New York sex cult founder ordered naked meetings, says former slave

The founder of an alleged New York sex cult held meetings in which female “slaves” gathered naked on the floor around him while he sat in a chair and lectured them on philosophy, one of the women testified at his criminal trial on Friday.

The former “slave,” Lauren Salzman, told jurors in federal court in Brooklyn that the group’s leader, Keith Raniere, would preside over the meetings fully clothed. When he was unable to attend the meetings in person, the women would take a naked photo and text it to him - making sure he could see where he had branded them with his initials, Salzman said.

“We were to look uniform and happy,” said Salzman, 42.

Raniere, 58, faces charges including sex trafficking and child pornography for allegedly using his self-help group, Nxivm, to hide a secretive sorority known as DOS in which young women were forced to have sex with him, follow dangerously restrictive diets and obey his every command.