The identities of women who claim to be former sex slaves of accused Nxivm sex cult leader Keith Raniere will be not be made public, a judge ruled — as a jury was impaneled Monday for the upcoming trial.
The decision was revealed during a court hearing Monday, though Brooklyn federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis handed down the sealed ruling over the weekend.
Since the document remains sealed, the scope of his order was not immediately clear, though Garaufis alluded to some aspects of the decision in court ahead of final jury selection.
“Just do first names, that’s easy,” the judge told prosecutor Moira Penza. He also agreed that witnesses would be allowed to have a “cheat sheet,” as Penza called it, to make sure they’re properly identifying other witnesses during their testimony.
The government claims Raniere’s cohorts starved and branded a harem of female followers, as well as groomed them to have sex with the 58-year-old man, who was known within Nxivm as “Vanguard.”
The women belonged to an invite-only group called DOS, a Latin phrase roughly translating as “Lord/Master of the Obedient Female Companions.”
Prosecutors last month filed a motion requesting that “victim witnesses” be referred to by their first names or nicknames only, and that certain evidence they introduce through those witnesses — like sexually explicit photographs — be sealed.
Defense attorneys for the alleged Albany-area cult leader strongly objected to masking the identities of witnesses, saying it made no sense to assign “fake identities” to people and will present a logistical nightmare at trial.
Meanwhile, 12 jurors and six alternates were officially impaneled to sit on Raniere’s sex trafficking trial, which is scheduled to kick off Tuesday.