NEW YORK—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 cultlike organization, a federal prosecutor told a jury at the start of his trial on May 7 .
“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.”
