Tag Archives: New York City

Wall Street empties out as New York City declares state of emergency

Reuters
By Imani Moise and Elizabeth Dilts Marshall

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Working from home went from optional to mandatory across Wall Street this week as financial firms reported their first confirmed cases of coronavirus and the outbreak triggered a state of emergency in New York City.

JPMorgan Chase & Co <JPM.N>, Goldman Sachs Group Inc <GS.N> and Morgan Stanley <MS.N> each announced similar programs on Thursday for working remotely to stem the spread of the pandemic. JPMorgan and Goldman told employees the staff would be split roughly in two for a weekly rotation in which half the workers will work from home and half go to the office.

JPMorgan’s plan applies to New York-area employees while Goldman’s plan was for most staff across North America and Europe, excluding some sales, trading and critical staff.

JPMorgan, the largest U.S. lender, informed New York-area employees in an internal memo seen by Reuters. The bank later confirmed the program, set up in response to a request from the state government.

The bank plans that by the end of this month, only 25% to 50% of team members will work from home, the memo said.

The plan applies to most corporate employees based in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Jersey City, New Jersey, but not to branch workers or traders.

Goldman Sachs told employees that most staff across North America and Europe would start working from home or one of the bank’s business continuity centers on a rotating schedule starting Monday, according to another memo viewed by Reuters.

Morgan Stanley told all staff who do not have to work in the firm’s offices to work from home, apart from some sales and trading staff, who are working from secondary trading locations.

The bank also banned all travel, domestic or international, not deemed business critical.

Barclays PLC <BARC.L> and Credit Suisse Group AG <CSGN.S> also informed their investment bankers on Wednesday of a similar rotating schedule, sources said.

A spokesman for Credit Suisse declined to comment and a Barclays representative was not immediately available.

The banks also have ramped up other precautionary efforts like office deep-cleaning after firms like Barclays and BlackRock Inc <BLK.N> reported their first confirmed cases.

On Thursday a Manhattan-based Royal Bank of Canada <RY.TO> employee tested positive, a bank representative said. The Canadian bank has also reported two other confirmed cases in one of its offices near Toronto.

As of Thursday there were more than 129,000 cases of coronavirus globally and 4,750 people have died, according to a Reuters tally.

New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio declared a state of emergency in the city on Thursday as the number of confirmed cases climbed to 95, up from 12 at the beginning of the week.

Citigroup has put signs around its New York City headquarters asking visitors and employees not to sit on certain chairs to practice social distancing.

Another Wall Street investment bank ran overnight disaster tests on its remote working systems this week to prepare for having more bankers work from home.

“It’s not a matter of if, it’s when,” said a bank source familiar with the contingency planning efforts.

(Reporting by C Nivedita in Bengaluru and Imani Moise and Elizabeth Dilts Marshall in New York; Editing by David Gregorio and Matthew Lewis)

California declares emergency over coronavirus as death toll rises in U.S

By Steve Gorman and Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The U.S. death toll from coronavirus infections rose to 11 on Wednesday as new cases emerged around New York City and Los Angeles, while Seattle-area health officials discouraged social gatherings amid the nation’s largest outbreak.

The first California death from the virus was an elderly person in Placer County, near Sacramento, health officials said. The person had underlying health problems and likely had been exposed on a cruise ship voyage between San Francisco and Mexico last month.

It was the first coronavirus fatality in the United States outside of Washington state, where 10 people have died in a cluster of at least 39 infections that have emerged through community transmission of the virus in two Seattle-area counties.

Although the Placer County patient who died was not believed to have contracted the virus locally, that case and a previous one from the San Francisco Bay Area linked to the same ocean liner have led health authorities to seek other cruise passengers who may have had close contact with those two individuals.

Hours after the person’s death was announced, California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a statewide emergency in response to the coronavirus, which he said has resulted in 53 cases across the nation’s most populous state.

“The State of California is deploying every level of government to help identify cases and slow the spread of this coronavirus,” Newsom said in a statement.

Newsom said the cruise ship, named the Grand Princess, had later sailed on to Hawaii and was returning to San Francisco, but would not be allowed into port until passengers had been tested for the virus.

“We are holding that ship off the coast,” Newsom said.

Six new coronavirus patients were confirmed in Los Angeles County, public health officials said on Wednesday. One was a federal contractor who may have been exposed while conducting medical screenings at Los Angeles International Airport, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reported.

Three others likely were infected while traveling recently to northern Italy, one of the areas hardest hit in the global outbreak. Of the six in Los Angeles County, only one has been hospitalized. The other five are recovering in home isolation.

The greater Seattle region represents the biggest concentration of cases detected in the United States from a virus that has killed more than 3,000 people worldwide, mostly in China, where the epidemic originated in December.

With most of the Seattle-area cases not linked to travel or exposure to people who might have been infected abroad, that means the virus has gone from being an imported phenomenon to taking up residence in Washington state, health officials say.

At least 18 cases, including six deaths, were connected to a long-term nursing facility for the elderly, called LifeCare Center of Kirkland, in a Seattle suburb.

‘DISTANCING MEASURES’

Seattle health authorities urged a number of measures for curbing further spread of the disease, including recommendations for anyone aged 60 and older and individuals with underlying chronic health problems or compromised immunity to stay home and away from large gatherings and public places.

They also urged companies to allow their employees to work from home as much as possible, stagger shifts to ease commuter congestion on public transportation and avoid large work-related gatherings.

“The distancing measures that we’re recommending are essential because we need to slow the spread of the disease to the point where we are able to continue to handle the load,” said Patty Hayes, the public health director for Seattle and King County.

A growing number of U.S. companies are adopting such steps. On Wednesday Microsoft Corp asked its employees in the Seattle region near its headquarters and in the San Francisco Bay Area to work from home if possible until March 25.

In New York state, the number of cases rose to 10 on Wednesday. Three family members and a neighbor of a lawyer who was previously identified as infected tested positive. The neighbor’s wife and three of his children have also contracted the virus, Governor Andrew Cuomo said.

About 1,000 people in suburban Westchester County, where the two families live, were under self-quarantine orders because of possible exposure, Cuomo said.

“We are, if anything, being overcautious,” he said.

AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, said Wednesday that people in a group from New York that attended its 18,000-person policy conference in Washington, D.C., this week potentially had been in contact with an individual who contacted the coronavirus before the conference.

Dozens of Congress members attended the conference, as well as Vice President Mike Pence.

EMERGENCY FUNDS

U.S. lawmakers reached bipartisan agreement on an $8.3 billion emergency bill to help fund efforts to contain the virus. The bill garnered enough votes to pass in the House of Representatives.

More than $3 billion would be devoted to research and development of coronavirus vaccines, test kits and therapeutics. There are currently no approved vaccines or treatments for the fast-spreading illness.

The administration is working to allow laboratories to develop their own coronavirus tests without seeking regulatory approval first, U.S. Health Secretary Alex Azar said.

The latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed 129 confirmed and presumed cases in the United States, up from the previous 108. They were 80 reported by public health authorities in 13 states plus 49 among people repatriated from abroad, according to the CDC website.

Those figures do not necessarily reflect Wednesday’s updates from three states.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Laila Kearney in New York; Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles, Maria Caspani and Hilary Russ in New York, David Morgan and Richard Cowan in Washington; writing by Grant McCool; Editing by Bill Berkrot, Lisa Shumaker, Cynthia Osterman, Leslie Adler and Lincoln Feast.)

Gunman wounds NYC police officer inside station hours after ambushing patrol officers

By Brendan O’Brien

(Reuters) – A gunman opened fire inside a New York City police station on Sunday, striking a lieutenant in the arm, some 12 hours after he had ambushed a patrol van in the same neighborhood, wounding an officer, police said.

The gunman was arrested at the police station. The two officers were being treated in hospital and were expected to fully recover from their wounds, officials said at a news conference.

“This was an attempt to assassinate two police officers … it was a premeditated effort to kill,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “An attack on a police officer is an attack on all of us.”

The gunman, whose name has not yet been released by authorities, entered the 41st Precinct headquarters in the Bronx borough just before 8 a.m. (1300 GMT), pulled out a .9mm hand gun and started firing at the front desk where several officers stood, officials said.

He then walked into an area next to the desk and fired several rounds at point blank range at several more officers and a civilian staffer, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said.

“It is only by the grace of God and heroic actions of those inside the building who took him into custody that we are not talking about police officers murdered,” he said.

“This coward immediately laid down but only after he ran out of bullets,” Shea said.

A lieutenant, who returned fire, was shot in the upper left arm.

On Saturday night a uniformed police officer who was sitting in his police van with his partner was shot by the same gunman, police said. He walked up to the vehicle and began a conversation with the two officers in the vehicle before suddenly opening fire, striking one policeman in the chin and neck, police said.

The officers did not return fire. The wounded officer’s partner got in the driver’s seat and drove him to the hospital.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; editing by Grant McCool)

New Jersey mayor sues New York City over moving homeless with ‘offer they can’t refuse’

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Newark Mayor Ras Baraka’s administration has sued New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, accusing the fellow Democrat of dumping his city’s population of homeless people on New Jersey’s biggest city.

The lawsuit naming the city of New York, its mayor and his homelessness czar, Steven Banks, accuses the de Blasio administration’s Special One-Time Assistance, or SOTA, program of using strong-arm tactics to send people across the Hudson River to find a place to live.

“This case concerns an unlawful program of ‘coerced’ migration,” Newark lawyers say in court documents filed in U.S. District Court in New Jersey on Monday.

New York City officials are accused of “forcing SOTA recipients to accept the proverbial ‘offer they can’t refuse,'” the documents said, explaining that the phrase from the 1972 American Mafia film “The Godfather” is “really a command, ‘Do what we say or else.'”

The lawsuit accuses New York of violating federal commerce laws. It cites several former New York shelter residents who were hustled through tours of New Jersey apartments and pressured to quickly commit to one, with the SOTA Program paying landlords a full year’s rent up front.

“She was told by case managers in her shelter that she should look in New Jersey, in the cities of Newark or Paterson, because New York landlords were leery of the SOTA program and because she would find something quicker in New Jersey,” Newark’s lawyers said in court filings.

The de Blasio administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Baraka, Newark’s mayor since 2014 and the son of poet and African-American activist Amiri Baraka, and de Blasio, a former Democratic presidential candidate who touts himself as a progressive, appeared together in Newark last year to announce a tenant initiative aimed at keeping people in their homes, in part by ending illegal evictions. The New Jersey program was modeled after one in New York City and both mayors praised one another for pursuing the initiatives.

The vast majority of New Yorkers experiencing homelessness – over 63,000 homeless men, women and children – spend the night instead within the city’s shelter system where they remain unseen, according to The Bowery Mission nonprofit group. In a city of 8.5 million people, nearly one in every 121 New Yorkers is currently homeless.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. attorney general shakes up prisons bureau after Epstein death

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Attorney General William Barr is pictured after a farewell ceremony for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, U.S., May 9, 2019. REUTERS/Leah Millis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General William Barr on Monday announced a new leadership team at the federal Bureau of Prisons in a shake-up of the agency in the wake of financier Jeffrey Epstein’s apparent suicide inside a federal jail in New York City.

Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, a veteran of the Bureau of Prisons, will return to the agency to serve as its director, Barr said. He named another former agency official, Thomas Kane, to serve as her deputy.

The Bureau of Prisons has about 37,000 employees and oversees 122 facilities, which house about 180,000 inmates.

Hugh Hurwitz, who has been serving as the bureau’s acting director – including when Epstein was found unresponsive over a week ago in a Manhattan jail cell – has been reassigned to his prior position within the agency.

Epstein had been arrested on July 6 and pleaded not guilty to federal charges of sex trafficking involving dozens of underage girls as young as 14.

An autopsy report released on Friday concluded he committed suicide by hanging.

His death at the age of 66 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in lower Manhattan triggered multiple investigations and had prompted Barr to criticize “serious irregularities” at the facility.

“During this critical juncture, I am confident Dr. Hawk Sawyer and Dr. Kane will lead BOP with the competence, skill, and resourcefulness they have embodied throughout their government careers,” Barr said in the statement.

Barr had previously ordered the reassignment of the warden at the MCC. Two corrections officers assigned to Epstein’s unit were placed on administrative leave pending investigations.

Lawyers for Epstein did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.

His lawyers had said in a statement last week that they were “not satisfied” with the medical examiner’s conclusions and planned to carry out their own investigation, seeking prison videos taken around the time of his death.

Epstein had been on suicide watch at the jail but was taken off prior to his death, a source who was not authorized to speak on the matter previously told Reuters. Two jail guards are required to make separate checks on all prisoners every 30 minutes, but that procedure was not followed, the source added.

Epstein, a registered sex offender who once socialized with U.S. President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton, pleaded guilty in 2008 to Florida state charges of unlawfully paying a teenage girl for sex and was sentenced to 13 months in a county jail, a deal widely criticized as too lenient.

Senator Ben Sasse, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Oversight Subcommittee, has urged Barr to void the agreement and said “heads must roll” after Epstein’s death.

“This is a good start, but it’s not the end,” Sasse said of Barr’s announcement on Tuesday. “Jeffrey Epstein should still be in a padded cell and under constant surveillance, but the justice system has failed Epstein’s victims at every turn.”

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Writing by Tim Ahmann; Editing by Dan Grebler and Steve Orlofsky)

Kitchen devices resembling bombs cause havoc for New York commuters

New York City police officers are seen as police said they were investigating two suspicious packages at the Fulton St. subway station in Manhattan, New York, U.S. August 16, 2019. REUTERS/Catherine Koppel

By Peter Szekely

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Kitchen appliances resembling pressure cookers were left in two Manhattan locations on Friday, disrupting automobile and subway travel during the morning rush hour before police deemed them harmless and began investigating the possibility of a hoax.

The discoveries of the devices, which the city’s chief counterterrorism officer called “rice cookers that could be mistaken for pressure cookers,” raised concern because of the latter’s previous use as makeshift bombs in New York and Boston.

Surveillance video shows a dark-haired man in his 20s or 30s with a shopping cart placing the devices at two locations inside the busy downtown Fulton Street subway station, said John Miller, the New York Police Department’s deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism.

“Because of the timing and the placement and items we’re carrying this right now as a hoax device,” Miller told reporters at the scene. “That’s the investigative category.”

The unidentified man is “not a suspect but certainly someone we’d want to interview,” he said. Police posted two photographs on social media of the cookers at Fulton Street.

Officials said they had not determined whether the discovery about an hour later of a third implement resembling a pressure cooker next to a garbage can on a street corner in the borough’s Chelsea neighborhood was related, Miller said.

Miller noted that in September 2016 the so-called “Chelsea Bomber,” Ahmad Khan Rahimi, wounded 30 people using a device made from a pressure cooker and a cellphone timer that exploded on Manhattan’s West 23rd Street. Another pressure cooker bomb was left nearby but did not explode.

Rahimi was sentenced last year to life in prison.

There was also an explosion in Midtown Manhattan in December 2017 when a Bangladeshi man, Akayed Ullah, detonated a homemade bomb in a pedestrian tunnel connecting two subway lines and a bus terminal. Three people were wounded.

Pressure cookers were turned into bombs by a pair of ethnic Chechen brothers when they killed three people and injured more than 200 at the 2013 Boston Marathon.

The discoveries, which were first reported at about 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT) created havoc for thousands of motorists and commuters on the numerous subway lines that converge at Fulton Street as police and bomb squad vehicles swarmed to the scene.

Even after police deemed the devices harmless at the Fulton Street station complex, which is close to the World Trade Center, officials warned of residual delays for commuters.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Steve Orlofsky)

New York coroner ‘confident’ Epstein’s death was suicide: New York Times

An exterior view of the Metropolitan Correctional Center jail where financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., August 10, 2019. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

(Reuters) – New York City’s chief medical examiner is confident Jeffrey Epstein died by hanging himself in the jail cell where he was being held without bail on sex-trafficking charges, but is awaiting more information before releasing her determination, the New York Times reported on Sunday, citing a city official.

An autopsy was performed earlier in the day on the disgraced financier found unresponsive on Saturday in a New York City jail, chief medical examiner Dr. Barbara Sampson said. A private pathologist observed the autopsy on behalf of Epstein’s representatives, which she called “routine practice.”

A determination on the cause of death “is pending further information at this time,” Sampson said in a statement.

The suspicion in Epstein’s death was hanging, said a city official not authorized to speak on the record.

The Times did not say why it could not identify the source of information on the medical examiner’s likely determination of the cause of death.

Epstein, 66, was not on suicide watch at the time in his cell in the Special Housing Unit of the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), a source said.

Epstein, a well-connected money manager, was found hanging by his neck, according to the source, who was not authorized to speak on the record.

The wealthy financier, who once counted Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic former President Bill Clinton as friends, was arrested on July 6 and pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking involving dozens of underage girls as young as 14, from at least 2002 to 2005.

The FBI and the Department of Justice’s Inspector General opened investigations into his suicide while he was in federal custody.

Last month, Epstein was found unconscious on the floor of his jail cell with marks on his neck, and officials were investigating that incident as a possible suicide or assault.

Despite that incident, Epstein was not on suicide watch at the time of his death, and he was alone in a cell in the unit of the correctional center used to isolate vulnerable prisoners when his body was found.

It was not immediately clear why Epstein was taken off suicide watch, a special set of procedures for inmates who are deemed to be at risk of taking their own lives.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons, which operates the MCC, provided no explanation beyond its terse statement that Epstein was found dead in an apparent suicide.

His death touched off outrage from Attorney General William Barr, politicians and many of Epstein’s alleged victims, who fear that they may lose their day in court now that Epstein is dead.

That investigation into conduct described in the indictment, including the conspiracy count, will continue despite Epstein’s death, Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, said on Saturday.

The indictment – which accused Epstein of knowingly recruiting underage women to engage in sex acts, sometimes over a period of years – came more than a decade after he pleaded guilty in Florida to state charges of solicitation of prostitution from a minor in a deal with prosecutors that has been widely criticized as too lenient.

(Reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida; Editing by Frank McGurty and Bill Rigby)

New York man arrested in alleged plot to attack Times Square

New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers patrol in Time Square after a man was arrested in an alleged plot to buy grenades for an attack on Times Square in New York, U.S., June 7, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Segar

By Brendan Pierson

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New York man was arrested after allegedly discussing acquiring grenades and detonating them in Times Square, one of midtown Manhattan’s most crowded crossroads, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.

Ashiqul Alam, 22, from Jackson Heights in the city’s Queens borough, was arrested on Thursday afternoon, the person said. He is expected to appear in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn later on Friday, but it was unclear what charges he would face.

The New York Police Department declined to comment on the matter and referred inquires to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which also declined to comment.

The alleged plot was uncovered after police and federal authorities learned the man had been inquiring about buying grenades and using them in Times Square, one of the most visited destinations in the United States, the New York Daily News reported.

Authorities do not believe the man had links to a wider plot involving other people, the Daily News said, citing unidentified law enforcement sources.

The man had been under surveillance for some time and authorities had been closely monitoring him, NBC News reported, citing unnamed officials.

He talked about wanting to make a suicide bomb vest as well as using explosives, and eventually settled on a shooting attack in Times Square, NBC reported.

The man had discussed potential attacks on politicians in New York and Washington before settling on a plot to attack Times Square, NBC said.

Members of the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, which is made up of FBI agents and New York police detectives, made the arrest. The task force began tracking him and eventually took him into custody, according to media reports said.

With its millions of visitors each year, Times Square, often called the crossroads of the world, has been targeted by at least two bombers in recent years, despite its heavily-fortified police presence.

On May 1, 2010, police thwarted an attempted car bomb in Times Square, defusing a crude device made out of firecrackers and propane gas tanks.

A Pakistani-born U.S. citizen pleaded guilty to the plot, admitting that he had received bomb-making training from the Pakistani Taliban and that the group, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan had funded the plot. He was sentenced to life in prison.

In December 2017, a Bangladeshi man set off a homemade pipe bomb strapped to his body in a crowded underground pedestrian tunnel near Times Square. The man, Akayed Ullah, was convicted of six criminal counts, including use of a weapon of mass destruction and support of a terrorist organization.

On Friday morning, it was business as usual in Times Square, with a bustle of people on their way to work and tourists beginning to stream into the area.

Kate Fan, a 28-year-old charity worker visiting from her home in Guangzhou, China, said that she heard about the incident but still felt safe.

“We hear a lot of stories about New York being unsafe, but we feel like people sometimes exaggerate safety issues,” she said.

(Writing and additional reporting by Meredith Mazzilli, Peter Szekely and Ayenat Mersie; Editing by Frank McGurty and Nick Zieminski)

Measles outbreak spreads to Oklahoma as U.S. reports 41 new cases

FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: A vial of the measles, mumps, and rubella virus (MMR) vaccine is pictured at the International Community Health Services clinic in Seattle, Washington, U.S., March 20, 2019. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson/File Photo/File Photo/File Photo

(Reuters) – The worst measles outbreak in the United States in 25 years has spread to Oklahoma, federal health officials said on Monday as they reported 41 new cases nationwide, raising the total number sickened this year to 880 people.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a 4.9% increase in the number of measles cases from May 10 to May 17 in an outbreak that has now reached 24 states. The agency has been providing weekly updates every Monday.

The CDC said there had been one confirmed case in Oklahoma.

Most of the new cases were in New York, CDC spokesman Jason McDonald said, with 21 cases recorded in New York City and nine in Rockland County.

Health experts say the virus has spread among school-age children whose parents declined to give them the vaccine, which confers immunity to the disease. A vocal fringe of U.S. parents, some in New York’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities, cite concerns that the vaccine may cause autism, despite scientific studies that have debunked such claims.

Although the virus was eliminated from the country in 2000, meaning the disease was no longer a constant presence, outbreaks still happen via travelers coming from countries where measles is still common, according to the CDC.

Experts warn that the outbreak is not over as the number of cases approaches the 1994 total of 958. That was the highest number since 1992, when the CDC recorded 2,126 cases.

More than 40 people in 2019 brought measles to the United States from other countries, most frequently Ukraine, Israel and the Philippines, federal officials said.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter in New York, Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Scott Malone and Bill Berkrot)

Accused sex cult founder could face former ‘slaves’ at New York trial

Actress Allison Mack departs the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse after facing charges regarding sex trafficking and racketeering related to the Nxivm cult case in New York, U.S., April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

By Joseph Ax and Brendan Pierson

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Former self-help guru Keith Raniere goes on trial on Tuesday on charges of running a secretive New York sex cult that recruited female “slaves” who were then starved, branded with his initials and blackmailed into having sex with him.

Federal prosecutors have charged Raniere, 58, with using his cultlike Nxivm group, which claimed to offer members unique insights into life, as a front for crimes including sex trafficking, child pornography and sexual exploitation of a minor.

Several of his alleged “slaves” are expected to testify at U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. While prosecutors have not said who will take the stand, former “Smallville” star Allison Mack and Seagram liquor heiress Clare Bronfman have already pleaded guilty to playing supporting roles in the scheme.

Jurors have been warned to expect disturbing testimony and evidence during a trial that could run six weeks. Prosecutors intend to introduce explicit photographs of a 15-year-old girl alleged to have been one of Raniere’s victims, seized from his computer hard drive.

Mack and Bronfman are among five co-defendants, all women accused of involvement in Nxivm, who pleaded guilty to various charges in March and April, leaving Raniere as the sole person to face trial. The television actress tearfully acknowledged in court that she had blackmailed two women into providing services for her and other Nxivm members.

Bronfman, who provided key financial support for Nxivm, pleaded guilty in April and agreed to forfeit $6 million.

Raniere has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Marc Agnifilo, one of Raniere’s lawyers, has said that his client’s sexual encounters with women in the organization were consensual and denied the child pornography and exploitation charges.

The trial caps a bizarre saga for Raniere, who was arrested in March 2018 after fleeing to Mexico with Bronfman.

Nxivm, which started under another name in 1998 and is pronounced “Nexium,” was based in Albany, New York, and at one time operated numerous centers across the United States, Canada, Central America and Mexico.

The organization marketed itself as a business “providing educational tools, coaching and trainings” that would allow “humanity to rise to its noble possibility,” according to court filings.

In 2015, prosecutors say, Raniere established a sorority within Nxivm known as DOS, an acronym for a Latin phrase that roughly translates to “master of the obedient female companions.”

The subgroup included “slaves” who were expected to bend their wills to “masters” in a pyramid-like structure, with slaves expected in turn to recruit their own subordinates and Raniere standing alone at the top.

The slaves were required to submit “collateral” to win acceptance that could then be used as blackmail material: Nude photos, rights to their financial assets or damaging information about friends and relatives, prosecutors said.

Several women were branded with Raniere’s initials, prosecutors said, and they were required to engage in sexual acts with him. He is also accused of having forced some women to maintain slim figures by following a dangerously restrictive diet.

If convicted, Raniere faces up to life in prison.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax and Brendan Pierson; editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)