Nxivm co-founder Nancy Salzman wants out of prison early over breast cancer concerns
Nxivm co-founder Nancy Salzman wants to be immediately sprung from federal prison — telling a judge she’s worried her breast cancer has come back after a “worrisome ultrasound” earlier this year, a court heard Monday.
Salzman, 69, was sentenced to three-and-a half years behind bars in September 2021 for her senior role in the twisted group that ran a secret society in which women were branded, starved and used as sex slaves for Svengali-like leader Keith Raniere.
Brooklyn federal court Judge Nicholas Garaufis on Monday ordered the Bureau of Prisons to give Salzman an MRI within the next 30 days after her lawyer Robert Soloway claimed officials had failed to act in regards to her medical care after the March 23 ultrasound.
“Our client has been waiting for 16 ½ weeks with nothing done,” Soloway said, as Salzman called into the hearing joined by doctors from prison.
“We’re here because they haven’t done anything – they’ve simply haven’t done anything,” Soloway told the judge. “The medical powers that be at the BOP have failed to do the things that need to be done to protect her life.”
But if Salzman was released, her attorney argued, she could “get an MRI this week.”
The judge echoed Soloway’s concerns, saying he didn’t want the 42-month long sentence he imposed “to turn into a death sentence.”
Salzman had two prior occurrences of breast cancer in 2011 and in 2018 when she needed a mastectomy, her lawyer told the judge.
Prosecutors told the judge that while there is no date set, an MRI would be conducted within 30 days.
If the procedure doesn’t take place as ordered — “You come see me,” Garaufis told Salzman’s lawyers.
Salzman has been housed at a Hazelton, West Virginia federal lock up. She could be eligible for compassionate release as early as September 7 if she stays out of trouble until then, prosecutors said.
Raniere was sentenced to 120-years behind bars in 2019 for coming up with the twisted creed called DOS — which stands for Dominus Obsequious Sororium — or “master over slave women.”
Another co-defendant in the case, “Smallville” actress Allison Mack was released on July 5 from a federal lock-up in California after serving less than two years for her role in the group as a “sex master.”
Mack was sentenced to three years in prison on June 2021 after taking a guilty plea for her role in helping to brainwash women into becoming sex slaves for Raniere.
She was released early on good behavior.
