Clare Bronfman pleaded responsible final 12 months to bank card fraud and harboring unlawful immigrants. (File)
New York:
The heiress of the Canadian drinks empire Seagram was sentenced to greater than six years in jail by a New York courtroom Wednesday after pleading responsible in a intercourse trafficking scandal linked to a cult.
The 81-month sentence handed all the way down to Clare Bronfman, 41, was seen as significantly stiff, since prosecutors had themselves solely referred to as for 5 years of incarceration.
Bronfman pleaded responsible final 12 months to bank card fraud and harboring unlawful immigrants on behalf of “self-help” group Nxivm, whose founder Keith Raniere was discovered responsible in June 2019 of getting stored between 15 and 20 intercourse slaves for years.
Prosecutors stated that Bronfman spent tens of tens of millions of dollars supporting the group, generally known as Nxivm — pronounced “Nexium.”
“There could be little doubt that Raniere wouldn’t have been capable of commit the crimes with which he was convicted had been it not for highly effective allies like Bronfman,” the prosecution stated.
Her protection had hoped she would have the ability to keep away from jail time and had referred to as for a three-year suspended sentence.
Her legal professionals stated that regardless that she had pleaded responsible to bank card fraud and harboring unlawful immigrants for the group, she didn’t know in regards to the sexual abuse dedicated by Raniere in a gaggle parallel to Nxivm referred to as DOS, which was made up of “masters” and “slaves.”
They stated she solely knew of the helpful aspect of the Albany, New York-based group, which purported to show lessons for ladies’s self-empowerment.
Of the six folks charged within the scandal that broke in 2018, Bronfman was the primary to study her sentence.
Prosecutors have requested life in jail for Raniere, who will discover out his sentence on October 27.
4 others have pleaded responsible, together with actress Allison Mack from the sequence “Smallville,” who admitted to 2 counts of racketeering in April 2019.
The dramatic story has been the topic of two display adaptions: HBO’s lately launched “The Vow” docu-series and “Escaping the Nxivm Cult,” a 2019 Lisa Robinson movie centered on the testimony of a mom working to save lots of her daughter from the group.
(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)
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