Heiress Charged With Supporting Sex-Trafficking Operation

A New York liquor heiress was arrested on Tuesday as part of an ongoing investigation into a group accused of coercing women into sex.

Clare Bronfman, 39, is an heiress to the Seagram's liquor fortune. She is also an executive board member of NXIVM (pronounced Nex-ee-um).

Despite billing itself as a community "guided by humanitarian principles," the organization had a secret group that recruited and enslaved female followers under the pretense of mentorship, prosecutors contended.

Those women were allegedly ordered to sleep with the organization's founder, Keith Raniere, branded with a cauterizing pen and punished with paddles and in cages.

Bronfman used her riches to bankroll the organization, spending millions on private air travel for Raniere and lawyers who sued critics, authorities say.

"The details of these alleged crimes become more and more grim as we continue to dig deeper into the conduct of this organization and its intended mission," FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William Sweeney said in a statement on Tuesday.

In the face of mounting accusations from ex-followers and critics, Bronfman remained loyal to Raniere. "I know him to be a man dedicated to the betterment of the lives of others, and most importantly for me, he is a dear friend," she wrote on her website last year.

Raniere was arrested in Mexico in March.

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