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The trial of NXIVM co-founder Keith Raniere is underway and a former member testified this week that Allison Mack made a ‘life-long vow’ to the alleged sex cult leader with chilling consequences.
Smallville star Allison Mack, 36, doesn’t have any children, but according to a former member of NXIVM, she made a vow to Keith Raniere, 58, to give him all her future children as punishment if she ever chose to leave him. In testimony lasting several days, Mark Vincente, a filmmaker who was once a high-ranking member of NXIVM, revealed details of Allison’s depraved deal with the alleged sex cult leader.
Court papers that included a transcript of testimonies, which were seen by HollywoodLife, reveal that a witness for the prosecution (Mark) told the jury on May 15 that Allison had sworn her life-long allegiance to NXIVM leader Keith Raniere. “The vow was to Raniere vowing in essence that she would never leave. And that if she ever did, she would give up … any children she had to him and all her possessions. So it was some kind of a life-long vow. When I heard that from her, I was extremely disturbed. It was consistent with the kind of … vows involved in a lot of curriculum, this seemed extreme. Of course I was very concerned.”
Allison’s shocking pledge wasn’t the only thing that worried Mark. During his testimony he told the court that he was deeply bothered by her extreme weight loss. “My greatest concern back then was Allison Mack. I was very concerned. I was spending a lot of time with her back then, and I just couldn’t understand why her weight was dropping so much. And also accompanying the weight loss was sort of this tired, kind of out-of-it look, she sometimes couldn’t focus very well. And to me it looked like a kind of malnutrition.
“So I was deeply concerned about that, and so I went to talk [to] Raniere about it. I went to see him, and I said, ‘I’m concerned that all these people have this idea that skinniness is the ultimate objective. And I said to him, ‘It also worries me deeply given that in this society right now, the obsession, with the bodies and models and everything, like I don’t think it’s healthy to tell a woman that her weight is tied to her enlightenment or her growth or whatever. It’s just unhealthy. It’s … bad. Women, and especially young women, have enough issues already with their appearance given the culture we live in. Why do that?’ And he said to me, ‘Well, you know, I work with different people in different ways, and there’s different reasons for different things’…. It wasn’t making any sense whatsoever.”
Mark testified that he continued to press Keith about Allison and why she looked so unhealthy. “I said, ‘But Allison — what about Allison? She looks terrible. If this is her having some kind of breakthrough, I don’t [know] what’s going on. Then I don’t understand breakthroughs because she looks horrible’. I said, ‘You know, she looks broken.’ And he said, ‘Well, I’m trying to break her.’ And I was like ‘uh-huh. Okay. Well, she’s not looking healthy.’ And he said, ‘Well, she’s still getting her period.’ And I was like, ‘Okay.’ I wasn’t sure where else to go. I was thinking to myself, ‘Well, you know, you can take a pill and still do a whole bunch of things,’ but in the end I just backed away, because I couldn’t get any clear answers.”
Fortunately for Allison she has managed to break free of Keith and NXIVM — but it took being arrested and charged with multiple crimes for her to turn her back on him. Allison hasn’t escaped unscathed though — she is currently facing up to 20 years in jail for her for her involvement in NXIVM. HollywoodLife will update you as we learn more on this developing story.