Charges against three with ties to group to be dismissed in 6 months

Albany

A special prosecutor this week agreed to dismiss criminal charges against three people with past ties to the NXIVM personal growth corporation of illegally accessing the secretive group’s computer servers.

An Albany County judge on Wednesday granted adjournments in contemplation of dismissal (ACODs) for Barbara J. Bouchey, a former high-ranking member of NXIVM; Joseph O’Hara, 67, a one-time NXIVM legal adviser and outspoken critic of NXIVM; and Toni Foley Natalie, 57, a former associate and girlfriend of NXIVM founder Keith Raniere,

That means their cases will all be dismissed in six months if they avoid further legal trouble.

“I feel like I have been David in the battle against Goliath,” Bouchey, 56, told the Times Union. “It is fantastic to be finally vindicated and it is victorious. I am delighted to be able to move on with my life, put this behind me, and go back to spending my time on positive, creative endeavors.”

The ACODs were accepted as a pre-trial hearing was set to begin Wednesday afternoon before Judge Stephen Herrick. Instead, the judge, attorneys for the defendants, and Holly Trexler, the special prosecutor, met in the judge’s chambers and emerged with an agreement to resolve the case. O’Hara and Bouchey were in court; Natalie was not present.

Trexler’s decision to seek to dismiss the charges came as attorneys for the defendants were set to challenge whether NXIVM’s computer servers actually were located in Albany County at the time of the alleged breaches. The defendants asserted they never illegally accessed NXIVM’s computer network, and their attorneys said they had computer experts ready to argue NXIVM claimed its computer servers were in Albany only after the Saratoga County district attorney’s office declined to prosecute the case. The location of the servers was critical in establishing jurisdiction in the criminal case.

The defendants each faced felony charges carrying potential sentences of 1 1/3 to 4 years in prison if convicted. Trexler, who previously declined to discuss the case with the Times Union, agreed to reduce the charges to attempted criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor, for each defendant, but under an agreement that those charges will then be dismissed in six months.

“This matter came in today after much discussion amongst the complainant’s representatives, defense counsel and the investigators involved. While the investigators and I believe that the computer hacking could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, we feel that this is a fair and just result,” Trexler told the Times Union.

In October, the Times Union reported that the criminal charges were filed after intense pressure was put on a State Police investigator by NXIVM’s private attorneys.

Court records indicated that the attorneys for the NXIVM corporation were heavily involved in the State Police investigation and that State Police Investigator Rodger Kirsopp had contact dozens of times with NXIVM’s attorneys, who pressured him to file criminal charges. The records also showed NXIVM officials, and their attorneys, provided much of the evidence used by Kirsopp to build the unusual criminal case against the four defendants, all of whom were considered adversaries of NXIVM.

By the time the two-year investigation ended in March 2014, three attorneys from the Albany law firm of O’Connell & Aronowitz, whose attorneys have represented NXIVM for years, contacted the investigator more than 30 times, including attending interviews he conducted with NXIVM employees and delivering documents and other evidence, including computer records, to the investigator’s State Police barracks in Clifton Park.