New York - Dozens of would-be jurors in the trial of the NXIVM
sex cult leader have been released so far this week after giving a
range of excuses for not being qualified to serve.
About half of the roughly 80 panellists who were prescreened this
week have been sent packing at Keith Raniere's trial for imprisonment
of victims, sex trafficking, child porn and other crimes in
connection to a subversive secret society.
The trial is expected to last six weeks in Brooklyn Federal Court,
and while many complained they would not be paid by their employers,
others claimed they had conflicts that did not always pass muster.
One man, a naturalized citizen, got US District Court Judge Nicholas
Garaufis incensed when he insisted he didn't want to expose himself
to sexually explicit material out of fear that it would shake his
Christian convictions.
"I do not want to know about these organizations," the man said,
adding that his "conscience says I don't want to listen" to the
disturbing details that are central to the case.
Garaufis, noting that no one was asking the man to buy into any
belief, was clearly annoyed.
A woman with a heavy Spanish accent said she was spooked "by spirits
and voodoos" and was not sure if she could get past the freaky forced
labour the 58-year-old Raniere allegedly orchestrated.
"I'm afraid of rituals and bad spirits," she asserted, later
admitting that serving would be an "inconvenience."
"There's a lot of things I have to do at home," she added.
And earlier in the day, a music licenser carried out a thinly veiled
campaign to get cut.
First, she argued that her employer could not get by without her, and
then she insisted she has very strong feelings on abortion. Raniere
allegedly forced dozens of enslaved women he had sex with to
terminate their pregnancies.
The prospective juror was also one of several people who insisted
they were uniquely repulsed by allegations of child sex abuse.
"All of her answers were coloured by the fact that this is an
inconvenience for her," Garaufis said. "This is a juror who is
qualified, she just doesn't want to do it."
Raniere was the founder of the Albany-based sex slavery organization
that masqueraded as a self-help group, and oversaw the branding,
sexual assault and abuse of its recruits, prosecutors say.