NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere has been accused of raping a 12-year-old girl in Upstate New York, according to new court documents.
According to the Daily Mail, Raniere’s group hired the girl as a dogwalker specifically so he could get close to her in 1990, when he was in his late 20s in Clifton Park, N.Y. He then showered the girl with attention, grooming her for a sexual relationship when she was 12 and taking her virginity.
Attorney Richard Donoghue told a judge that Raniere argued the age of sexual consent should be lowered, and that rape and incest should not be considered crimes. The age of consent in New York state is 17.
“The defendant has a decades’ long history of abusing women and girls,” the prosecutor wrote in a letter arguing Raniere should not be released on bail.
Raniere, now 57, was arrested while surrounded by women last month at a luxury villa in Mexico and extradited to the U.S. on charges of sex trafficking and forced labor conspiracy.
The Albany Times Union reported in 2012 that Raniere was also accused of having sex with an underage girl in 1984. She was 15 or 16 at the time, but Raniere — then 24 — claimed the girl’s “soul was much older than her biological age” and “she was a Buddhist goddess meant to be with him.”
Raniere allegedly told girls and women that sex with him would be a spiritual experience, a “transfer of his godlike energy.”
According to the Times Union, the alleged 1990 victim said she had sex with Raniere at least 60 times, including in an office for his members-only buying club, Consumers’ Buyline Inc., where her mother worked. She later grew uncomfortable with the relationship and ran away from home.
NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere accused of raping 12-year-old girl in Upstate NY
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