Witness in Sex-Cult Trial Says She Was Held Captive for 2 Years
Cults find and take advantage of fragile and vulnerable people, and it’s hard for many to understand how someone would allow themselves to be held as a “voluntary” prisoner. Average people can’t comprehend the levels of mental and emotional dependency that cult leaders can build in their victims.
BROOKLYN, N.Y. (CN) – Keith Raniere and several associates of the purported self-help group NXIVM held a young woman in a room in her family’s house for two years after she kissed another man, she testified over several days at Raniere’s sex-cult trial before finally leaving the witness stand Friday afternoon.
The woman, a Mexican national identified only as “Daniela,” told jurors she had been so psychologically manipulated by Raniere that she stayed in the room in Clifton Park, N.Y. from approximately March 2010 until February 2012 even though the door was unlocked.
She described the room as punishment from a jealous Raniere, whom she’d been performing regular oral sex on since just after her 18th birthday.
“Please Keith I don’t wanna be in here anymore. Please, please,” Daniela, now 33, wrote in a letter to the defendant in October 2010, when she was about 25 and illegally in the U.S. “Can I please come out of this room? Please? PLEASE?’
More: Witness in Sex-Cult Trial Says She Was Held Captive for 2 Years