Allison Mack, a former actor on “Smallville” who was a key member in leader Keith Raniere‘s NXIVM cult, was released from prison on Monday after serving two years of her three-year sentence. She pleaded guilty to racketeeringand racketeering conspiracy charges in 2021.
Raniere was sentenced to 120 years in prison in October 2020 on charges of sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy and racketeering. Mack recruited and groomed women to the NXIVM cult, and Raniere took them as sexual partners. Some of the women were branded with Raniere’s initials and were sexually abused by him while they were members of the group.
In Mack’s sentencing in June 2021, a federal judge called her an “essential accomplice” to Raniere.
“This court, in sentencing Mr. Raniere, made it very clear how seriously it views the conduct for which he was convicted,” U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis wrote in his memo. “When it comes to DOS, and the monstrous crimes he committed in connection with that organization, you were an essential accomplice. You willingly enslaved, destabilized, and manipulated other women so that when they were at their most vulnerable, when they believed that they owed you total obedience and that anything less than that would cause them serious personal and financial harm, when you had taken from them their sense of agency to make their own choices, you gave them ‘special assignments’ to satisfy Mr. Raniere’s sexual interests. Mr. Raniere could not have done that without you. You did that together. The evidence presented at his trial demonstrated that you were not a begrudging or passive enabler, but rather that you were a willing and proactive ally.”
At her sentencing, Mack told the judge that “I made choices I will forever regret” and that she was filled with “remorse and guilt.” She spent 11 years in the NXIVM cult and called Raniere’s “twisting influence” a form of brainwashing. Originally, Mack faced between 14 and 17 years in prison, but her cooperation with authorities in prosecuting Raniere lowered her sentence.
Mack, Raniere and the NXIVM cult gained public recognition with the popular true crime docuseries “The Vow,” released on HBO in 2020. It chronicled the history of NXIVM and included the arrests of its key members.
