Clare Bronfman. (Image via screengrab from WCBS/YouTube.)
The Seagram’s liquor heiress who pleaded guilty to criminal charges in connection with the sprawling sex crimes prosecution of NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere now wants a civil case against her thrown out of court.
Clare Bronfman’s attorneys said she had “little to nothing to do with most of the accusations” lodged by a series of plaintiffs against various NXIVM-connected defendants. They added that the claims against her were nothing more than a “thinly veiled effort to intimidate and pressure a woman from a family well known in the national and international community.”
In a press release, the defense plainly asserted that the plaintiffs were in fact only seeking to “secure a big pay day” by targeting Bronfman with a lawsuit. They also accused the plaintiffs of launching an “attempt to lump [Bronfman] into allegations regarding activities in which she played no part and of which she had no knowledge.”
Bronfman pleaded guilty in April 2019 to harboring an illegal immigrant for financial gain and fraudulent use of identification in a criminal case lodged against her by federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York. She was sentenced to 81 months in prison — about six and three-quarter years — in September 2020. She also forfeited $6 million, agreed to provide restitution to a victim, and paid a half-million dollar fine, according to prosecutors who called her a “a…
