HUCKABEE HAS 'CULT' FOLLOWING
By JEANE MACINTOSH

December 31, 2007 -- Mike Huckabee is being backed by a bizarre upstate group that has been denounced as a cult, The Post has learned.

Records show Huckabee raked in $20,000 from Sara Bronfman, the Seagram liquor heiress and high-profile devotee of the NXIVM group.

Bronfman made the donation to Hope for America, a political action committee set up in Virginia by Huckabee, according to that state's public records.

Albany-based NXIVM bills itself as an executive-training program, but detractors have said it is a "cult."

Its leader, Keith Raniere, was run out of Huckabee's home state of Arkansas in 1992 after authorities there accused him of running a pyramid scheme. Facing probes in 23 other states, Raniere shuttered his operation.

Bronfman listed herself as an employee of a NXIVM subsidiary when she donated to Huckabee's PAC in December 2005.

Huckabee shuttered the PAC earlier this year.

Huckabee campaign officials did not respond to requests for comment

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12312007/ne ... 249917.htm