Allison Mack leaves federal court in the Brooklyn in 2019, after pleading guilty to racketeering charges in the NXIVM case. Photo / AP
Allison Mack leaves federal court in the Brooklyn in 2019, after pleading guilty to racketeering charges in the NXIVM case. Photo / AP
The television actor Allison Mack, who pleaded guilty for her role in a sex-trafficking case tied to the cult-like group NXIVM, has been released from a California prison, according to a US government website.
Mack, best known for her role as a young Superman’s close friend on Smallville, was sentenced to three years behind bars in 2021 after pleading guilty two years earlier to charges that she manipulated women into becoming sex slaves for NXIVM leader Keith Raniere.
Online records maintained by the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Mack, 40, was released Monday from a federal prison in Dublin, California, near San Francisco. Her release was first reported by the Albany Times-Union.
Mack avoided a longer prison term by cooperating with federal authorities in their case against Raniere, who was ultimately sentenced to 120 years in prison after being convicted on sex-trafficking charges.
Mack helped prosecutors mount evidence showing how Raniere created a secret society that included brainwashed women who were branded with his initials and forced to have sex with him.
In addition to Mack, members of the group included an heiress to the Seagram’s liquor fortune, Clare Bronfman; and a daughter of TV star Catherine Oxenberg of Dynasty fame.
Branding sex slaves
Mack was once part of the inner circle of Raniere, whose group attracted millionaires and actors among its adherents.
Prosecutors said she became a “master” for “slaves” she ordered “to perform labour, take nude photographs, and in some cases, to engage in sex acts with Raniere.”
NXIVM charged thousands of dollars for invitation-only self-improvement courses at its headquarters near Albany, New York, along with branches in Mexico and Canada. Adherents endured humiliation and pledged obedience to Raniere - who they called ‘Vanguard’ - as part of his teachings.
To honour Raniere, the group formed a secret sorority comprised of female “slaves” who were branded with his initials and ordered to have sex with him, prosecutors said.
Allison Mack and NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere. Photo / YouTube
The brands depicting the initials of Raniere were meant to symbolise the women’s status as sex slaves for the self-help guru.
Women were also pressured into giving up embarrassing information about themselves that could be used against them if they left the group.
As authorities closed in on Raniere, he fled to Mexico with Mack and others to try to reconstitute the group there. He was arrested and sent to the United States in March 2018; Mack was arrested a few days later.
Sentenced for 120 years
Raniere was sentenced to 120 years in prison for his conviction on racketeering conspiracy, alien smuggling, sex trafficking, extortion and obstruction of justice - but refused to take responsibility.
“I do believe I am innocent of the charges. ... It is true I am not remorseful of the crimes I do not believe I committed at all,” he said at the time.
The unrepentant former leader was ordered to pay US$3.5 million to 21 victims of the sex-trafficking scheme, a sum including the cost of surgically removing scars from branding rituals performed by a secret sorority.
The judge also ordered Raniere to return “collateral” — nude photos and other potentially embarrassing material — that was used to extort and manipulate the victims.
At the time of Raniere’s trial, India Oxenberg, the daughter of Dynasty actor Catherine Oxenberg, called Raniere an “entitled little princess” and a sexual predator and lamented that she “may have to spend the rest of my life with Keith Raneire’s initials seared into me.”
Another victim said she had the initials removed from her body by a plastic surgeon.
Other victims labelled him a liar, a parasite, a terrorist, a sociopath, a racist, a sadist and “a toddler with too much power and zero accountability.”
And a woman who was sexually abused beginning at age 15 said Raniere groomed her by telling her she was mature for her age.
“It is false. I was a child,” she said.
Mack’s ‘remorse and guilt’
At her sentencing in Brooklyn federal court in July 2021, Mack renounced the self-improvement guru.
“I made choices I will forever regret,” Mack said, also telling the judge she was filled with “remorse and guilt.”
“I am sorry to those of you that I brought into NXIVM,” she wrote in a letter filed with the court. “I am sorry I ever exposed you to the nefarious and emotionally abusive schemes of a twisted man.”
She reiterated her apologies to the victims in court: “From the deepest part of my heart and soul, I am sorry.”
A scene from The Vow, a documentary tracing the fallout of NXIVM. Photo / Supplied.
Mack wept at times while reading her statement to the court.
A victim, Jessica Joan, rejected Mack’s apologies, telling the judge the actor deserved no mercy.
“She can blame Keith all she wants but she is a monster cut from the same cloth,” Joan said in court on Wednesday. “Allison Mack is a predator and an evil human being.”
US District Judge Nicholas Garaufis told Mack he believed her apology was sincere, but said she deserved a serious sentence for using her celebrity to groom victims as “a willing and proactive ally” and “essential accomplice to Raniere’s monstrous crimes.”
Under advisory sentencing guidelines, Mack had faced between 14 and 17 and a half years behind bars, but her defence team argued in court papers that probation or a sentence to home confinement was more appropriate.
Prosecutors had agreed that any prison term should be below the guidelines range because of her cooperation.
Mack provided information to prosecutors about how Raniere encouraged “the use of demeaning and derogatory language, including racial slurs, to humiliate ‘slaves,’”. More importantly, she provided a recording of a conversation she had with Raniere about the branding, they added.
The branding should involve “a vulnerable position type of a thing” with “hands probably above the head being held, almost like being tied down, like sacrificial, whatever,” Raniere told her. The women, he added, “should say, ‘Please brand me. It would be an honour.’ Or something like that.”
A third person was also sentenced in the NXIVM scandal. The heir to the Seagram’s fortune, Clare Bronfman, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison for her role as Raniere’s unwavering benefactor.
Ex-followers told the judge at the time that Bronfman for years had used her wealth to try to silence NXIVM defectors.
NXIVM has been the subject of several TV documentary series over the years, including HBO’s The Vow, and the Starz series Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult.
