A longtime friend and golfing buddy of Bill Clinton's is a student of the controversial cult-like upstate group whose members recently poured thousands into Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign coffers, The Post has learned.
Richard Mays - an Arkansas lawyer who was one of Bill Clinton's biggest presidential campaign fund-raisers - is listed on the class roster of NXIVM, the bizarre Albany-based group.
The Post reported yesterday that group devotees contributed nearly $30,000 to Hillary Clinton in March and April.
Mays' daughter, Tiffany, who recently passed the Texas bar exam, is also a NXIVM student, according to a class list obtained by The Post.
"Richard Mays is the link between NXVIM and Hillary Clinton," a source told The Post.
NXIVM, which bills itself as an executive and personal-growth training program, has been derided by critics and former members as a "cult" that "brainwashes" participants.
NXIVM is headed by Brooklyn-born Keith Raniere, whose previous business, Consumers Buyline, was investigated in 23 states. In 1992, Raniere was run out of Arkansas after state authorities accused him of running a pyramid scheme.
Mays was introduced to Raniere in Albany in early 2005, according to sources, when he was brought in as a "consultant" by another NXIVM consultant at the time, Washington, D.C., lawyer Joseph O'Hara.
"When O'Hara left, Mays stayed on," one insider said. O'Hara did not return calls.
Mays is reportedly expanding his "consulting" work to include taking NXIVM courses, including its 16-day "intensives," in which students are coached using Raniere's behavior-modification "technology."
Mays and representatives for the Clintons did not return calls.
