Former self-help guru Keith Raniere was a “predator” who preyed on young women, including a 15-year-old girl, and turned them into sex slaves as part of a cult-like organization, a federal prosecutor told a jury at the start of the trial on Tuesday.
“The defendant took advantage of them emotionally and sexually,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanya Hajjar said in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. “He sold himself as the smartest, most ethical person in the world. … He compared himself to Einstein and to Gandhi.”
