[What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] In a letter and in emails, the leader of Nxivm tried to distance himself from the branding ritual that had led some members to break away from the cultlike group. But the ceremonial branding of some women involved in Nxivm followed a script created by the leader, Keith Raniere, and a handful of select followers who had promised complete obedience to him, according to four recorded conversations introduced last week as evidence in his racketeering and sex trafficking trial. “Do you think the person who is being branded should be completely nude and sort of held to the table like a sort of, almost, like a sacrifice?” Mr. Raniere asked the actress Allison Mack in one recording. He went on to outline his vision for how women’s bodies would be arranged before being branded: “legs spread straight, like feet being held to the side of the table, hands probably above the head, being held almost like tied down.”

Source: New York Times May 26, 2019 21:04 UTC