Accused cult leader Keith Raniere was so worried that his sex slaves would put on weight that he set up a spy camera in the kitchen of a home he shared with many of them, a witness said Thursday.
“He was surveilling everybody’s food intake,” a Nxivm victim identified only as Daniela told jurors of Raniere at his Brooklyn federal court trial. “He would take an absurd focus on what everyone was eating.”
Daniela said Raniere, 58, set up the spy cam at his home on Flintlock Drive in upstate Halfmoon, NY, which he shared with three of his sexual partners — including her older sister Mariana, who suffered from bulimia.
“He actually set up a camera facing the refrigerator,” testified the now 33-year-old, who was also sexually involved with Raniere but didn’t live in the home. “And he put a delicious pie inside.”
Daniela said Mariana ate the pie and was confronted by Raniere with his secret video.
The Svengali-like guru would also splay out on the couch — which had a direct sight line to the fridge — and oink like a pig whenever any of the women tried to grab a bite to eat.
Prosecutors say Raniere sexually preferred rail-thin women, and multiple witnesses have testified he instructed them to lose weight.
Raniere claimed that overweight women disrupted his “energy” and that he was therefore unable to have sex with them. Daniela testified that she herself was told to lose 20 pounds before Raniere would attempt sex with her.
Daniela was never part of the alleged sex cult, DOS, and left Nxivm in 2012 — after she was allegedly shut in a room for two years at Raniere’s instruction.
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