Allison Mack Sentenced To 3 Years In Prison For Crimes In NXIVM Sex Cult Case
‘Smallville’ star Allison Mack was sentenced to 3 years in prison on June 30 after she pled guilty to two charges related to her stint in the NXIVM sex cult.
Allison Mack, 38, is going to prison for her role in the NXIVM sex cult. The Smallville actress was sentenced to three years behind bars on Wednesday (June 30) after she plead guilty in April 2019 to one count of racketeering conspiracy and one count of racketeering (including extortion and forced labor) for her alleged time running a master-slave ring in the cult. Allison will also have to pay a $20,000 fine, the Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York announced.
India Oxenberg, a former member of NXIVM who fled the group in 2018, released a statement on Instagram following Allison’s sentencing. “Today is bittersweet,” she wrote. “For one, we’ve seen justice being upheld however complicated and emotional it might be. I am very grateful and proud of everyone who has participated. The reality of our choices (survivors of NXIVM and DOS) born within the group and during the aftermath has said a lot about people’s true nature. It has not been an easy road nor has recovering and putting my life back together. Since leaving, I’ve wished and prayed over the past couple of years that the truth will shine brighter than lies and that those who have been and continue to be trapped by Keith Raniere’s devastating and dangerous world be free of him both mentally and physically. For some that has happened and for others it hasn’t and that’s out of our control. The only thing I can do is share the truths of what I’ve learned in the hope that it helps others stay safer and become more aware.”
Ahead of the sentencing, Allison apologized for her involvement in NXIVM. “I am sorry to those of you that I brought into NXIVM. I am sorry I ever exposed you to the nefarious and emotionally abusive schemes of a twisted man. I am sorry that I encouraged you to use your resources to participate in something that was ultimately so ugly,” she wrote in a statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter on June 26. Her attorneys also asked that Allison be given no jail time for her crimes.
Federal prosecutors had recommended before the sentencing that Allison be given a lighter sentence since she reportedly assisted in the conviction of NXIVM founder Keith Raniere, 60. According to Deadline, Allison gave prosecutors an audiotape of Raniere talking about performing a branding ritual on female cult members that he groomed. “Although Mack could have provided even more substantial assistance had she made the decision to cooperate earlier, Mack provided significant, detailed and highly corroborated information which assisted the government in its prosecution,” prosecutors reportedly said in a memo filed on June 20. Raniere was sentenced to 120 years in prison on Oct. 27, 2020.
Allison was arrested in April 2018 on charges of sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy and forced labor conspiracy. She’s been accused of helping Raniere operate a sub-sect of NXIVM called Dominus Obsequious Sororium (DOS), in which women were allegedly kept as his sex slaves, forced into starvation diets, and branded with Raniere and Allison’s initials. Allison was allegedly Raniere’s “direct slave,” according to prosecutors, and also allegedly acted as a “master” to the other DOS slaves. She admitted in an interview with New York Times Magazine before her arrest that it was her idea to brand the women with a cauterizing pen.
Initially, Allison pleaded “not guilty” to the charges. But she changed her tune on April 8, 2019 when she pled guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy and one count of racketeering at a Brooklyn courthouse hearing. “I have come to the conclusion that I must take full responsibility for my conduct and that’s why I am pleading guilty today,” Allison told the court while choking up. “I am very sorry to my family and to the good people I hurt through my misguided adherence to Keith Raniere’s teachings.”