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'The Vow' Episode 5: Who is Kristin Keeffe, the woman who fled NXIVM and Keith Raniere to protect her child?

Keeffe was the former legal liaison with NXIVM and had a child with Raniere, although reports initially indicated that the child was adopted
PUBLISHED SEP 21, 2020
Kristin Keeffe (HBO)
Kristin Keeffe (HBO)

In HBO's miniseries, 'The Vow', viewers get in-depth retellings from former members of NXIVM (pronounced Nex-e-um) that dominated the news a few years ago when it was revealed that a secret society within NXIVM was operating as a sex trafficking front. Both the founder, Keith Raniere, and actress Allison Mack — a prominent member of the group — were arrested on trafficking charges among others.

After a six-week trial in 2019, Raniere was convicted in June 2019 of charges including racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy, sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy and attempted sex trafficking. 'The Vow' features former members including actresses Sarah Edmondson and Bonnie Piesse as well as Piesse's spouse, filmmaker Mark Vicente.

This week's episode — the fifth of the nine-episode docuseries — opens with a clip of Kristin Keeffe, the former legal liaison with NXIVM, talking about going after the people who are spreading negative press about Raniere and Nancy Salzman, who cofounded NXIVM. In the clip, Keeffe seems convinced about the greatness of both Raniere and Salzman. For years, Keeffe was Raniere's partner and what we don't learn until later in the episode is that Keeffe had a son with Raniere. Keeffe spent 16 years with NXIVM and had known Raniere for at least 24 years.

Initially, it was reported by The New York Post that the child, named Gaelyn, was an orphan adopted by Raniere and Keeffe, rather than their biological child. The report stated that the child was kept away from other children and much of the outside world so that he would not pick up the bad habits of "parasites and subversives" on Raniere's orders. 

In February 2014, Keeffe broke with NXIVM and Raniere and fled the region, writing in an email: "I have full sole legal custody of Gaelyn. Keith was experimenting on him. I had to get Gaelyn away," according to a report by The Times Union. Keeffe is now in hiding in Florida and had survived cancer. According to an ID special, 'The Lost Women of NXIVM', Keeffe may have been poisoned along with other women who had resided with Raniere and had been intimate with him. In 'The Lost Women of NXIVM', it is shown that Keeffe only learned she was pregnant when she was eight months along, part of the reason she believes her son survived. Raniere allegedly discouraged pregnancies and forced abortions among his female followers.

After escaping Raniere and NXIVM, Keeffe turned whistleblower. In a 2015 report by The Times Union, Keeffe had alleged that Raniere directed Canadian investigative firm Canaprobe to obtain financial information on six federal judges, a US senator from the State of New York, as well as a reporter, an editor, and the publisher of the Times Union. That same year, Keeffe further alleged that Raniere had planned to lure his critics to Mexico with an invitation to an anti-cult conference; once in Mexico, the critics were to be arrested on false charges by order of a judge who had been bribed, according to a Vice report.

'The Vow' airs on HBO on Sunday nights.

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