Judge, NXIVM's Clare Bronfman agree on minimum-security Connecticut 'camp'
Bronfman was sentenced to almost 7 years in federal prison for NXIVM role
Robert Gavin
Oct. 6, 2020
Updated: Oct. 6, 2020 3:51 p.m.
NEW YORK – Clare Bronfman and the federal judge who sentenced her to nearly seven years in prison last week finally agree on something – that she should serve her time in a minimum-security facility in Connecticut.
An attorney for the 41-year-old Seagrams’ fortune heiress and longtime NXIVM executive asked Senior U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis on Oct. 1 to recommend the federal Bureau of Prisons place Bronfman in a 55-inmate, minimum-security camp in Danbury, Conn. or other location close to New York City. Bronfman has residences in Manhattan and Clifton Park.
Danbury is the site of three correctional facilities, including two low security lock-ups and the camp. Camps have dormitory housing, relatively low staff-to-inmate ratios and limited or no perimeter fencing, according to the prisons bureau. The prison camp at Danbury has over the years offered a baseball field, volleyball net and walking track. It would be up to the prisons bureau to decide where Bronfman ultimately goes.
On Monday, the judge agreed to the recommendation and allowed Bronfman to get back the $100 million bond she put up in July 2018 when she was arrested.
In 2019, Bronfman pleaded guilty to conspiring to conceal and harbor illegal aliens for financial gain and fraudulent use of identification. Bronfman paid $135,000 in bills using the credit card of her late close friend and former high-ranking NXIVM member, Pamela Cafritz, after Cafritz died in 2016 of cancer.
On Sept. 30 in Brooklyn Garaufis sentenced Bronfman to six years and nine months in prison. He fined her $500,000, ordered she forfeit $6 million and pay more than $96,000 to a Mexican woman whom Bronfman had exploited for her labor.
The judge ordered Bronfman, the director of operations for Keith Raniere's cult-like personal growth organization in Colonie, to be jailed immediately following her sentencing inside the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn where Raniere is also being held.
Bronfman, the daughter of late Seagrams' tycoon Edgar Bronfman, refused to disavow Raniere, who was convicted at trial in June 2019 of all charges, including sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy and racketeering charges that included underlying acts of possessing child pornography, child exploitation, identity theft, extortion and fraud.
Raniere, 60, formerly of Halfmoon, faces life in prison at his Oct. 27 sentencing by Garaufis.
sauce: https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Judge-Clare-Bronfman-agree-on-minimum-security-15625094.php