Nancy Salzman was known to her followers as “Prefect.” She was a co-founder of Nxivm, a cultlike group near Albany in which women were branded with the leader’s initials and forced to have sex with him, federal prosecutors say. On Wednesday, Ms. Salzman is expected to plead guilty to charges contained in a federal racketeering indictment filed last year against six people in the group, including the former leader, Keith Raniere, a government official and a lawyer familiar with the case said. Ms. Salzman, a former psychiatric nurse, helped Mr. Raniere found the group in the 1990s. On Tuesday, prosecutors filed a notice of a “criminal cause for pleading” for Ms. Salzman in a Brooklyn federal court, an indication that Ms. Salzman would enter a plea the following day. A government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss private plea negotiations, confirmed she had agreed to plead guilty but declined to give details.

Source: New York Times March 13, 2019 01:10 UTC