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For years, Keith Raniere described himself as the smartest and most ethical person in the world. He compared himself to Einstein and Gandhi, and boasted that he had earned multiple academic degrees.

But during opening statements on Tuesday in Mr. Raniere’s racketeering and sex trafficking trial, a federal prosecutor told jurors that the image he projected as the guru of a cultlike group called Nxivm was a charade.

“The defendant said he was a mentor, but he was a predator,” said the prosecutor Tanya Hajjar, adding that Mr. Raniere “pretended to be a guru,” but was a criminal.

Mr. Raniere co-founded the group in an Albany suburb in the 1990s and sold it as a self-help organization that offered a path to greater fulfillment. It offered workshops, like one called “Executive Success Programs,” that promised participants a more meaningful life.

But prosecutors have charged it was criminal enterprise involved in identity theft, extortion and sex trafficking.

The real purpose of the group was to exert power over women, Ms. Hajjar said. Some of Mr. Raniere’s followers were branded with his initials and pressured into handing over the deeds to their homes, their bank account information and their “deepest, darkest secrets.”

Many of these women were also coerced into having sex with Mr. Raniere, including an underage girl from Mexico named Camilla, Ms. Hajjar said. Mr. Raniere kept sexually explicit photos of the girl and several women on his computer.

Mr. Raniere called the girl “Virgin Camilla,” Ms. Hajjar said, and began having sex with her when she was 15.

Ms. Hajjar said the government would draw upon pictures, email messages, and video recordings to make its case against Mr. Raniere, as well as testimony from former Nxivm members who had committed “serious crimes” with him.

“This was organized crime, and Keith Raniere was the crime boss in the community,” she said. “He was untouchable.”

But Mr. Raniere’s lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, told jurors his client tried to help his followers to reach their personal goals and had never forced them to do anything against their will.

He warned jurors they might see a video of a woman being branded. “See if the women seemed forced or if they are doing it because they want to do it,” Mr. Agnifilo said.

Mr. Raniere, 58, has been indicted on charges of racketeering conspiracy, identity theft, extortion, forced labor, money laundering, wire fraud and sex trafficking.

In recent weeks, five women who were charged as Mr. Raniere’s co-defendants have pleaded guilty, one by one, to various federal charges, leaving Mr. Raniere to stand trial alone.

Nxivm attracted wealthy supporters, including Clare Bronfman, the youngest daughter of Edgar Bronfman, the deceased chairman of Seagram Company.

An actress, Allison Mack, known for her role in the television series “Smallville,” also became one of Mr. Raniere’s acolytes. Ms. Mack recruited women into a secret society within the group, known as D.O.S., in which members were branded and compelled to have sex with Mr. Raniere, prosecutors have said.

The women in the D.O.S. society were called “slaves,” and prosecutors have said Mr. Raniere and others in his inner circle extorted property from them by threatening to expose embarrassing secrets about them, material they called “collateral.”

The first witness in the trial was a 32-year-old woman from Britain who was identified using the pseudonym “Sylvie.” She testified that she had been involved with Nxivm for about 13 years and had been a member of D.O.S.

But Mr. Agnifilo argued that the promises that Mr. Raniere made to Nxivm members were genuine and suggested that it was the government’s case that should be thought of as a charade.

Thousands of successful people had taken Nxivm courses, he said, and many of them had been helped by Mr. Raniere’s teachings. He said he would present evidence that some members who now said they were unhappy with their experiences had expressed different thoughts before.

He also suggested that Mr. Raniere’s female followers had recruited others to join the D.O.S. group out of “sisterhood” and that there was little difference between that group and men-only societies like the Masons.

Mr. Agnifilo argued that although Mr. Raniere had taken part in many activities might seem distasteful to jurors, he had done so while honestly trying to help people, not with criminal intent.

“I don’t have to defend everything,” he said. “But I will defend his good faith.”

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