Maybe she should try Prilosec

[samhexum]

• • Catherine Oxenberg is desperate to save her daughter from a group she claims “brainwashed” her.
     
    The “Dynasty” star told People she introduced India, 20, to Nxivm (pronounced Nex-I-um), which a friend pitched to her as a self-improvement group, in 2011. The mother-daughter duo attended a meeting together.
     
    Oxenberg, 56, found the group to be “weird and creepy,” but India was immediately drawn to it. According to People, she devoted herself to Nxivm for the next few years, attending meetings more frequently along with expensive classes.
     
    She reportedly recruited friends and drained her bank account of her inheritance in the name of the organization.
     
    According to People, Oxenberg held back on interfering until April 2016, when Bonnie Piesse, a friend who’d recently left Nxivm, came to her about India’s role in the group or “secret sisterhood,” as she described it.
     
    “You need to save your daughter,” Piesse told Oxenberg at the time. “You need to save India.”
     
    Piesse claimed she saw India in the days before she left Nxivm and was troubled by what she saw.
     
    “India was in a bad situation. One time she told me that she wasn’t going to eat for three days (out of) penance to try and correct her behavior,” Piesse revealed.
     
    Oxenberg told People she reached out to her daughter, who left Los Angeles for Albany in 2016, in April. Before the end of their phone conversation, her daughter reportedly relayed some worrying information.
     
    “‘Mom, my hair has been falling out, and I haven’t had a period in a year. Maybe I should see a doctor?'” India reportedly said.
     
    “I’m helpless, I’ve lost my child and will do whatever I can to get her back,” Oxenberg told People.
     
    While Oxenberg didn’t detail any more of what Piesse told her, others who left the group shared harrowing details of their own experiences that provide perspective for those unfamiliar with Nxivm.
     
    “It was the most painful, traumatic moment of my life,” Sarah Edmondson, 40, told People, adding that she’d been branded with leader Keith Raniere’s initials before leaving.
     
    In spite of her mother’s loft allegations, India maintained in a recent Facebook post that she’s “absolutely fine.”
     
    People reported that Nxivm has been operating in Albany, N.Y., for nearly 20 years. An estimated 16,000 people have paid up to $3,400 to participate in what they believe is an executive-coaching workshop.
     
    Raniere’s group, which has expanded to San Francisco and Mexico, promises to take participants on a journey of personal discovery and development.
     
    Before founding Nxivm, Raniere founded a discount-buying club that was later shut down after investigations into allegations that it was a pyramid scheme were launched in 23 states by two federal agencies.
     
    He did not admit to any wrongdoing in the case, but agreed to pay out a settlement.
     
    The Daily News attempted to reach out to Nxivm, but were unsuccessful.
     
    (India isn’t Casper van Dien’s daughter).
     
    

[samhexum]

Catherine Oxenberg met in Albany on Monday with prosecutors in the office of NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and presented evidence that her daughter India is being blackmailed by a cult leader.

 

Oxenberg believes that India is part of a harem of young women who serve as sex slaves to Nxivm leader Keith Raniere and are branded like cattle with his initials.

 

The “slaves” are allegedly disciplined with a paddle, kept on starvation diets and forced by their “master” to turn over nude photos of themselves and graphic written confessions as “collateral” to ensure they won’t try to escape.

 

“I’m desperate to save my daughter,” Oxenberg told a friend before the meeting. “I want to help the other young women. I am desperately hoping the authorities take notice and investigate.”

 

Schneiderman’s prosecutors believe the strongest case against Nxivm could be based on the women who claim they were held down and branded against their will, leaving Raniere’s initials permanently scarred below their bikini line.

 

In a response to the New York Times about the claims, a Nxvim spokesperson said the group “firmly opposes and condemns violence, victimhood, dishonor and abuse.”

 

“Some people have said this is a voluntary sorority. The women I have spoken to tell a far different story,” Oxenberg said. “Coercion is not voluntary. Extortion is not voluntary. Blackmail is not voluntary.”

 

A spokeswoman for Schneiderman said, “Our office met to hear her concerns.”

 

Gov. Cuomo’s office announced last month that it is reviewing why state officials have been slow to investigate complaints by former members of the cult.