A co-founder of an embattled upstate New York self-help organisation pleaded guilty on Wednesday in a case featuring sensational claims that some followers became branded sex slaves.
An emotional Nancy Salzman told a judge in federal court in Brooklyn that she teamed up with Keith Raniere, the NXIVM group's self-styled spiritual leader, because she wanted to help people improve their lives. But she admitted that she later lost her way when she joined efforts to spy on perceived enemies seeking to expose the Albany-based group as a cross between a pyramid scheme and a cult.
"It has taken some time and soul searching to come to this place," said Salzman, choking back tears. "I accept that some of what I did was not just wrong, but criminal. ... If I could go back and do it all over again, I would. But I can't."
Salzman, a registered nurse who was known as "Prefect" within NXIVM, was involved in stealing identities of the group's critics and hacking into their email accounts from 2003 to 2008, prosecutors said. They also alleged that she conspired to doctor videotapes showing her teaching NXIVM's lessons before the tapes were turned over to plaintiffs in a New Jersey lawsuit against the group.
The plea comes about six weeks before Raniere is set to go on trial on charges alleging a secret master-slave society within NXIVM brainwashed women into having unwanted sex with him and had them branded with his initials in initiation ceremonies.
