE COURT: Very well.
MR. LESKO: So, you mentioned that members of the NXIVM community lived in Clifton Park, correct?
MARK VICENTE: Correct, a good deal -- a good number of them, yes.
MR. LESKO: Approximately how many members of the NXIVM community lived in Clifton Park?
MARK VICENTE: I would say 30 to 40.
MR. LESKO: Were there other NXIVM buildings in the Albany area?
MARK VICENTE: There was the head office, the headquarters which was Latham, New York, 455 New Karner Road.
MR. LESKO: Let me stop you there.
MARK VICENTE: Yes.
MR. LESKO: What occurred at 455 New Karner Road?
MARK VICENTE: So, 455 New Karner Road was considered the head office or the headquarters of ESP and I believe NXIVM, I was never quite certain, but it's where the administration offices were, it's where the cafeteria was, the training rooms, Nancy Salzman had her office there as well; there was something called the proctor room, it was the hub of where the education was done at first. That changed over time but at first that's where it was.
MR. LESKO: Okay. I'm going to show you what's been admitted as Government's 164.
What does that photograph show?
MARK VICENTE: That's the exterior of 455 New Karner Road.
MR. LESKO: I'm going to now show you Government's 165 admitted into evidence.
What does that photograph show?
MARK VICENTE: That's one of the entrances to the same building and specifically if you walked into that door that says Executive Success Programs and you turned right, you'd be in the main training room.
MR. LESKO: For the record, what is the sign on the door?
MARK VICENTE: Executive Success Programs.
MR. LESKO: I should have asked you that with respect to 164, I apologize.
MARK VICENTE: I believe it had both -- I'm not able to see the smaller writing but I believe it has both names on it from my recollection of the bottom.
MR. LESKO: What names?
MARK VICENTE: So, NXIVM, N-X-I-V-M, and I believe that's Executive Success Programs beneath it.
MR. LESKO: And you're referring to the sign in front of the building that's depicted on Government's 164?
MARK VICENTE: The blue sign, the blue sign right there.
MR. LESKO: Showing you what's been admitted as Government's 166.
What does that photograph show?
MARK VICENTE: That is the parking plaque for Nancy Salzman. There were a few reserved parking spots in front of the building and she held one of them.
MR. LESKO: And was there a NXIVM building next door to 455 New Karner Road?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, I believe it was 457 New Karner Road, right next door. 457 had in it the accounting department and at a certain time it also had the IT, the computer technology department as well.
MR. LESKO: Showing you what's been admitted as Government's 170.
What does that photograph show?
MARK VICENTE: That is 457 New Karner Road?
MR. LESKO: Is that the front of the bidding?
MARK VICENTE: That is the front of the building facing the parking lot, yes.
MR. LESKO: Showing you what's been admitted as Government's 169.
What does that photograph show?
MARK VICENTE: That's the same building, just a wider image.
MR. LESKO: I'm showing you Government's 167 which has been admitted into evidence.
What does that photograph show?
MARK VICENTE: It's a different angle of the same building, it's to the right of the other two images that you showed me.
MR. LESKO: And does that photograph show the building number on the building?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, 457.
MR. LESKO: And who owned 455 and 457 New Karner Road, the two buildings?
MARK VICENTE: My understanding is it was owned by Sara Bronfman and Clare Bronfman.
MR. LESKO: Did NXIVM operate in a former restaurant in Clifton Park?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, there was a restaurant that was renamed to Apropos. I don't recall what it was before, I think it was an Italian restaurant before. It was on Route 9 in Clifton Park, but it was renamed Apropos when I believe Clare Bronfman bought the building and I believe that Clare Bronfman and Raniere named it Apropos together I believe.
MR. LESKO: This is going to be a quiz, could you spell Apropos for the court reporter please?
MARK VICENTE: A-P-R-O-P-O-S I think.
MR. LESKO: I think that's right.
What occurred at Apropos?
MARK VICENTE: A number of things, there were trainings at Apropos and there were community events at Apropos. It was also a restaurant of sorts, people paid a membership to be members to be able to come and eat there. Certain trainings were run there, Jness trainings were run there, the first SOP trainings were run there, something called coach summits were run there, forums were held there, and then there were parties that were held there as well, community parties.
MR. LESKO: Showing you what's been admitted as Government's 157.
Do you recognize that photograph?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, that's Apropos.
MR. LESKO: Is that the entire building of Apropos?
MARK VICENTE: That is the entire building -- well, the front of the building, yes.
MR. LESKO: Showing you what's been admitted as Government's 159, what is that?
MARK VICENTE: That is a closer image of the same building.
MR. LESKO: Apropos?
MARK VICENTE: Apropos.
MR. LESKO: Did NXIVM properties, either residential or commercial, have surveillance cameras?
MARK VICENTE: Many of them did. I know the ones that I was in -- well, specifically 7 Generals Way there was a surveillance camera -- well, it was a camera of some kind on it. There was a company called Plugged In, Plugged In was some kind of a new technology company and many of us were asked, you know, could we install some equipment in your house and connect it to your modem in your house and then, additionally, there was a camera placed on our houses facing the driveway and the street. I was never clear what it was for but.
MR. LESKO: Since you mention it, what was Plugged In?
MARK VICENTE: So, Plugged In, in my understanding, was some brand new tech company that Raniere had created and, you know, I'm not sure if it was patented or what it was, the idea was to create a -- the things I heard was to create a mesh network using cell phones and devices to create a communication system that wasn't necessarily connected to the rest of the internet. Some of the ideas that I heard from Raniere were, you know, during video conferencing together but, in essence, creating a communication system and there were also a series of, I was told, astounding things that this company would be able to develop and create, I don't know what they were, I don't know if they ever came to fruition. I know that an enormous amount of money was spent but I'm not sure what it really was.
MR. LESKO: Do you have an understanding now or an opinion now as to why all of these cameras and connectivity were established through the Plugged In process?
MR. AGNIFILO: I'm going to object, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Sustained.
MARK VICENTE: I'm sorry, was --
THE COURT: Sustained means don't answer.
MARK VICENTE: Don't answer, thank you.
MR. LESKO: Did your understanding regarding the installation and use of surveillance cameras change over time?
MARK VICENTE: Well, I could never make sense of why there were cameras there so I -- I think I assumed that this is some brilliant --
MR. AGNIFILO: I'm going to object.
MARK VICENTE: -- at the beginning of it --
THE COURT: Hold on, hold on. Sustained as to what he assumed.
MR. LESKO: Did your understanding change as to what the cameras were being used for?
MARK VICENTE: Yes.
MR. LESKO: What was your -- what is your understanding now?
MARK VICENTE: My understanding is surveillance on us.
THE COURT: "Us" meaning?
MARK VICENTE: Members of the community.
MR. LESKO: Were there instances in NXIVM where participants could not afford the tuition or fees?
MARK VICENTE: Often; I mean there were people of means that could, you know, pay any amount of money but there were a number of people that came in that couldn't afford to pay the tuition.
MR. LESKO: And are you familiar with the term "exchange"?
MARK VICENTE: I am.
MR. LESKO: What was exchange at NXIVM?
MARK VICENTE: There were two kind of exchanges that I was aware of; the one exchange was, you know, if you could not afford the curriculum, you would in essence go into debt with the company and then you would work in some fashion to pay that off over time and you would have to pay the full amount, so you weren't paying the discounted rate. So, if you did a training that was $7,500, that's how much you owed and then you would do different jobs in the community, lower level jobs to try to pay that off. That was one method of exchange.
The other method of exchange I was aware of was, for instance, if you wanted to do a Level 2 training but you couldn't afford it, you would agree to a contract whereby you would take that training which would involve also mentoring other people and then you would still owe three more trainings that you would have to attend to mentor others. That was my understanding of another form of exchange.
MR. LESKO: Generally speaking, were participants who were in the exchange program, we'll call it, at NXIVM able to actually pay or satisfy their debt?
MARK VICENTE: I don't know if they were able to satisfy it completely. I know that people struggled, it took quite -- it took a substantial amount of time.
MR. LESKO: You have mentioned that people, participants were encouraged to take additional trainings --
MARK VICENTE: Correct.
MR. LESKO: -- at NXIVM.
Were there consequences if people missed trainings?
MARK VICENTE: I mean I certainly was given a hard time in the two instances that I missed a high level training, I was called and berated for not attending the training. But it was pretty common that if somebody was a high ranking person or wanting to work their way up the stripe path, if they didn't take the training it would be seen as a problem, you know, a lack of commitment to their own growth.
MR. LESKO: So, when new curriculum was created at NXIVM, were new companies formed that corresponded to the new curriculum?
MARK VICENTE: Often that was true, yes. In the case of, you know, Ultima was an umbrella company and there were a number of other companies underneath. I think Ethicist eventually had a company called Ethicist. Jness obviously had a company called Jness LLC. Society of Protectors had a company called LLC. I believe for the most part new curriculum, yes, did have new companies.
MR. LESKO: Was the defendant's name associated with those companies?
MARK VICENTE: Not that I'm aware of, the companies were usually in other people's names.
MR. LESKO: What was the defendant's role with respect to all of these companies?
MARK VICENTE: He was seen as the creator of the educational model and the company itself and he was the philosophy behind these things, that's in essence how he was seen.
MR. LESKO: Who had ultimate authority over all of these companies?
MARK VICENTE: He had authority over all the companies.
MR. LESKO: Who, as a legal matter, actually owned these companies?
MARK VICENTE: Well, there were different people, you know, Pam Cafritz owned one or two companies, I believe Jim Del Negro owned some of the companies, I think Nancy Salzman owned some of them but, as far as I know, he did not -- he was not on paper that I can recall except potentially I think he was a signer on the nondisclosure agreement for ESP I think.
MR. LESKO: Did Clare Bronfman own any of these companies?
MARK VICENTE: I believe so, I believe -- well, she owned the foundations, as far as I can recall. I don't recall at this moment the other companies that she may have owned.
MR. LESKO: You've mentioned a person named Jim Del Negro. I'm showing you what's been admitted as Government's 17.
Do you recognize that photo?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, that is Jim Del Negro.
MR. LESKO: Who is Jim Del Negro?
MARK VICENTE: Jim is -- was, is a proctor in the organization. He was also one of the leaders of the Society of Protectors along with me. He also worked in the -- I suppose the de facto legal department of the company as well and he also ended up being one of the co-owners, overseers of the Albany center.
MR. LESKO: You mentioned that the defendant had ultimate authority over the NXIVM companies, how did he exercise that authority or control over those companies?
MARK VICENTE: Well, there was the -- I mean there was the -- any -- once he created something, if there were any changes that needed to occur or that other people thought needed to occur, he would have to be consulted. He was pretty strict on once I create something a certain way, this is the way it needs to run. If changes were requested, you know, we'd have to talk to him about that. He -- people reported in to him about the different intensives and the different companies that were going on. He took a keen interest in what was happening with every single intensive and every single company and then my understanding was that he also received a certain --
MR. AGNIFILO: I object, Your Honor.
THE COURT: All right.
MS. HAJJAR: Can --
THE COURT: If you have another question that the witness can address, go ahead.
MR. LESKO: So, did the defendant receive any sort of compensation from the companies?
MR. AGNIFILO: If the witness knows the answer to that question.
MR. LESKO: If you know?
MARK VICENTE: I do. When I began working with him on certain film projects, the arrangement we had was that 10 percent of net would go to him. He suggested it was for scientific research. I know in the case of the Society of Protectors, that was the same and it was my general understanding of how things worked.
MR. LESKO: Did you have any understanding as to why the defendant did not actually own all of the companies that he controlled?
MARK VICENTE: My understanding at first was he was termed a renunciate and a renunciate was the idea that -- or what I understood was somebody who had no possessions and had no attachment to the external world in any way. I was taught that he had achieved a certain level of, you know, something close to what was termed unification, he didn't require external stimuli to be joyful and he didn't require possessions. So, any clothes that he had were given to him, you know, food was given to him. He was -- I was told, he told me he didn't have a driver's license, he was driven around. So, that was my understanding was that he did not want to be attached to the world in any way and that was my understanding of his reasoning.
MR. LESKO: Did he ever have a discussion with you where he indicated how this status would affect the establishment?
MARK VICENTE: Well, I'm not totally clear on your question.
MR. LESKO: His status as a renunciate, given how you've described it, did he ever say that presented a problem for the establishment?
MARK VICENTE: I'll try to understand; one thing with respect to the establishment that I understood from him was that he considered himself to be a person of interest to many different authorities, that they -- he was a threat to society because of his ethical understanding of things, that because of his IQ and intelligence and problem solving ability he was being watched very carefully. He would suggest to me on many occasions that he had to be careful about his movements because he told me he was being watched all the time and that this -- I suppose my word -- conspiracy went to the highest levels against him.
MR. LESKO: Did the ESP sash system and stripe path apply to all of the other NXIVM-related companies?
MARK VICENTE: They were related in the sense that if somebody was running another company, they were urged to be on the stripe path as well and the stripe path was seen as a way to measure somebody's leadership, their accountability, their loyalty, their -- how grown up they were basically. So, if somebody was to run another company and they weren't on the stripe path, that was seen as a problem and many of the things that they would need to do to resolve issues in whatever company they were working, you know, they may be told you should talk to your coach about it or you should get an EM about it, you should do some process that was in the ESP curriculum as well related to the stripe path. So, the stripe path was seen as the foundation of how to become the kind of person you need to to run a company ethically.
MR. LESKO: Now, we've discussed a number of NXIVM-related companies; were there other companies that you haven't named here during your testimony?
MARK VICENTE: Let's see, I've mentioned Source, XOSO, Reverence, Ethicist, Rainbow.
MR. LESKO: It's not a quiz. Are there other companies? I don't need you to mention them. Are there other companies that haven't been mentioned that were related to NXIVM?
MARK VICENTE: Well, there are a host of other companies, I don't know what they did, but there were a host of other companies.
MR. LESKO: Approximately how many NXIVM-related companies were there?
MARK VICENTE: I need to make a distinction because there's what I learned later --
MR. LESKO: Well --
MARK VICENTE: -- and what I knew at the time.
MR. LESKO: As you sit here today, what is your understanding of approximately how many NXIVM-related companies?
MARK VICENTE: Over 60 companies.
THE COURT: 60?
MARK VICENTE: Over 60.
MR. LESKO: Let's talk a bit about the executive board. You mentioned that the executive board led the NXIVM organization. When you first became involved with ESP, who was on the executive board?
MARK VICENTE: My recollection is it was Barbara Bouchey, Lauren Salzman, Edgar Boone, I think it was Karen Unterreiner. I'm blanking if there's anybody else.
MR. LESKO: Was Nancy Salzman on the executive board?
MARK VICENTE: She was but being the CEO, she wasn't exactly the executive board but she was considered to be above the executive board.
MR. LESKO: Was a person named Loreta Garza on the executive board?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, that is correct.
MR. LESKO: Showing you what's been admitted as Government's Exhibit 50.
What does that photograph show?
MARK VICENTE: That is Lauren Salzman.
MR. LESKO: We've seen photographs of Nancy Salzman and Edgar Boone and Barbara Bouchey. I'm going to show you Government's Exhibit 16.
MARK VICENTE: That is Loreta Garza.
MR. LESKO: Over time did the members of the executive board change?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, there was change that occurred in 2009 where a number of new people were brought on including myself to form a new executive board.
MR. LESKO: And who were members of the newly constituted executive board in 2009?
MARK VICENTE: So, the new board was Karen Unterreiner, Clare Bronfman, myself, Alex Betancourt, Emiliano Salinas and then Lauren Salzman rejoined a few weeks later.
MR. LESKO: Okay. I should have asked this earlier, I apologize. Government's 16, I'll show it to you again, who was Loreta Garza?
MARK VICENTE: Loreta Garza, as I said, was on the executive board earlier on. She was the head of a company that -- the company Rainbow Cultural Garden, RCG; she was also a green so she oversaw a great number of people. She also worked with a lot of the clients and the staff in Mexico as well.
MR. LESKO: All right. So, getting to the new executive board in 2009; we've seen a photograph of Clare Bronfman. I'm going to show you what's been admitted as Government's 53.
Do you recognize that photograph?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, that is Karen Unterreiner.
MR. LESKO: Who is Karen Unterreiner?
MARK VICENTE: Karen Unterreiner, again on the executive board, she was a head trainer, she was a -- she held the rank of proctor. She also worked in the finance/accounting department. She was the one that calculated all the commissions and she was -- Raniere told us that she was one of his oldest friends, that they had gone to RPI together.
MR. LESKO: What is RPI?
MARK VICENTE: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, I hope.
MR. LESKO: Did the defendant tell you that he had gone to RPI?
MARK VICENTE: He did, yes.
MR. LESKO: I'm going to show you what's been admitted as Government's 49.
What does that photograph show?
MARK VICENTE: That is Emiliano Salinas.
MR. LESKO: Who is Emiliano Salinas?
MARK VICENTE: Emiliano Salinas is -- was the head of the Mexico City center, ESP center along with his business partner, Alex Betancourt. He comes from a very, very influential family in Mexico. He was also one of the members of the Society of Protectors and he was also on the executive board with me and the others.
MR. LESKO: Who is Emiliano Salinas's father, if you know?
MARK VICENTE: His father is Carlos Salinas, one of the ex-presidents of Mexico.
MR. LESKO: I'm going to show you what's been admitted as Government's 3.
MARK VICENTE: That is Alex Betancourt.
MR. LESKO: Who is Alex Betancourt?
MARK VICENTE: Alex Betancourt was the co-owner of the Mexico City center. I believe -- he was on the executive board as well. I believe he was in the ethics division. He was a businessman, entrepreneur, had a number of businesses and he was also one of the business owners of there was an island that had been, not the whole island purchased but there was an island in Fiji that he was involved, had some business dealings with creating a business there.
MR. LESKO: We will talk about that in a moment, but were properties purchased in Fiji, the island?
MARK VICENTE: Yes.
MR. LESKO: By a NXIVM affiliated person?
MARK VICENTE: My understanding is that he and Clare Bronfman and Raniere were together in some kind of company to purchase multiple properties on the island.
MR. LESKO: How long did you serve on NXIVM's executive board?
MARK VICENTE: From 2009 until May 22nd, 2017.
MR. LESKO: Was there a group within NXIVM that handled its legal matters?
MARK VICENTE: It was loosely termed the legal department. It wasn't -- I mean it wasn't actually lawyers, it was a group of people that worked in what was called Legal.
MR. LESKO: And who worked in Legal?
MARK VICENTE: Clare Bronfman, Jim Del Negro, Kristin Keeffe, Lisa Derks. I'm blanking if there are others.
MR. LESKO: And if you know, who were the decision makers in Legal?
MARK VICENTE: The decision makers in Legal were Clare Bronfman and Raniere.
MR. LESKO: I'm going to show you Government's Exhibit 34.
What does that photograph show?
MARK VICENTE: That is Kristin Keeffe.
MR. LESKO: Who is Kristin Keeffe?
MARK VICENTE: Kristin Keeffe was a member of NXIVM ESP long before I arrived. She was I believe a proctor and she was also a close confidant of Raniere and she was one of the leaders of the legal department.
MR. LESKO: What sort of matters did the legal department handle?
MARK VICENTE: They seemed to handle -- there was a lot of patent applications that were going on and there were also a number of lawsuits in process against various people.
MR. LESKO: And who were those people?
MARK VICENTE: There were suits in process against the Times Union, against --
THE COURT: The Times Union is what?
MARK VICENTE: The Times Union is a newspaper in Albany, New York.
THE COURT: The Albany Times Union?
MARK VICENTE: Albany Times Union.
MR. LESKO: Let's not get into the subject matter of those lawsuits, just who were they --
MARK VICENTE: Sure, so Times Union; Jim Odato, one of the journalists. There was lawsuits against, I believe it was Vanity Fair. I'm not -- I don't recall if there was one against Forbes. There was one against Rick Ross, somebody called Stephanie Franco and later post-2009 against -- my understanding was against people like Susan Dones and Barbara Bouchey.
MR. LESKO: We'll talk about all those people a bit later.
Were you involved in the legal department?
MARK VICENTE: Not -- I wasn't in the department. I at one point did something for them.
MR. LESKO: And was -- I think you mentioned this -- was anyone in Legal an attorney?
MARK VICENTE: Not to my knowledge, no.
MR. LESKO: You discussed Clare Bronfman and her role in Legal and I'm going to put her photograph up, Government's 8; what were -- along with the legal responsibilities, what were Clare Bronfman's other roles at NXIVM?
MARK VICENTE: She was on the executive board as well, she was a proctor, she tended to be the direct liaison between the executive board and Raniere. There were a number of things that the executive board were not really privy to that she was with Raniere. She also I believe financed a great number of things in the company and she also was the person -- Raniere was training her to be more legally minded. He would explain that, you know, lawyers don't know how to think so he was teaching her how to think so she could help the lawyers think.
MR. LESKO: Was she involved with the ethics division?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, she was.
MR. LESKO: In what way?
MARK VICENTE: I believe she was one of the heads of the ethics division. She was also the -- in essence, she was like the acting CFO of the company, she was responsible for how monies were spent, she had to -- when I left she had to approve any monies that were spent in any way.
MR. LESKO: Was she involved in real estate projects, in investments at NXIVM?
MARK VICENTE: I believe she owned a number of complexes, houses, that kind of thing. She was involved in a real estate development in Los Angeles with a number of properties and then also properties in the Albany area and also Fiji as well.
MR. LESKO: Was she involved in enrolling anyone at NXIVM?
MARK VICENTE: She would -- she worked on enrolling high net worth, you know, high value people to come to take trainings. She moved in certainly different circles than I did for the most part.
MR. LESKO: And I think you've mentioned this earlier but she also provided a private jet for a period of time?
MARK VICENTE: Correct.
MR. LESKO: Did she have -- did she attain a rank on the stripe path?
MARK VICENTE: She was a proctor, I don't recall the number of stripes she had but she was a proctor.
MR. LESKO: Did there come a time when Clare Bronfman got in trouble at NXIVM?
MARK VICENTE: From what I understand from her and from Nancy Salzman, there was an incident that occurred with her father where she did something that caused her father to get very upset at the company and at Raniere and from what I've heard from Raniere and others, her father then tried to destroy the company and used his enormous wealth to try and destroy Raniere and the company and it was spoke -- it was discussed about how the thing she had done was a breach that she was trying to heal.
MR. LESKO: And did she have a time frame for healing that breach?
MARK VICENTE: I have no idea, I just recall that it was -- she had done something that was so bad that it really set things back.
MR. LESKO: Do you recall approximately when this happened?
MARK VICENTE: My recollection, it was just before I came in so it may have been -- it may have been 2004, I'm not entirely certain.
MR. LESKO: Did you specifically hear the defendant say that Clare Bronfman was in breach?
MARK VICENTE: I don't recall him saying those specific words.
MR. LESKO: What did he say?
MARK VICENTE: Generally the way he would talk about things is more round about like, well, there are some things that she needs to fix or heal, that kind of thing. I don't believe he said specifically a breach to me.
MR. LESKO: Who was Clare Bronfman's father?
MARK VICENTE: Edgar Bronfman, Sr., he was one of the heads of the Seagram's fortune and he was also the head of the World Jewish Congress.
MR. LESKO: Was he a billionaire?
MARK VICENTE: He was a billionaire.
MR. LESKO: Were you aware of conflict between Clare and Sara Bronfman and their father?
MARK VICENTE: I was, I was. They were unhappy that their father was not as supportive as they'd liked about their involvement with Raniere and with the company in general and there was a great deal of conflict that happened that they were unhappy with.
MR. LESKO: Was there conflict between Sara and Clare Bronfman and their father between 2005 and 2010?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, during that time period there definitely was conflict, yes.
MR. LESKO: You mentioned that Clare Bronfman served as acting CFO; were there other people within NXIVM who handled the financial or accounting matters at NXIVM?
MARK VICENTE: There were. There was a whole accounting department that was generally at 457 New Karner Road, you know, there was financial and there was accounting and I sometimes wasn't sure of the -- who was who but there was an accounting department, yes.
MR. LESKO: And who worked at the accounting department?
MARK VICENTE: The accounting department was Kathy Russell, my mother actually worked there as a low level bookkeeper for a number of years, Karen Unterreiner had interface with the department, and then my understanding was that Clare Bronfman was the person in charge.
MR. LESKO: And you mentioned that the accounting department was located at 455 New Karner Road?
MARK VICENTE: 457.
MR. LESKO: I'm sorry, 457. Did you ever discuss NXIVM's finances with the defendant?
MARK VICENTE: I discussed finances of different sorts, I don't know that I discussed NXIVM's finances.
MR. LESKO: Were you able to -- would you ask him questions about the finances related to NXIVM or a related company?
MARK VICENTE: I did, I was trying to understand how certain things worked. I couldn't understand the financial structures of things, I was trying to understand how they worked. It was an enormous mystery to me. I once went to him with an issue that came up because I couldn't get an answer from the accounting department on a tax issue. Eventually I went to him out of frustration to please help sort it out. So, we had discussions of that nature as well.
MR. LESKO: Were you able to get answers from the defendant regarding your questions about NXIVM's finances?
MARK VICENTE: I wasn't. The entire thing seemed to be a complete mystery. My experience was there was a -- when we made requests there was a certain kind of a wall that we couldn't get past. For instance, on the executive board we were told, you know, that we're running at a loss all the time and then myself and other members would say, well, can we see the books so we can understand what this loss is and then we were told, you know, yes, we'll get you the books, and that never happened. So, we never actually got access to the numbers, we were just told we're just at a loss all the time.
MR. LESKO: So, getting back to this 10 percent that was owed the defendant, was this like a royalty payment type of payment?
MARK VICENTE: I don't know what the exact -- I don't know if that was the exact term but it was basically a 10 percent fee and he said for scientific research.
MR. LESKO: And you mentioned you had this arrangement specifically with the defendant?
MARK VICENTE: I did, anything we created together and that was usually in the nature of like film projects, that was the understanding that I had with him.
MR. LESKO: Did you actually pay the 10 percent to the defendant?
MARK VICENTE: There was no profit ever in anything I did that would allow me to pay him that.
MR. LESKO: Did SOP have this same relationship with the defendant?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, but I don't know, again, if those monies were ever paid.
MR. LESKO: You started SOP, right?
MARK VICENTE: I was one of the founding members, yes.
MR. LESKO: Who actually was the legal owner of SOP?
MARK VICENTE: The legal owner of SOP was Pam Cafritz.
MR. LESKO: How did that come about?
MARK VICENTE: When we began the organization we would meet, you know, very, very late at night and at one meeting Raniere asked those of us who founded it with him, do you mind if Pam is the signer, the legal owner of the company, and we said, no, of course not, you know, you're the boss, whatever you want is fine.
MR. LESKO: Did Pam actually assist in operating SOP?
MARK VICENTE: She did not.
MR. LESKO: Now, you mentioned that the 10 percent owed to the defendant went to research; is that correct?
MARK VICENTE: That was my understanding of where it was supposed to go. Where it would have gone in actuality I have no idea.
MR. LESKO: Now, what sort of research did the defendant conduct?
MARK VICENTE: It was a wide range of things. There were brain studies going on that began a few years after I arrived. Basically the idea was to hook people up to their -- using one of those skull caps with sensors running into a computer to assess what was happening in their brains during intensives. They had recorders and different measuring devices attached to them.
There was also -- Raniere and I discussed, him and I and other people as well, you know, studies about, you know, psychopathy, sociopathy, people who didn't have conscience. He'd use the term Luciferian and he had some kind of a patent that he had developed to rehabilitate a Luciferian and I'm assuming a Luciferian meant some kind of a person with no conscience that's mal intended but he had some kind of patent to rehabilitate someone like that.
And then there was, you know, a certain amount of intake forms in the intensives that I believe were used in the scientific research but his -- he told me that, you know, he really wanted to -- what he'd really like to be doing with his life is have a lab and be a lab scientist.
MR. LESKO: You said psychopathy as one of the subjects of the defendant's research, is that in essence the study of psychopaths?
MARK VICENTE: Yes, he had a definition of, you know, psychopath versus sociopath and it was in a fair amount of the curriculum, there was a lot of study of people with no conscience, of, you know, people with, you know, narcissism. There were intensives dedicated to the best and the worst in humanity and the worst being people that tortured other people and did some really really dark things.
MR. LESKO: Okay. And you mentioned previously I believe that the Rational Inquiry methodology was subject to a patent; is that correct?
MARK VICENTE: When I came in, my understanding is that it was patented and then it changed to it was patent pending and later I learned it had been rejected.
MR. LESKO: So, there's no patent actually issued for Rational Inquiry?
MARK VICENTE: That's my understanding. I think it was applied for but my understanding is it wasn't what I thought at the beginning that it was -- I mean I would go around selling this thing as, you know, Rational Inquiry is patented in the Patent Office under artificial intelligence because nobody knows what to do with it it's so advanced because that's what I was led to believe.
MR. LESKO: And was that a lie?
MARK VICENTE: I believe so.
MR. LESKO: These other patents, were they actually issued?
MARK VICENTE: I recall there was a patent, the sash patent I believe was issued; also I recall that at one of the V weeks -- I can explain that later -- at one of the V weeks there was a lawyer who was on stage with Raniere who had these large plaques that were engraved with the actual, I think the patent page and that those were presented to the community as, you know, these are just, you know, five or six patents that, you know, Vanguard has filed recently and also Clare Bronfman told me that she was spending upward of 40,000 a month just on patenting things.
MR. LESKO: Are you familiar with the person named Brandon Porter?
MARK VICENTE: I am.
MR. LESKO: Who is Brandon Porter?
MARK VICENTE: Brandon Porter is a doctor. I actually coached him for a number of years while he was in medical school. He moved from I'm going to say Ohio or Iowa, I'm not sure which one, to Albany to basically do scientific research with Raniere.
MR. LESKO: And what was that scientific research?
MARK VICENTE: To the best of my knowledge, it was basically analyzing all the data of all the brain scans and all the recording devices and the different other measuring equipment, somehow collating it. There was just a lot of data gathering going on.
And then there were certain studies that they were -- some psychological studies that they were involved in that I -- I didn't know about them at first but I found out later.
MR. LESKO: And what was nature of some of those studies?
MR. AGNIFILO: Your Honor, can we approach for a second?
THE COURT: You want to approach?
MR. AGNIFILO: Yes.
THE COURT: Yes, all right.
If you'd like to stand up and stretch, please do so.
(Continued on next page.)
(The following takes place at sidebar.)
THE COURT: Yes.
MR. AGNIFILO: So --
THE COURT: Yes, sir.
MR. AGNIFILO: Yes, Judge, so my concern is I think what we're heading into is that Brandon Porter was doing a study -- I think where Mark is going -- of people who observed very macabre like violent episodes and I have two concerns with it; one, I have a 403 concern that I don't know, it seems unduly prejudicial if that's what he's about to testify to, and second, I don't know what Mr. Vicente's base of knowledge is.
So, my first concern is a 403 concern and then there's a -- I guess a relevance concern.
THE COURT: Let's start with the foundation concern.
MS. HAJJAR: Your Honor, if we could, I mean to answer Your Honor's question directly, these fright studies involved exposing participants to very violent shocking films primarily and gauging their -- I guess their electric reaction in their brains among other things.
Mr. Vicente will testify, if allowed, that he provided one of the films and that film involved the decapitation and dismemberment of women in Mexico.
I would suggest that -- I can move on and we can address this later perhaps at a break. I can certainly revisit this later in Mr. Vicente's testimony.
THE COURT: Why don't we do that.
MR. AGNIFILO: All right.
THE COURT: All right. We'll take it up -- we can take it up when we recess for lunch so we can get it dealt with.
MS. HAJJAR: Great.
MR. AGNIFILO: Thank you, Judge.
THE COURT: Okay. Thank you.
(End of sidebar.)
(Continued on next page.)
(Continued.)
THE COURT: All right. You may continue.
BY MR. LESKO:
MR. LESKO: We'll move on for the moment, Mr. Vicente.
MARK VICENTE: Understood.
MR. LESKO: Getting back to the 10 percent fees, was there anyone at NXIVM responsible for calculating those fees that were owed to the defendant?
MARK VICENTE: My understanding it would have been Karen Unterreiner because she did all the calculations at the end of every single month, so my understanding is that it would have been her, the final calculator. I know in the case of Society of Protectors, Jim Del Negro was doing the calculations for Society of Protectors, so, you know, he might have been responsible for that.
MR. LESKO: Did you understand those calculations, how they were -- how they were done?
MARK VICENTE: It was a complete and utter mystery. I tried many times -- I asked, in the case of SOP, can you please explain this to me and I -- it was never clear.
MR. LESKO: In your experience, did the accounting department at NXIVM run smoothly?
MARK VICENTE: It was chaos.
MR. LESKO: Would NXIVM employees receive checks?
MARK VICENTE: NXIVM employees would receive checks except they weren't considered employees. They were considered, you know, independent contractors, but yes, they would receive checks.
MR. LESKO: Was it always clear what those checks involved?
MARK VICENTE: It wasn't. In fact, we used the term inside the company, you know, we just got a check from the mysterious NXIVM gods. We had no idea what they were for.
MR. LESKO: Did anyone at NXIVM seem to know when individuals would get paid at NXIVM?
MARK VICENTE: The understanding was, generally, a few -- you know, a number of days after the end of the month it was generally a week to -- it was -- Karen Unterreiner, I think, for the most part, was the one that knew when that would happen. I had asked her on occasion, you know, Do you know when, and she'd say, you know, another two or three days kind of thing.
MR. LESKO: Was a person named Kathy Russell involved in the accounting department?
MARK VICENTE: She was, yes.
MR. LESKO: What was her role in the accounting department?
MARK VICENTE: I'm actually not entirely certain, it was a bit of a mystery. She seemed to operate a little bit independently, but I went to her on occasion -- I had a number of altercations with her about some issues, one was related to tax, and I went to her because I was told that's who I should talk to.
MR. LESKO: Did the defendant ever express concerns about bankruptcy?
MARK VICENTE: Well, in the sense that when I asked him, you know, why there are so many companies, he said to me in -- two things; one was, in order to be bankruptcy remote, I wasn't entirely sure what that meant, and he sort of clarified it as in order to make sure -- we can't be destroyed. There's too many different companies that, even if one single company gets destroyed, we can still live, be okay.
MR. LESKO: And how would that -- what was your understanding about how that destruction would occur?
MR. AGNIFILO: I'm sorry, I object to the form of the question, Judge.
BY MR. LESKO:
MR. LESKO: Destroyed by what?
MARK VICENTE: The forces against NXIVM and against Raniere.
MR. LESKO: Did you ever discuss with the defendant or Nancy Salzman their experience with the company before ESP?
MARK VICENTE: It was -- yes. It was -- there was a number of companies, CBI was one. There was something called National Health something, I can't remember the exact name, but CBI was one that was talked about quite a lot.
MR. LESKO: What was discussed about CBI?
MARK VICENTE: So CBI, I was told by numerous people, including them, was the brainchild of Raniere; it was a buying club that occurred -- I think it was in the '90s, and the idea was he created a system where he could get people things for less money. In essence, you know, if he pooled everybody's resources and requests, and let's say 50 people -- you know, 5,000 people wanted a DVD player -- a VHS machine, he would try to get it for much less because there were so many people willing to buy it, so it became a buying club and it was membership based, and apparently it grew very large, it was enormously successful. He had said that he had made a number of millionaires over this time, so he was very good at this kind of thing, and then he and Nancy Salzman and others said that it was basically destroyed by political forces.
MR. LESKO: What political forces?
MARK VICENTE: The story that I heard was that --
MR. AGNIFILO: Your Honor --
THE COURT: Sustained.
BY MR. LESKO:
MR. LESKO: What was your understanding, based upon your discussions with the defendant and Nancy Salzman, regarding what happened to CBI?
MARK VICENTE: Raniere told me that Bill Clinton's people asked for some money because Raniere was doing business in -- I think it was Arkansas, and he refused to give Bill Clinton's people money. So, in retribution, they went after him and I think it was -- I can't remember the exact number, it was many, many attorney generals went after him to destroy the company and, in essence, he was run out of town and, you know, told he could never have -- run an MLM again, multilevel-marketing organization, and that he couldn't do business in -- in Arkansas, and that -- Raniere also suggested to me that it had to do with another more powerful company that was trying to get rid of him that was doing the same kind of thing.
THE COURT: When was this? Do you have a time frame for this?
MARK VICENTE: I think it was the '90s. It was before I came, so these were the stories that I was told.
THE COURT: I was just interested in with regard to Clinton; was it before he was president, allegedly, or after he was president?
MARK VICENTE: I, unfortunately, don't remember.
THE COURT: All right.
MARK VICENTE: I'm not certain.
THE COURT: Go ahead.
BY MR. LESKO:
MR. LESKO: What is an MLM -- what is your understanding of what an MLM or multilevel marketing is?
MARK VICENTE: My understanding is that, instead of having a retail store for things, you utilize a membership-based sales force to sell something. And my understanding of this, because I have been involved in some of them, you know, let's say you're selling soaps or essential oils or something, you become a member and you work your way up the organization by selling, you know, and you get to become a certain level of distributor and the higher level you are, the more commission you make. You know, if you sell a bar of soap for let's say $20, you know, if you are lower level maybe you make a dollar, if you are higher level you make $5; so in essence, the more you sell and the more of an organization you build, the more passive income you're making, and if you build enough people, you can kind of sit around eventually and just, you know, make money.
MR. LESKO: Let's talk a bit about profits at NXIVM. Did you have any understanding as to how profits were handled within NXIVM?
MARK VICENTE: My understanding is there's a whole commission structure of how monies were dispersed. The gross was coming in to head office, it was generally paid into a computer system, and then, you know, the sales force got a portion, proctors got a portion, trainers got a portion, centers got a portion, and then the remainder, which I recall was around 15 percent, I believe, went back to the actual company itself.
MR. LESKO: Was it ever clear to you as to how profits were handled within the company? Within NXIVM, I should say.
MARK VICENTE: Other than that, I don't -- I don't know that I understood the internal workings of things; I just understood that that structure existed and I understood that I would get a certain percentage based on what job I was doing.
MR. LESKO: Your Honor, I'm about to move to another area.
THE COURT: All right. I think this is a good point to recess for lunch.
All rise for the jury.
(Jury exits.)
THE COURT: All right. The witness may stand down. Do not discuss your testimony with anyone.
Everyone may be seated.
(Witness excused.)
THE COURT: There's an issue that's come up, let's discuss it.
MS. PENZA: Your Honor, may we just have two minutes to discuss before we -- oh, is this the same issue we were discussing?
THE COURT: The same issue we were talking about. Do you want two minutes to discuss it amongst yourselves?
MS. PENZA: Yes, please.
THE COURT: I'll wait.
MS. PENZA: Thank you, Your Honor.
(Pause.)
MR. AGNIFILO: Judge, I think we might have resolved our issue.
THE COURT: You might have resolved your issue?
MR. AGNIFILO: I think we resolved the basis for the sidebar and my objection; we resolved it.
MR. LESKO: Yes, Your Honor --
THE COURT: Well, share with me the outcome.
MR. LESKO: Well, right now, we do not intend to elicit testimony regarding the studies that we discussed at sidebar, and I believe Mr. Agnifilo has indicated that he does not intend to go into that area on cross-examination. If that situation changes, which is doubtful, but if it does, we will provide Mr. Agnifilo with notice. I imagine we will be continuing with direct examination on Monday and we will -- if we happen to change our minds, we will let Mr. Agnifilo know and we will revisit the issue with the Court.
THE COURT: Okay. So your direct will go beyond five o'clock tonight?
MR. LESKO: I fully expect it will, yes.
THE COURT: And then, on Monday, how much more -- you will let me know at the end of the day about how much time you will need on Monday so that Mr. Agnifilo can advise me about how long -- how much time to block out for the cross-examination.
MR. AGNIFILO: That's fine, Judge. Yes.
THE COURT: All right. So those are the -- that's the information that I need at the end of the day today.
All right, let's have lunch.
MS. PENZA: Thank you.
MR. AGNIFILO: Thank you.
(Defendant exits courtroom 1:05 p.m.; lunch recess.)
A F T E R N O O N S E S S I O N
(Time noted: 2:00 p.m.)
(In open court; Jury not present.)
THE COURT: Sidebar, please.
(Continued on the next page.)
(Sidebar conference.)