NEW YORK — Three years ago this month, a federal jury in Brooklyn began to hear about the inner world of NXIVM leader Keith Raniere, the Capital Region-based human potential guru now known as a cult leader.

For nearly two months, jurors listened as witnesses described a secret club where blackmailed “slaves” took lifetime vows of obedience to “masters.” They saw evidence that Raniere started having sex with one future “slave” since she was 15, exploited her for child pornography and referred to himself as her “husband.” They saw that woman’s older sister testify how Raniere also groomed her for sex, then banished her to a room in her family’s Halfmoon townhouse for nearly two years because she kissed another man.

And then, after deliberating less than five hours, the jury convicted Raniere on all charges, including sex-trafficking, forced labor conspiracy and racketeering and wire fraud crimes. Raniere, 61, known in his ranks as “Vanguard,” is serving a 120-year sentence in a Tucson, Arizona federal prison.

But his legal saga is not over yet.

On Tuesday afternoon, the legal strength of Raniere’s convictions and the sentence of a co-defendant, Seagrams heiress Clare Bronfman, will be tested at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan. Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Guido Calabresi and Circuit Judges Jose A. Cabranes and Richard J. Sullivan will listen to the arguments. Prosecutors get 10 minutes. Attorneys for Raniere and Bronfman will get five minutes apiece.

Nothing in the NXIVM case has ever seemed typical, and Raniere’s appeal is no different.

In an 11th-hour failed bid last Thursday, Raniere attorney Joseph Tully asked the Second Circuit to delay the arguments. Tully said he uncovered new evidence showing FBI agents altered and destroyed evidence to support the prosecution’s child pornography charges against Raniere. Agents discovered the images on March 27, 2018 inside Raniere’s “executive library” on Hale Drive in the Knox Woods townhouse complex in Halfmoon, where dozens of NXIVM members lived.

Tully included statements from three forensic experts: retired FBI agent J. Richard Kiper, attorney Steven Marc Abrams and Wayne B. Norris, a California-based expert witness in computer forensics.