On Friday afternoon, Bronfman, 40, is expected to plead guilty in a Brooklyn federal court to charges arising from a complaint filed last year against her and several other followers of Nxivm’s leader, Keith Raniere, according to a court docket.
Another member of the group, Kathy Russell, 61, is also expected to plead guilty Friday, the docket shows.
The charges to which Bronfman and Russell will plead guilty have yet to be disclosed. But their decisions will leave Raniere standing alone at the Nxivm trial, which is scheduled for next month. In recent weeks, three of his other co-defendants, including actress Allison Mack, have pleaded guilty to various charges.
The group, based near Albany, billed itself as a self-help organization, offering workshops that promised self-fulfillment. But it had a darker side. Some women were recruited into a secret order within Nxivm (pronounced NEX-ee-um), branded with Raniere’s initials and coerced into to having sex with him, prosecutors have said.
&format=webp)
&format=webp)
&format=webp)
Federal authorities began investigating the organization after The New York Times published an article in late 2017 detailing the inner workings of the secret sorority within Nxivm.
The women had to provide personal secrets as “collateral” to join the sorority and were warned that damaging or embarrassing information would be made public if they disclosed the sorority’s existence.
Since then, federal officials have filed wide-ranging charges against Raniere and other leaders and officials of Nxivm, saying they took part in a racketeering enterprise. They are accused of a variety of crimes, including conspiracy to commit identity theft, money laundering, sex trafficking, extortion and possession of child pornography.
Bronfman was accused of identify theft, money laundering, and of improperly paying the credit card of Raniere’s deceased girlfriend so he could continue to use it after her death.
Russell was the group’s bookkeeper for more than a decade and was indicted on two counts of racketeering conspiracy in July.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.