[What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] If the questions that have been asked of prospective jurors are any indication, the racketeering and sex-trafficking trial of Keith Raniere, founder of the cultlike group Nxivm, may require not only stamina from the jury, but also the ability to listen to potentially uncomfortable testimony. A judge in federal court in Brooklyn has been winnowing the pool of possible jurors with a questionnaire that appears to ask, among other things, whether they can be fair to someone with multiple sexual partners and how they feel about sexually explicit images and possibly “skin modifications (such as tattoos and branding).”They also may have been asked if they had ever taken Scientology courses or participated in self-help groups like the Landmark Forum or EST, according to a draft of the juror questionnaire. Mr. Raniere stands accused of running Nxivm, which billed itself as a self-help group, like a cult, subjugating and abusing women who joined, and former members said, punishing those whose disobeyed his orders to have sex only with him.

Source: New York Times May 04, 2019 18:24 UTC