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Nxivm president kept shrine to accused sex cult leader Keith Raniere

New York Post/May 17, 2019

By Emily Saul

Nxivm president and co-founder Nancy Salzman kept a bizarre shrine to Keith Raniere — in her home gym.

Photos show three portraits of the accused sex cult leader tacked to the wall of Salzman’s basement, near her treadmill and other exercise equipment.

One of the large framed images commemorates a 2014 celebration of “Vanguard Day” — aka Raniere’s birthday, or Aug. 26 — which was part of a weeklong party hosted annually in Lake George, New York, to honor the self-obsessed guru.

Jurors seated on Raniere’s trial were given a photographic tour of Salzman’s Clifton Park home Thursday, which ended in a back basement office where feds found financial information they say Nxivm attempted to gather on a long list of its perceived “enemies.”

The list includes political operative Roger Stone, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, former state Sen. Eliot Spitzer, newspaper scion George Hearst, Forbes publisher Malcolm Stevenson Forbes and Seagram’s chairman Edgar Bronfman Sr.

Bronfman, whose daughter Clare was charged alongside Raniere, made the cut after telling Forbes in 2003 he thought Nxivm was a “cult.”

Earlier in the week, defense attorney Marc Agnifilo tried to bar Investigator Charles Fontanelli from testifying about the documents — which were fake, because the investigators hired by Nxivm to look into their foes turned over concocted documents.

Fontanelli testified Thursday his team also found a large number of issues of Forbes magazine with an article critical of Nxivm in Salzman’s garage.

Salzman pleaded guilty earlier this year to racketeering conspiracy. Her daughter Lauren Salzman is expected to take the stand against Raniere later Friday.

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