When you create your estate plan, the idea that one of your adult children would ever use their inheritance to bankroll a cult is probably something you’d never dream of, much less anticipate. Yet that’s exactly what 40-year-old Clare Bronfman, heiress to the multi-billion-dollar Seagram’s fortune, did with hers. In the end, her inheritance — and the power that came with it — led her down a dark path that seems almost too outlandish to be true.
In May of 2019, Clare pled guilty to felony charges of harboring an illegal alien and fraudulent use of a deceased person’s identity as part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors. The charges stem from her role as an executive board member of Nxivm (pronounced NEX-ee-um), a group that prosecutors described as a “deeply manipulative pyramid scheme” that forced some of its members to endure slave-like conditions and even have sex with the group’s leader and founder, Keith Raniere.
Had she gone to trial for her involvement with Nxivm, Clare would have faced up to 25 years in prison. But given her plea, on September 30, 2020, she was only sentenced to 6 years, 9 months in prison. Following Clare’s plea, Raniere, 58, was found guilty in June on seven felony counts, including racketeering and sex trafficking. On October 27, 2020, Raniere was sentenced to 120 years incarceration in federal prison and a $1.75 million fine. His conviction comes following a six-week trial that exposed the world to Nxivm’s sordid inner workings and put wealth’s dark side on full display.
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