Nxivm co-founder Nancy Salzman wants out of federal prison. She told a judge she’s worried her breast cancer has returned after a “worrisome ultrasound” earlier this year, a court heard Monday.
Salzman, 69, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years behind bars in September 2021 for her outsized role in the infamous organization that ran a cultish society in which women were branded, starved and used as sex slaves for the leader, Keith Raniere.
Raniere himself was sentenced to 120 years behind bars in 2019 for coming up with and running DOS—which stands for Dominus Obsequious Sororium: “master over slave women.”
Brooklyn federal court Judge Nicholas Garaufis on Monday ordered the Bureau of Prisons to administer an MRI on Salzman within the next 30 days after her lawyer Robert Soloway claimed officials had failed to act after her ultrasound. Salzman had two earlier occurrences of breast cancer in 2011 and in 2018 when she needed a mastectomy.
Judge Garaufis was largely sympathetic to Salzman’s cause, saying didn’t want the 42-month-long sentence he imposed “to turn it into a death sentence.”
Salzman is eligible for compassionate release if she stays out of trouble on September 7th.
