“Use the ‘croaking card,’ ” I told my mother. “Tell her, ‘Grandma won’t be around forever so come spend time with me.’ ”
Two days later, Mom and I met with Art and Anthony at their offices in the Chrysler Building. Thanks to Bill’s nudging while he was in New York City, India had finally met with them the week before. Their impression of her, they told us, was of a very gentle soul. This is what so many have marveled to me: no amount of brainwashing could hide India’s sweet essence.
“She believes she is innocent of any wrongdoing,” I said. “Will that attitude hinder her at all? Is she out of jeopardy?” I asked.
“We can’t predict what direction the prosecution will go,” they said. But there was some good news: the prosecution worded the complaint in a way that created an “out” if they decided not to prosecute India.
“They called her a ‘slave,’ ” said Art. “Her defense would be that she was ordered to do things—that her actions weren’t of her own free will. If she becomes a witness for the prosecution, it’s likely she wouldn’t be charged with anything.”
This should have given my mother and me great solace, but it didn’t. Because in order for India to accept that line of defense, she’d have to comprehend that it was actually true. And in order for her to see that it was true, she’d have to be deprogrammed first. But because she was brainwashed, she refused to be deprogrammed.
It was a catch-22, and the question still remained: Would India be a witness for the prosecution, or would she remain in the grip of the underworld?
This was India’s dilemma, and our agony.
—
AFTER OUR MEETING, Mom and I walked two miles down to the East Village, to the vegetarian café where India was working. I could barely keep up with my mother. (Even at eighty-two, Mom considered that an easy hike. For her birthday a week before, she’d gone to Morocco to trek through the desert.)
India still hadn’t answered her grandmother’s text about getting together, so we decided she’d surprise India at work. I hid inside a Starbucks across the street and watched from the window while Mom went in. We had no idea if India was even working that day, or if she’d be receptive to seeing her grandmother, so this was a hit-or-miss stakeout.
I watched with my heart in my mouth as my mother walked into the café and minutes later emerged smiling with India in tow. The two walked up the street, arm in arm. Success! I felt infinitely calmer just knowing India was with Mom. I waited our agreed-upon half hour, then walked back to our hotel to wait for Mom there. Karim and the crew were waiting to do some filming with me for the documentary.
An hour later, Mom showed up in the lobby where we were shooting, shaken up. I’ve always known her as the super-stoic type—she lived through World War II, a childhood in exile, the loss of a brother, and three marriages. Nothing ruffled her. But now, my mother collapsed in my arms in tears.
“I failed,” she sobbed. “I couldn’t get through to her! She still thinks Keith is a nice man!”
As we hugged, a hotel manager darted toward us with his eye on the camera crew and gave us a stern reprimand, telling us to cease filming. Karim quietly went up to the front desk and pulled the “princess card,” telling another high-ranking hotel employee that, “the Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia was documenting a very important family moment!”
A minute later, a different manager suddenly appeared and excitedly began speaking Serbian to Mom and calling her “Your Highness.” A fellow countryman, he’d been scanning the guest list earlier and spotted her name, Karageorgevic, and assumed she was an imposter. He began chatting away about his exodus from the former Yugoslavia, and Mom listened to him graciously. Another minute and he might have started to bow.
He ushered us into a private dining room in the back of the restaurant, where we could film to our hearts’ content, he promised. (And where half the waiters from the hotel restaurant, also from the Old Country, showed up to greet their princess.)
That night, I could barely sleep. I was haunted by the idea that India was so willing to throw her life away. I watched the clock: three a.m., four a.m., five a.m. . . . and then it struck me what day it was—April 17, a year to the day after I got that first call to save India.
—
THE NEXT DAY Mom went to see India’s new lawyer in my place.
I was still apprehensive to go, fearing I was being set up in a trap somehow. I envisioned myself arriving at the lawyer’s office and him slapping me with a lawsuit the moment I stepped inside. So armed with a list of questions and a stack of evidence we’d carefully compiled, my mother set off for his office near Columbus Circle.
The goal was to show him the truth so that he’d then convince India of it, and Mom did a whizbang job. This was a woman who’d enthralled Richard Burton, don’t forget—and she still had the charisma and beauty that rivaled screen legend Elizabeth Taylor.
Her scene with the lawyer was like a sequel to my dramatic scene in the attorney general’s office in Albany months earlier, except that Mom wore black rubber boots instead of my kick-ass thigh-highs.
She plopped the thick pile of evidence onto his table with a thud and started off by showing him the most graphic part of the complaint against Keith—Jane Doe’s testimony of being tied to a table, blindfolded, and forced to engage in oral sex with an unknown person. Then, she showed him the letter to the judge from Moira and Tanya, outlining Keith’s history of rape, pedophilia, and sexual abuse.
“India thinks this man is sweet,” my mother said. “Does this seem like a sweet man to you?”
Next, she pulled out the official police report of everything confiscated from Nancy’s house.
“This is evidence that over half a million dollars in cash was found in Nancy’s house. India says no money was found. Can you show this to her,” Mom asked, pounding his desk for emphasis, “that she is being lied to and this is to help her see the reality?”
I may have gotten my flair for drama from my mother, who could always command a room. At one point during the meeting, she stood tall in her rubber boots, put her hands on her hips, and said, “My granddaughter is brainwashed! I should know, I have known her since I cut her umbilical cord!” The meeting ended with Mom winning him over, and the lawyer saying he’d suggest to India that she see a psychiatrist. He also agreed that India’s best option was to testify for the prosecution. This time, my mom was a total success.
“You may be the only voice of reason he will hear on India’s behalf,” I told her, as I whisked us off to celebrate her triumph with much-needed retail therapy in SoHo. After that, we took in a show—Hello, Dolly!—on Broadway.
Before the curtain rose, I sent another text to India:
April 18, 2018, 8:05 p.m.
Darling, I love u deeply. I’m sad u didn’t want to see me. I miss u. And I hope that soon you will be open and more receptive.♥
In the musical, the heroine uses hypnosis to seduce the object of her affection. It made me think of Keith and the mesmerizing hand gestures he used on women during his three a.m. walks—which ruined it for me. Afterward, we went backstage to meet the star, the legendary Bernadette Peters, who was a friend of Stanley’s.
The next morning, Mom and I were dog-tired from the emotional week. We lay in bed talking and laughing and taking ridiculous selfies together until noon. I guess we needed a bit of silliness and fun to offset the stress. Then we raced around to pack everything up and cabbed it to JFK together, dropping me off at my terminal first.
“Thank you, Mom!” I said, and gave her a big hug. She’d been my bridge to India all year—talking to her and writing to her when India had me set to radio silence. Even on this trip, I was able to get a brief glimpse of my daughter from across a busy Manhattan avenue because of Mom—a glimpse that did this mother’s heart good.
“You are my hero!” I told her. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”
Mom returned my hug and smiled.
“Maybe we can do
something relaxing next time we get together?” she yelled out as I ran to my gate.
I got there just as they were boarding.
Mom headed east, I headed west, and between us was our girl, lost somewhere in the middle.
—
THE NEXT MORNING in LA, I woke up to tremendous news: Allison Mack had been arrested and was to appear in Brooklyn court that afternoon. The Feds had struck again! I was in shock and awe at how fast and stealthily the government was moving.
They had arrived at her Brooklyn Heights apartment in the early dawn hours and cuffed her while India was there, but I didn’t know any other details. I got a text immediately from India’s attorney, saying that prosecutors had assured him that India was not getting arrested—not today, anyway.
I was relieved about that, and elated at Allison’s arrest. But it wasn’t the same as how I felt about Keith’s. Allison’s came with a feeling of despair and anguish; that this psychotic man had ruined this woman’s life. She had everything going for her—career, beauty, and talent, and was at the prime of her life, and he stole all that from her. At the same time, this was the woman who lured my daughter into Keith’s hell world, and for that she must face the consequences of her actions.
Hopefully, now with Allison’s arrest, India would have her connect-the-dots moment? Maybe this time?
Diane Benscoter, the ex-Moonie, gave me a new perspective as to why it may be so difficult for India to give up the cult.
“She is fighting for the most precious part of her,” said Diane, “the part that wants to be beautiful in the world and that wants to help people. That is the part they have used against her.” Stanley raced to the courthouse to act as our family representative. In court for her arraignment, Allison’s demeanor was a 180 from Keith’s.
She looked scared and defeated as she pleaded not guilty, Stanley reported to me later. That was the difference between someone who was a born psychopath (Keith) and someone indoctrinated into sociopathic behavior (Allison).
Still, “it was horrible to look at her,” said Stanley. “All I could think about was how much pain and devastation she’d caused—especially to India. All I could feel from her was evil.” The unsealed indictment revealed that Allison and Keith were now eternally bound as codefendants, accused of the same crimes and facing the same penalties. The crimes were: sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, and forced labor conspiracy.
“Under the guise of female empowerment, she starved women until they fit her codefendant’s sexual feminine ideal,” Assistant US Attorney Moira Kim Penza told the judge.
According to court documents, during the branding ritual Allison “placed her hands on the slaves’ chests and told them to ‘feel the pain’ and to ‘think of [their] master,’ as the slaves cried with pain.”
The judge declined to release her on bail, saying her lawyers didn’t offer a sufficient enough bail package for such serious charges. Federal prosecutors also worried that Allison might engage in “witness intimidation and tampering,” since it had been discovered that high-ranking Nxivm members had been registering websites in witnesses’ names and threatening to release damaging information about them there. If guilty, Allison was looking at the same amount of time in prison as Keith: fifteen years to life.
They tossed her into jail for the weekend at the Metropolitan Detention Center—to mull things over. Nothing like a few days behind bars with no cell phone, no Wi-Fi, and no contact with any members of the cult to give a girl like Allison clarity—I imagine it was like deprogramming express. I’m sure Allison would find her new role as a prisoner in Orange Is the New Black a little too realistic for her liking.
“I want to see her put away,” Stanley told the waiting press outside. “She’s dangerous. She’s sick. She’s evil. She’s dark. And she’s done harm to many people. She’s a B-grade actress—beyond B-grade—and she is not in a reality show or a TV series. This is life,” he said. “She has to go away.”
He called me on the phone as soon as he was done with the press, singing: “Ding-dong, the witch is dead . . . the witch is dead . . . the witch is dead . . .”
The following Tuesday, Allison’s lawyers offered her bank account, her house in Clifton Park, and her parents’ home in California as collateral. She was released on $5 million bail and ordered to serve home detention wearing an ankle bracelet at her parents’ until the trial. When I read that, I couldn’t help but think with a smile: Kinda gives new meaning to the word “collateral,” doesn’t it, Allison? COLLATERAL.
I’d also read that her lawyers were working on a plea deal for her in which she’d give information against Keith to negotiate a reduced sentence.
If that was the case, so much for Nxivm loyalty and ethics and the DOS girls’ pact to never go against Keith. Suddenly, a Joan of Arc sacrifice for the cause wasn’t looking so glamorous after all.
I wondered if the news that her best friend might go against “the family” and Keith would have any effect on India.
The best part of Allison’s bail package was that she was ordered to have no contact with anyone involved in Nxivm, and that included my daughter.
—
TEN DAYS LATER, on May 4, Toni Natalie and Stanley took front row seats again inside Brooklyn federal court. What I would have given to see this day with my own eyes.
Both Keith and Allison appeared together in court for a forty-five-minute hearing. Allison didn’t look at her former master the entire time, and always arrogant Keith looked like he was unraveling, Toni told me later. He was fuming, red in the face like a tomato. He turned to look at Toni and snarled at her.
Keith’s attorneys had demanded a speedy trial that would have resulted in a start date of June or July, but the judge declined—Allison’s attorney had already waived it. And since they were being charged as codefendants, he had to abide by his own slave’s decision. A speedy trial was Keith’s only chance in hell to get out of this. It would have given the government less time to gather evidence and less time for more indictments.
The judge set the trial date for October 1.
No wonder Keith was so angry: the world that he’d created out of his sick mind was falling apart before his eyes.
His good buddy Emiliano Salinas jumped ship from Nxivm Mexico and resigned as its head honcho, and so did partner Alex Betancourt.
Dr. Brandon Porter, who’d made the slaves watch videos of women being dismembered by machetes, would be charged the next day with illegally conducting human experiments by the New York State Office of Professional Medical Conduct. Soon after, the New York State Department of Health would accuse Porter of failing to report the outbreak of disease during V-week 2016, and charge him with moral unfitness, gross negligence, and gross incompetence.
And more arrests were to come, said Moira Kim Penza in court that day—plus superseding indictments for Keith and Allison, coming in early June.
After the hearing, Toni gave the reporters outside a long list of who she thought would be indicted next: Clare Bronfman, Nancy Salzman, Karen Unterreiner, Emiliano Salinas, Alex Betancourt, Lauren Salzman, and Sara Bronfman.
“This snake has more than one head,” she told them.
The evil house of cards was collapsing; the dominoes were toppling over.
The only fate no one seemed sure about was India’s. What was to become of India?
I’d fulfilled my vow to take down the cult, but what about my vow to free India’s mind from them and get her home?
Around the time of Keith’s arrest, I had a talk with Callum Blue.
“Love, I have to remind you of something,” he said. “I once asked you what your end game was in all this. Do you remember what you said?”
“Um . . . to run away?”
We laughed. We always laughed together.
“You said that your end game was to have Keith arrested.”
“Did I say that? Wow!”
“You did, dummy. And all I’m saying is . . . this could never end. An
d it’s India’s journey. You brought a cult down. You did it. You win. You’ve got the end of the story. And now it’s up to India to navigate the end of her story.”
Nine days later, she began doing just that:
Sunday, May 13, 6:30 a.m.
India: Happy Mother’s Day, Mom
Me: Thank u, precious girl. I am so proud to be your mom.
With her text, she’d attached a photo of us when India was one month old and I’m cradling and nursing her. Below that, she’d posted a portion of Dr. Kent M. Keith’s “The Paradoxical Commandments”:
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway. . . .
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
Me: Just what I needed to read ♥
India: ♥ me too
Me: I miss you ♥
I took the poem and photo to mean that no matter what has happened between us, nothing could or would ever destroy our love for each other; we would love each other anyway, and forgive each other always. And that I should never stop fighting for her, no matter what.
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