Fallen sex cult leader Nancy Salzman is facing a lawsuit filed by actress and former top recruiter Sarah Edmondson, along with dozens of other ex-members, who say Salzman is refusing to hand over more than $150,000 she owes them as part of a civil settlement.
Salzman, 70, the co-founder and president of Nxivm, who served less than 20 months of a 4-and-a-half year prison sentence for racketeering conspiracy, ran Nxivm alongside co-founder Keith Raniere, who is four years into a 120-year sentence of his own.
In 2020, Salzman, Raniere, and other Nxivm leaders were sued by a slew of members who claimed the Upstate New York multi-level marketing scheme and self-help group was, in fact, a massive criminal enterprise engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor, and illegal human experimentation.
As part of an agreement with her victims, Salzman consented to sell three properties she owned and to transfer the “net proceeds” to them, according to a November 8 suit first reported by the Albany Times-Union.
But while Salzman forked over the money from the first two sales, in 2023 — minus $6,450 she demanded for “upkeep and maintenance” on one of them, the lawsuit says — she is now allegedly withholding $155,687.32 from the third sale, claiming she needs it for “capital gains tax” and “unpaid property management fees” on all three properties.
No mention of either was ever included in paperwork finalizing the settlement, and Salzman did not “contend or attempt to withhold” capital gains tax from either of the other property sales, according to the lawsuit.
The attorney representing the victims has asked Salzman’s lawyer to put the funds in escrow while the dispute winds its way through the courts, but was advised that Salzman “will not agree to such a transfer” absent a court order, the lawsuit states.
They are now asking a judge to declare that Salzman is “not entitled to withhold capital gains tax and unpaid property management fees from the net proceeds of the sale of the three properties,” and are seeking a court order to force Salzman to disgorge the funds according to the terms of the settlement.
Nxivm, which was based in the Albany, New York area, forced women who joined to brand their pelvises with Raniere’s initials and become his “sex slaves,” prosecutors charged. Its members included, among others, Clare and Sara Bronfman, heirs to the Seagram fortune.
Former “Smallville” actress Allison Mack served as the de facto face of Nxivm, and in 2021 was sentenced to three years in prison for her role in the all-female organization. She was described in court by US District Judge Nicholas Garaufis as an “essential accomplice,” but also as someone who was “manipulated” by Raniere. Mack and other so-called “first-line masters” induced women to join the group, after which the unwitting pawns suffered unthinkable physical and psychological abuse at the hands of Raniere and his team.
In a letter of apology Mack wrote prior to sentencing, she said she was “sorry to those of you that I brought into Nxivm.”
“I am sorry I ever exposed you to the nefarious and emotionally abusive schemes of a twisted man,” Mack wrote. “I am sorry that I encouraged you to use your resources to participate in something that was ultimately so ugly. I do not take lightly the responsibility I have in the lives of those I love and I feel a heavy weight of guilt for having misused your trust, leading you down a negative path. I am sorry to those of you whom I spoke to in a harsh or hurtful way. At the time, I believed I was helping. I believed in tough love and thought it was the path to personal empowerment. I was so confused. I never want to be someone who is considered mean, but those aspects of my humanity have been revealed in all of this; it has been devastating to reconcile.”
Mack was released from prison in July 2023.
