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Keith Raniere: Drawing from a 2019 trial
Photo: Jane Rosenberg / REUTERS
Self-help guru Keith Raniere, who exploited followers and sex slaves, has to pay his victims more than $ 3.4 million.
This was decided by a court in Brooklyn, New York, as reported by CNN and the New York Times.
60-year-old Keith Raniere was sentenced to 120 years in prison in October 2020 for, among other things, sex trafficking, sexual exploitation and fraud.
The founder of the sect-like organization Nxivm (read: Nexium) took part in the trial via video from a detention center in the state of Arizona, it said.
District judge Nicholas Garaufis decided that the penalty payment, equivalent to around 2.9 million euros, is aimed at 21 people affected.
According to the New York Times, the largest sum (around 430,000 euros) went to a woman who was sexually abused by Raniere when she was 15 at the time.
"Cause of psychological torture"
Some of the victims were branded with Raniere's initials - they are now entitled to a sum of around 2100 euros to remove the marks, it said.
It should also cover the cost of past and future psychological treatment.
Raniere was a "cause of psychological torture," the CNN quoted the judge as saying.
At the end of the 1990s, Raniere founded the Nxivm organization, headquartered near Albany, New York State, which was officially marketed as a self-help group.
Women are said to have been sexually abused there.
According to media reports, around 18,000 people have attended the organization's expensive "self-optimization courses".
ptz / dpa
