What Has Happened With NXIVM Since ‘The Vow’ Season 1?
The premiere of The Vow: Part II on October 17 comes almost exactly two years after the HBO docuseries’ first season ended with the shocking reveal of NXIVM founders Keith Raniere and Nancy Salzman as future interview subjects on the show. As you may recall, NXIVM seemed like a self-help organization — with Hollywood stars among its rank and file — until its inner workings were exposed and the media dubbed it a sex cult. The group’s secrets, such as members being branded with the initials of so-called visionary Raniere and being coerced to have sex with him, dominated headlines in 2017-18.
The Vow’s second round does indeed feature Raniere and Salzman sharing their side of the NXIVM story as it “follows the legal and emotional journeys of the group’s founders, supporters, and defectors as new evidence and stunning revelations come to light,” as the Part II synopsis teases.
The second season also tracks federal prosecutors and defense attorneys as they “battle with opposing views of justice in a case caught in the national spotlight.”
A lot has gone down with former NXIVM members since The Vow‘s October 18, 2020, finale. Here’s a recap.
Keith Raniere told NBC News he was innocent.
In an NBC Nightly News interview that aired on October 23, 2020 — more than a year after he was convicted of charges including racketeering and sex trafficking — Raniere again professed his innocence. “I am innocent. And although…this is a horrible tragedy with many, many people being hurt, I think the main thrust of this has been the oppression,” he said. “But really, a different issue, which is hard for me to express.… There is a horrible injustice here, and whether you think I’m the devil or not, the justice process has to be examined.”
Raniere was sentenced to 120 years in prison.
On October 27, 2020, little more than a week after The Vow had finished airing, Raniere’s sentence was handed down: 120 years.
Months later, he was transferred to a U.S. penitentiary in Tucson that operates under the Sex Offender Management Program, according to the AP.
And in a lawsuit subsequently filed against the Justice Department and the Bureau of Prisons, Raniere’s lawyers said that the former NXIVM leader had been assaulted by a fellow inmate in the Tucson facility on July 26, 2022, and was wrongly punished for the altercation, per NBC News.
Allison Mack was sentenced to prison — and she reportedly filed for divorce from Nicki Clyne.
On December 11, 2020, TMZ reported that Allison Mack, a former Smallville cast member and perhaps the most well-known NXIVM member, had filed for divorce from Nicki Clyne, a Battlestar Galactica alum who was also associated with the organization. The two actresses had married three years prior at the behest of Raniere, a former NXIVM publicist told People.
After previously pleading guilty to racketeering charges, Mack was sentenced to three years in prison and three years of probation on June 30, 2021, according to The Guardian.
Mack, who was also ordered to pay a $20,000 fine and serve 1,000 hours of community service, reported for her sentence early at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, on September 13, 2021, per The Hollywood Reporter
Nancy Salzman was sentenced to 42 months behind bars.
On September 8, 2021, former NXIVM president and cofounder Nancy Salzman was sentenced to 42 months in prison and ordered to pay a $150,000 fine for racketeering conspiracy, including predicate acts of conspiracy to commit identity theft and conspiracy to obstruct justice, according to a Justice Department news release.
Danielle Roberts lost her medical license after branding NXIVM members.
On October 2, 2021, the New York Post reported that a New York Department of Health committee had stripped then-doctor Danielle Roberts of her medical license over multiple counts of professional misconduct related to her NXIVM activities. An investigation found that Roberts had used a cauterizing machine to brand a design on the pelvis area of at least 17 women. And Roberts branded the women without anesthesia “to intentionally cause them pain,” the decision read.
Roberts “denie[d] being brainwashed, yet she expressed no real remorse, which represented to the hearing committee her distorted reality and the very real concern that others remain vulnerable to her future brandings,” the decisions added.
The Vow: Part II, Season premiere, Monday, October 17, 9/8c, HBO
