Nicki Clyne on 'Completely Misconstrued' DOS, Branding and Keith Raniere

After two years of waiting, The Vow, Part 2 has landed on HBO, with the final episode set to air on Monday, November 21.

The final episode, titled "Crime and Punishment", follows the crux of NXIVM founder Keith Raniere's trial in 2019.

Raniere was found guilty on multiple charges including racketeering, sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy, identity theft, and production and possession of child pornography, receiving 120 years in prison.

Nevertheless, since his incarceration, his supporters have been fighting to exonerate him.

One of Raniere's most loyal supporters is Nicki Clyne, a Canadian actress and former NXIVM member. Clyne signed up for NXIVM's Executive Success Programme (ESP) in 2005, describing the experience as very "transformative," a "personal growth and coaching program" in conversation with Newsweek. She completed a five-day intensive course in Albany, New York, and never looked back.

However, it eventually became apparent to the public that after several years of existence, NXIVM as an organization had a much darker, secretive side.

DOS

As revealed in The Vow, in 2015, Raniere created a secret sect of NXIVM known as DOS. It was promoted as a "women's empowerment society" but soon allegations of abuse, manipulation, and sex trafficking began to surface.

Raniere was the head of DOS, known as "grandmaster," and established a pyramid system, where slaves were controlled by their "masters". Women would also have to give "collateral" to their leaders every month, which included things such as sexually explicit photos or videos and personal information. They were also groomed to have sex with Raniere and were forced to follow near-starvation diets.

Speaking to Newsweek, Clyne gave an insight into her views on DOS, the branding some women received, and her belief in Keith Raniere's innocence.

She described how DOS sought to teach women to be held accountable to their commitments and helped them "build strength, self-reliance, discipline, mindfulness, and care."

Clyne shared: "The whole concept of DOS and why it was created has been completely misconstrued by a few people with a clear agenda and the story has been told by only a few women, when in actuality there were over 100 women in DOS and DOS existed for two and a half years before it got exposed to media and then it came down, if you will, with all the other companies with this whole campaign and I think whoever was crafting the narrative was very smart, and focusing on a few kinds of triggering concepts that maybe could be considered edgy or alternative, but have perfectly good explanations for anyone who is open-minded and critical thinking."

She continued: "The unfortunate thing is because of how strong the narrative is, and how much it elicits prejudice, it's been very hard to break through and get someone to listen and hear what it was.

"I think that the MeToo movement definitely came at the right time for people to kind of latch on to these ideas that women are being abused but in this case, I think that people capitalize on the notion that women should be viewed as children and can't make their own decisions and aren't responsible for anything they do and DOS was the exact opposite of that."

Alongside seven other women, Clyne said they made the "choice" to go public about their experience with DOS and have set up The Dossier Project to "set the record straight" about what they "know to be true about DOS".

DOS Branding

The details of DOS were exposed by journalist Frank Parlato in a June 2017 post on his blog The Frank Report. This was followed by a New York Times Story in October of that year detailing how five women had been branded with the DOS logo, which featured Keith Raniere's initial.

Clyne told Newsweek it was "no more extreme" than getting a "tattoo" and the practice was "consensual."

She explained: "It sounds really scary when you frame it in a certain way. The reality is, it was 100% consensual, and no more extreme than getting a tattoo. I think women should have the right to do what they want with their own bodies without being scrutinized by everyone and I think it's unfortunate that people's personal choices become fodder for public scrutiny in the way it has."

However, former DOS member Sarah Edmondson has publicly alleged she was forced to undergo the branding ritual and has spoken about her experience in HBO's The Vow and in several media interviews.

Clyne told Newsweek her belief that Edmonson's claims were either a "lie" or a matter of "unfortunate miscommunication."

Clyne said: "I don't believe it was that intended. If she did misunderstand it, however, she watched three other people going through the process. She had plenty of time to ask questions or leave if she wanted to. I think people forget that this was a group of friends. It wasn't like a dictatorship energy, it was amongst friends and my experience of the people that I observed is that even though there was this kind of like hierarchical dynamic, people had no problem asking questions or saying when they didn't want to do things and refusing to do things often, that happened all the time so I don't understand why if people had an issue with things why they didn't bring it up when they brought up other things.

"It [DOS] was still something that was growing and in development, and we were creating protocols to make sure everything was clear and consistent. There was never any intent to deceive anyone at all and I'm almost positive that if someone had an issue with anything, it could have been worked out between friends without going to law enforcement or making it a media scandal and for me personally, that's one of the most tragic parts of all of this is like we haven't had an opportunity to work this out on our own."

She added: "Sarah has the brand for three months and actually brought a few more people into DOS during that time and it wasn't until she was confronted by [Mark] Vicente and her husband found out about it that she changed her story and the feelings about it."

Newsweek has contacted Edmonson for contact.

Keith Raniere's Conviction

On June 19, 2019, Raniere was convicted of several sexual offenses, including:

• The sexual exploitation of a child
• Possession of child pornography
• Sex trafficking
• Attempted sex trafficking
• Identity theft
• Trafficking for labor
• Forced labor
• Conspiracy to alter records
• Sex trafficking conspiracy
• Forced labor conspiracy
• Racketeering conspiracy
• Wire fraud conspiracy

He was sentenced to 120 years in prison and fined $1.75 million.

Raniere's close NXIVM followers Allison Mack, Nancy Salzman, and Lauren Salzman, Kathy Russell, and Claire Bronfman also faced charges of identity theft, extortion, forced labor, sex trafficking, money laundering, wire fraud, and obstruction of justice.

Speaking about their situation, Clyne reflected: "I feel a lot of different emotions about it because it's a very complex situation.

"I'm heartbroken because I think they've been put in such difficult positions and essentially tortured by the government, threatened and accused of these horrific things that I know they didn't do but because of how our system works, they kind of have to choose to either see and believe that they're bad or did bad things, or they could face a lengthy prison sentence and that's like no joke. So I've learned a lot about the criminal justice system in the process."

Today, Clyne is still fighting for Raniere's innocence but shared with Newsweek that she is no longer able to communicate with him in prison as a result of alleged "ongoing retaliation from the government" as he works to appeal his case.

Newsweek has contacted HBO Max and the FBI for comment.

The Vow, Part 2 is streaming on HBO Max now and concludes tonight at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.