{ WOMEN { SHIFT+CONTROL WHO INSPIRE } } “There was no Internet, the way that you determine whether or not someone was being forthcoming was through an introduction and looking into someone’s eyes. And, Keith was very unassuming, he looked like a geek.”
me, he had to be normal, or pretend to be normal. He tried until he just couldn’t do it any longer, and, that’s when he found his “next” step to becoming Vanguard, Nancy Salzman, now one of his convicted co-defendants. Q: You left Keith in 1999 after nearly eight years. And toward the end of your relationship, Keith had become abusive emotionally and sexually. You knew you wanted to leave, so what was the final straw? A: The final straw was so ridiculous. I called and ask him to help out with some laundry, I was at work. I asked him to move some things into the dryer, but not my black sweater, because it would shrink. When I got home the sweater had made it to the dryer, it could have fit my Maltese. I said, “Keith, I asked you not to put the sweater in the dryer, and he started screaming at me, ‘I’m the smartest man in the world’ as he backed me into a corner with spit coming off his mouth, screaming at me to apologize, and say I was wrong, claiming with his 240 IQ, and total recall, he was right, and I was wrong. Q: You left him, and then from that point on Keith was determined to make your life a living nightmare. Suing you multiple times, twice he tried to get you thrown into prison, along the way
bankrupting you and your mother, and sabotaging any hope you could have for a normal life. And this went on for almost 20 years. A: Keith had access to unlimited amounts of money. He was backed by the heiresses of the Seagram fortune, Clare and Sara Bronfman. With unlimited money and resources, he was able to put a lot of time into trying to destroy not just my life, but
A: I don’t know if I was surprised but sickened by hearing just how many people knew about the things that were going on, and, how long they knew. I was just shocked at the number of women in that original early inner circle that were aware, especially about the underage girls. Yet no one did anything to stop him. Q: The Keith Raniere story is a story of one enabler after another. A: Very much so, yes. Keith is lazy. If I said this once, I’ve said it a thousand times, he’s lazy. He’s not capable of doing any of these things on his own, he uses, or buys the people around him to do his dirty work. With that kind of money at his disposal, as you will read in The Program, he was able to get a lot of things done, a lot of very scary things.
many people’s lives. That money bought him power, and with that power he bought lobbyist, attorneys, and politicians.
Q: How does Keith do that? We now know he doesn’t have a 240 IQ. He’s not particularly charismatic. How did he get control over all of those people?
Q: You were at Keith’s trial last summer. And you heard vivid details of many of Keith’s crimes. I imagine that there is little left that could surprise you, but did anything come out during the trial that you weren’t expecting to learn or to hear?
A: Keith is an amazing listener. He learns about your strengths and weaknesses; he listens for your vulnerabilities and then he uses them against you. Using your strengths, and weaknesses, convincing you that you owe your strengths to him, and without him all you would be left CENTRAL NY WOMAN ONLINE :: FEBRUARY/MARCH 2020
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