Smallville actress Allison Mack was sentenced to three years in jail Wednesday for her role in recruiting women to be sex slaves in Keith Raniere's controversial NXIVM cult.
Mack, 38, received a reduced sentence after pleading guilty to racketeering charges in April 2019, and cooperating with prosecutors.
"I'm ashamed of the way I behaved," Mack, who played Clark Kent's best friend from 2001 to 2011 in the series, told the hearing in federal court in Brooklyn. The German-born American added that she was "filled with remorse and guilt" for what she called a "horrific chapter of my life."
Prosecutors had recommended a more lenient sentence than the 14 to 17 years stipulated by the law due to her participation in their investigation.
Raniere, whose cult was based near Albany north of New York City, was jailed for 120 years in October, after being arrested in Mexico in 2018.
Raniere founded the NXIVM (pronounced nexium), marketed as a "self-help" organisation alongside a psychiatric nurse Nancy Salzman in 1998. Followers signed up for $5,000, five-day personal development courses called Executive Success Programs. Their clientele included big names like businesswoman Sheila Johnson, businessman Edgar Bronfman Sr, even Richard Branson (who later denied his involvement), and actors like Linda Evans and Nicki Clyne.
The case has been covered heavily in the media, and has also been chronicled in docuseries like Seduced (on Lionsgate Play), Escaping the Nxivm Cult, and HBO's The Vow.
Here is a timeline of the controversial case:
2017: The New York Times published an alarming investigation into the functioning of NXIVM. The group had a "secret sisterhood" called the Dominus Obsequious Sororium, where female members were branded with Raniere's initials, coerced into having sex with him, and called "slaves." Actor Sarah Edmondson gave an insider account, saying that she had inducted into this group.
However, she could only join after providing a "collateral," essentially personal information in the form of compromising photos or statements that could malign the members' public image. Female members who did not comply to the rules of their "masters" were subjected to corporal punishments and forced to fast. After the article was published, Raniere fled to Mexico.
27 March, 2018: Raniere was arrested by the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) in Mexico on charges of sex trafficking and forced labour.
28 March: Questions around the involvement of other people in furthering the cult's motive also arose after Raniere's arrest. Smallville actor Kristin Kreuk's came up, but she later denied recruiting women into the group. In a statement to Elle magazine, the actor explained that she had enrolled herself for NXIVM's classes when she was 23, but the accusations against her were false.
20 April: Allison Mack was arrested and charged with sex trafficking and forced labour. At a hearing in a Brooklyn court, the actor pleased not guilty to the charges.
25 April: A federal judge in Brooklyn agreed to release Mack on $5 million bond and placed her under home detention in California.
5 May: Authorities said they expect to make more arrests in the sex-trafficking investigation. Assistant U Attorney Moira Penza told a judge at a pretrial hearing in federal court in Brooklyn that the government planned to file a revised indictment naming more defendants.
30 May: Mack told NYT that branding the female members was her idea, likening it to getting tattooed. She also explained the inner workings of the DOS, which she claimed to be a women empowerment sect, and how the members were treated.
June: NXIVM suspended its operations.
24 July: Heiress Clare Bronfman, NXIVM founder Nancy Salzman and her daughter Lauren Salzman, and former NXIVM bookkeeper Kathy Russell were arrested and charged with racketeering conspiracy in connection to the case.
13 March, 2019: Nancy Salzman pleaded guilty to the charges. She told a judge in federal court in Brooklyn that she teamed up with Raniere, because she wanted to help people improve their lives. But she admitted that she later lost her way when she joined efforts to spy on perceived enemies seeking to expose the Albany-based group as a cross between a pyramid scheme and a cult.
“It has taken some time and soul searching to come to this place,” said Salzman. “I accept that some of what I did was not just wrong, but criminal. ... If I could go back and do it all over again, I would. But I can’t.”
14 March: Raniere was charged with exploiting a child and possessing child pornography of which he pleaded not guilty in court. He was also accused of possessing child pornography between 2005 and 2018. In the same month, Lauren Salzman pleaded guilty.
8 April: Mack pleaded guilty. Mack, 36, wept as she admitted her crimes and apologised to the women who prosecutors say were exploited by Raniere and the purported self-help group called NXIVM. “I believed Keith Raniere’s intentions were to help people, and I was wrong,” Mack told a Brooklyn judge. Her sentencing was scheduled for 11 September.
June: After a six-week long trial, Raniere was convicted of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy, sex trafficking conspiracy and two counts of sex trafficking according to The Hollywood Reporter.
January, 2020: NXIVM slapped with a new lawsuit, where former members claimed that the group was also a pyramid scheme. The cult was also accused of subjecting members to verbal and emotional abuse. Among 80 people sued NXIVM and also wrote in the lawsuit that it was made "physically and psychologically difficult, and in some cases impossible, to leave the coercive community," according to NYT.
October: Raniere was sentenced to 120 years in prison. "I was a child. (He) robbed me of my youth," said the woman during an impact statement at his sentencing hearing. A total of 15 people, 13 of them women, addressed the Brooklyn court Tuesday while more than 90 victims wrote letters to Judge Nicholas Garaufis.
Addressing the court, Raniere said he was "deeply sorry" for the "pain and anger" that his victims had expressed but maintained his innocence. "I'm not remorseful over the charges. Those are not right," he added.
June, 2021: Mack faces sentencing. It was expected she would get a prison term of 14 to 17.5 years, but was given a reduced term instead.
(With inputs from agencies)
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