On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis sentenced Smallville actress Allison Mack to three years in prison for her crimes related to Keith Raniere’s sex cult NXIVM, which masqueraded as a self-help group. More than two years ago, Mack pleaded guilty to two racketeering charges that carried a maximum of 20 years in prison. The FBI arrested her in April 2018, so she has spent three years in jail leading up to this three-year sentence.
Mack confessed to manipulating women to become sex slaves for Raniere through the DOS (Dominus Obsequium Sororum) sorority. Two documentary series — Starz’s Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult and HBO’s The Vow — explain how Raniere created a self-help organization/cult and used it to prepare women to become his sex slaves. Mack trapped women into “master-slave” relationships on the false premise of self-improvement, then coerced them to have sex with Raniere.
Mack renounced Raniere at her sentencing, the Associated Press reported.
“I made choices I will forever regret,” the actress said, 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 on Wednesday, saying, “From the deepest part of my heart and soul, I am sorry.”
Mack occasionally wept while reading her statement to the court. Judge Garaufis told her he believed her apology to be sincere, but he insisted that 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 faced between 14 and 17.5 years behind bars, but her defense team argued that probation of a sentence to home confinement was more appropriate. Prosecutors had agreed that any prison term should be below the guidelines due to Mack’s cooperation with the government against Raniere.
A victim, Jessica Joan, rejected Mack’s apologies, telling the judge that Mack 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.”
Last October, Judge Garaufis sentenced Raniere to 120 years in prison after his sex-trafficking victims testified against him in court.
Prosecutors claimed NXIVM amounted to a criminal enterprise, using shame and guilt to control co-conspirators who helped recruit and groom women for sex with Keith Raniere. Garaufis convicted Raniere on charges including racketeering, alien smuggling, sex trafficking, extortion, and obstruction of justice. Among other crimes, Raniere began a sexual relationship in 2005 with a 15-year-old girl and confined another teenager to a room for nearly two years.
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Raniere ran NXIVM out of Albany, N.Y., with branches in Mexico and Canada.
Clare Bronfman, an heir to the Seagram’s liquor fortune and a financier for NXIVM, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison, more than the sentence prosecutors requested.
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