A Brooklyn federal judge warned Nxivm sex cult leader Keith Raniere that his case is “not over” Thursday, after the disgraced guru appeared to question why he was there.
Raniere — who was convicted of sex trafficking and racketeering earlier this year and is awaiting sentencing — was hauled from jail to the court to discuss potential conflicts of interest that may have arisen after one of his attorneys applied for a job with the prosecution.
In August, one of Raniere’s defense attorneys, Teny Geragos, applied for a job for the US Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn — the same office that she and other defense attorneys squared off against during Raniere’s trial this past summer.
But Geragos withdrew that application earlier this month — a fact that Raniere noted in a whispered aside to an attorney on Thursday, which the lawyer then relayed to Judge Nicholas Garaufis.
Garaufis reminded Raniere that the case is “not over” — and that he will be the same judge who presides over his sentencing, when he faces up to life in prison for running the upstate cult, where women were branded like cattle and forced to have sex with him.
“At the end of trial, it became my responsibility to impose a sentence,” Garaufis said.
For most of the hearing, Garaufis ran through a list of questions to ensure he was willfully moving forward with Geragos on his legal team despite her previous interest in working with the US Attorney’s Office. He said he was.
Raniere, who entered the courtroom with a brisk pace wearing tan jail scrubs, answered most of the judge’s questions with a soft “Yes” or “I do,”