3.Mark Vicente — Direct (Part 5)

MARK VICENTE: I had a phone conversation with Debra and she told me that there's a function on Facebook where you can poke somebody.

She told me that Raniere had poked her, you know, several times. That he had asked if he could Skype with her. And that also when she was in Albany and she attended volleyball, he walked off the game mid-game and sort of fawning all over her and she was very creeped out.

She also told me that she had a concern, because somebody called Amanda had tried to enroll her into a secret society, and Amanda wanted for her to give some form of collateral, you know, blackmailing material to keep her silence about the society. And she was deeply concerned about these things. So that's what she shared with me.

MARK VICENTE: I did.

So in the conversation with him, I said -- I said to him something to the effect, you know, what are you doing with her? You're scaring her. You poked her on repeatedly on Facebook. He said, "Well, it was just once."

And I said, "And what about Skype? I tried to Skype you for years and you said you don't have Skype."

And then also I began talking to him about this secret society and somebody trying to enroll her in something that required, you know, blackmailing material. And I was very concerned about it.

And he said to me, well, can you -- it was a fairly long conversation about a number of things; you know, including my understanding at that point that he might be the head of this society, and that he said to me: "Well, could you tell me who it is?" And I said: "I can't. Because if you are indeed the head of this society and this is true, if I tell who it is, you might release their collateral to the world in some way, and that's a huge problem."

So that was a -- a grave concern to me. And he said: "Well, he would investigate it." We had a private conversation about things going on with the -- with the women that he said he would investigate and, again, he was saying: "I'll investigate it."

And I remember further saying to him: "I'm really worried about these women. They look like zombies."

I remember him saying: "You have to define what a zombie is." And I realize I gave him a general practice of deflection.

So I said: "Okay, call me crazy then." He says: "Well I'm not calling you crazy, we have to figure these things out." And I had the sense that he was just evading me.

MARK VICENTE: Well, they were known for catering to the very, very wealthy individuals, much more so than any other center. Their people were, you know, from very wealthy, prestigious, powerful families.

They were the children a number of ex presidents, large corporations, large media corporations. I would say the upper echelons of society.

MARK VICENTE: I did. I went to the island -- I think it's called Wakaya, W-A-K-A-Y-A. Wakaya, which is one of the islands of Fiji.

It's somewhat of a private island with its own airstrip.

MARK VICENTE: I went -- it may have been up to three times. I went once for a VIP intensive. I was going to shoot the island, you know, recording video and photography, aerial drones, that kind of thing.

Another time was I think a different intensive, and then another time was purely a kind of vacation where Pam Cafritz invited a number of us to the island to spend time with her and Raniere and, you know, each other.

MARK VICENTE: My understanding was it was being designed as a place to hold VIP intensives. It was also being designed as a time share for NXIVM members who wanted to pay the yearly fee.

And I know that a number of properties were being purchased. I think eventually all of them were. I think, but I'm not entirely sure.

MARK VICENTE: I remember that one of them was owned by the gentleman who used to own Fiji Water. I don't recall his name now.

But they were bought -- in essence, my understanding was that Clare Bronfman and Alex Betancourt partnered up with Raniere to purchase the properties on the island.

MARK VICENTE: I was working on the Mexican film "Encender EL Cocorazon." E-N-C-E-N-D-E-R, space, E-L, space, C-O-C-O-R-A-Z-O-N, and there were a number of phone calls that I had with Raniere, you know, in years prior, and I wanted to do a recreation of those phone calls and I thought the best way to do that was maybe doing still photography of both him and then myself separately and using narration to suggest what we were talking about.

So I asked him if I could shoot some stills, still photographs of him, and I had used the -- what's called the executive library upstairs before to shoot things and I thought that would be a good setting to shoot him.

So I went to do this photo session and it was videotaped as well at the same time. I wasn't sure because I may use video, I may use stills, and we just did both.

MARK VICENTE: My thought was study. My thought was that he was there alone working on different things.

There were a great many books in the library to do with science and philosophy and, you know, psychology and biology and that kind of thing. And there were a number of computers. And, you know, to me it looked a bit like what I call a man den, an office.

MARK VICENTE: This here is -- that's Pam Cafritz to the extreme left.

To the right of her also standing is Marianna.

And then seated is Raniere.

MARK VICENTE: 2012, yes.

It's also in the timestamp in the middle there.

MARK VICENTE: I said I had concerns about the way we were treating people, that we -- we purported to be a humanitarian organization, and that when people came in we did not treat them that way at all. We treated them quite poorly. We -- we were -- we were demeaning to people that actually knew what they were doing. And I was trying to point out the way the company was operating was like a cloistered religion that was cut off from the rest of the world. And that people that came in that had -- had a lot of knowledge were considered they don't know because they don't have our ethics, or, you know, they don't know because they're not humanitarian enough. And I was trying to explain that there was a duplicity in the company in terms of what was stated and the way people were treated.

I also said that I was concerned that we're not really promoting people's dreams. We're not really helping them become greater. In fact, we're doing quite the opposite, that we're squashing their dreams and we're squashing what they wanted to do.

I also said that I had grave concerns about the way that Raniere was -- was treated like he was some kind of god, and that people -- some people couldn't make decisions without him, and he was seen as like almost an oracle -- I don't know if I used that word, but he was like an oracle, and that he was just a person, just a man, and that I was just very concerned about the almost religious nature of people's devotion to him, this belief that he had the answers to everything.

And I also talked about that there's a tremendous fear in the organization. That they're afraid of the upper ranks. That they're afraid to say the wrong thing, and that they're afraid to step out of line. And I said, so much so that even I am afraid to write this letter because I might become the problem in the organization, you know, in essence, meaning you know, well, maybe, you're going to come after me if I say these things. And I was trying to in essence get a lot of these -- to get things across to them because I was seeing a lot of the affects of these things in the company, and I was seeing that people were deeply unhappy. And as I said, it was like cloistered, closed-off, you know, convent of sorts.

MARK VICENTE: Yes. There was an event that really deeply concerned me. So at that time, the Society of Protectors consisted of Raniere, myself, Jim Del Negro and Anthony Ames. And we had a number of significant failures, including that weekend that was canceled and, you know, we were evolving the way he hoped we would. So we thought, well, maybe what we need to do is have more face time with him. So at V week, we decided, well, let's make sure we meet with him every single day. And in essence the idea was if we are not able to meet him by midnight, then we were to stand at his cabin outside for an hour and in silence as a kind of penitence.

Most of the time we found him on time. I think one day we couldn't find him, so we went to the cabin and we stood there for awhile and I thought to myself, Well --

MARK VICENTE: Okay. So the idea this one night we were -- we couldn't find him, and so we stood outside on the -- on the porch of the cabin. There was a -- he had two cabins. And eventually I thought, well, this is very strange. It's very unusual that he wouldn't show up, nothing that this was something we were doing and knowing this was a penitence we would take on.

So I began wandering around, and I had a flashlight and I was shining it in different places, there was a cabin further down the road. And I shown it in the cabin and I saw -- I saw him and a woman in the bed together. I believe there were clothed and their legs seemed to be intertwined. And I was very just shocked and disturbed, because given what I -- what I understood the Society of Protectors was and what I understood about showing up when you say you're going to show up, I just thought it was very, very strange.

And I began walking back to the other men realizing I'd just seen that and switched the light off. Walked back to the other men and I didn't say anything, but it really worked at me for a while. You know, part of me was going, Well, you know, was that thing he was doing more important than this? Is it something that I don't understand? But it deeply disturbed me.

And then I saw-- and then I saw the woman leave. You know, he came back and I saw the woman leave and walk down the road and that stuck with me.

MARK VICENTE: I did. She and -- and her husband were in town for the coach summit. I think it was called Winter Fest. And they'd expressed to me that they wanted to buy a house in Clifton Park, and so I asked them if I could meet with them and talk with them. And so at that point, there was a -- the -- the production office for Living Pixel was in Rome Plaza which was next door to Apropos.

So they came over for lunch and we had a conversation. And in that conversation I said to them, I -- I really wanted to dissuade you from -- from moving here. I don't think people that move here do well. I think that they end up giving up on their dreams. They've not successful. And I have severe concerns about something that's going on with all the women and with Raniere. And I don't know what's going on, but I have severe concerns. So that was the nature of my conversation with them.

MARK VICENTE: Yes. Alex Betancourt and Lauren Salzman said to me that they thought it might be good if we met in person, and they were suggesting flying to Los Angeles. I dissuaded them from that because I had -- I had a sense of how that would go. I -- I was having deep concerns, but I couldn't figure out exactly what was going on yet. So I said to them, it's not a good time.

And I -- I -- I knew -- I'd been through a lot of these thing -- these discussions before where, you know, in essence you get surrounded intellectually and, you know, EM'd into oblivion. And I wasn't interested in doing that. I was just rather try and figure out what was going on.

MARK VICENTE: I had. I had a discussion with him where I -- I had a -- I shared a realization I had, and the realization I'd had was that it wasn't -- it -- it didn't seem to be by accident that people were doing poorly in the company. It seemed almost by design. And I said to him, I'd begun to recognize that this entire system is actually built not to actually grow people, not to actually give them what they want, but to do the exact opposite. And that the upper ends, especially, because of their fear and rule boundedness just crushed any growth that was occurring. And I said it's a terribly oppressive environment, and I began to realize like it seems to be by design. It seems like everybody's in on this thing, and it's a huge problem. So that was the conversation I had with Raniere.

And then I said, I'm going to go have that conversation with the Greens, and I did --

MARK VICENTE: There was -- the -- the general -- my general understanding of that intensive -- and each intensive was different. But my general understanding of that intensive was in essence if somebody complains about abuse, they are, in fact, the abuser. So if somebody says, You know, there's abuse going on and so and so person doing it, the whole idea is, Well, actually you're the abuser. By saying that you're the abuser, which made no sense. And I began to piece together that this intensive was designed for me. It was designed for -- for me to turn against my wife. And I -- I believed it was designed for me because I knew intensives were designed for people. Intensives were designed for Edgar Boone for instance.

So I -- I -- I -- I called Raniere at one point and I said, Is this one -- you know, Is this one designed more me? And he said, Oh, no. This is -- this is very old material. I said, Oh, okay.

And then I think the next day or maybe a few days after, I went to Nancy Salzman and I said you know, Is this designed for me -- no, no, I didn't say that. I said to her --

MARK VICENTE: So the very end in the mentor group, the whole idea was to get the person to finally understand that if you complain about anything, you're the abuser. If you talk about abuse, you're the abuser. And at the very end of this -- this sourcing, Lauren Salzman said to me, You know, and this is the issue with bonding. And I realized, Oh, this is a setup. I get it now. And the other people in the mentor group were nodding their head. And so I did the unthinkable that you are not allowed to do, which is I said, Okay. We're done. We're not talking anyone.

And I said to Lauren Salzman, If you would like to have a conversation, we can go over there, but this is over.

MARK VICENTE: I did. I said to her -- you know, she was concerned that I was upset. And I said to her, Look, why don't you start telling me about this other secret striped path that's going on? You know, all the -- these skinny women and all these things that are happening, why don' we start talking about that? And she -- she looked very pale. And she said, I don't know what you're talking about. I said, You absolutely do know what I'm talking about. You know, this stuff doesn't happen without you knowing.

And I said, You know, and I'm concerned about you. I see all these people that are -- that are extremely unhealthy. They're extremely skinny. And you yourself are -- I'm deeply concerned about your health. And she said, Oh, no, no. I'm better than I've ever been. And I said, No, you're not. You hide in the proctor room. You have vertigo. You have all kinds of health issues. You don't -- you don't look well at all, and I'm -- and I'm deeply concerned. But, you know, she seemed to me to be quite afraid and -- and I didn't get anywhere. But I made the decision that, All right. I'm not engaging in this you know, the -- the person who calls out the abuse is the abuser anymore. And I'm certainly not engaging with this idea that somehow, you know, it's okay to suggest that my wife is the big problem in the organization. All right we're done.

MARK VICENTE: Well, they wanted to understand what my concerns were, and I said, Well, they're -- they're very much the same concerns that I expressed to you already. People are not treated well. Every time somebody complains about somebody, you turn it around on them. You know, this company can do no wrong, which makes no sense. And it's just -- you know, and this company keeps on saying, you know, We're the most humanitarian company in the world. And I would say, Honestly, this the BS. This is not the most humanitarian company in the world. This suppresses people, but it's not humanitarian. It's sort of like what you're saying is not what the company is doing.

And then they kept on pressing me and wanted to talk about my wife. And I said, You know, what? No. No more discussion. And I -- yes, I have deep concerns, but I'm not discussing them anymore. And I -- I begin to -- to realize that it felt to me like a fishing expedition basically, to figure out what my concerns are to try and turn them around, and I thought to myself, No. I have legitimate concerns. And I didn't want to enter into a discussion where they would make it seem, like, You know, really, you're the one that has all these problems, and you're the one that's ethical. I was like, I'm tired of those conversations. So I decided, I said I'm not having this discussion anymore.