‘Smallville’ Star Allison Mack is Charged with Racketeering for Sex Traffic Cult
It’s not uncommon for a well-known, sometimes beloved, celebrity to turn into a bad egg trying to stay afloat. It is usually unexpected though when one of these people many of us look up to – and particularly a woman – ends up working as an organizer for sex trafficking operations.
A Bit About Allison:
Allison Mack was born in Preetz, Germany, in 1982. She lived there with her parents for two years before moving to California. Mack had worked many jobs in her life. Her first was for a German chocolate company in a number of print ads and commercials. She went into modeling for a short amount of time, and when she was 7, she studied at the Young Actors Space in Los Angeles. She played major roles in television shows and films: 7th Heaven, Opposite Sex, My Horrible Year!, Camp Nowhere, and Disney’s Honey We Shrunk Ourselves.
Starting in 2001, she starred in Smallville as Chloe Sullivan, one of Clark Kent’s best friends. She appeared regularly for 9 seasons of the show and was featured in a smattering of episodes afterward, including the two-part series finale. From 2003 to 2006, she appeared in a couple of Smallville spin-offs, as well as taking roles in a number of other projects, like The Nightmare Room, The Ant Bully (2006), The Batman (2006), and Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (2009). From 2012 onward, she also appeared in a small number of other projects, including Wilfred, The Following, and American Odyssey.
Where Things Started Going Wrong:
Mack was in a number of relationships with fellow actors over her time in Hollywood, including Canadian actor Chad Krowchuk, Star Wars staple Sam Witwer (who also starred in Smallville), to whom she got engaged in 2013, and after their breakup, Canadian actress Nicki Clyne, a member of NXIVM, whom she married in 2017.
Mack’s marriage to Clyne is allegedly a sham in order to get Clyne around US immigration laws. It was only made public a year later during legal proceedings on the racketeering and conspiracy charges against Mack for her involvement in NXIVM. She divorced Clyne in 2020.
What is NXIVM? Long story short, NXIVM is an American cult based in Clifton Park, New York, which posed as a multi-level marketing and personal development company and engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor, and racketeering. Mack had become a member in early 2006.
Not only was Mack involved with NXIVM, but she was also a high-ranking member, as well as second in command of the subgroup DOS, “Dominus Obsequious Sororium”, under NXIVM founder Keith Raniere. For the most part, this sounds like regularly organized crime, right? Well, remember when we said NXIVM was a cult? Mack, Clyne, and Lauren Salzman (daughter of NXIVM president Nancy Salzman) were Raniere’s inner circle, as well as his sexual partners. On top of all this, Mack co-created a NXIVM program called “The Source”, which recruited actresses into the cult. Former member Sarah Edmonton opened up to the New York Times about some of the activities. She stated that she had been branded in an initiation ceremony that Mack supervised in her home. Some accounts claim that the brands were the initials of either Mack (AM) and Raniere (KR). Mack confirmed in a New York Times interview that the branding was her idea and that it followed a script written by Raniere. They told the women that the brands were symbols of the elements, but really, it was just the NXIVM founder’s initials.
Mack’s Criminal Prosecution:
Mack was arrested by the FBI in Brooklyn, New York, in 2018, and charged with sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, and forced labor conspiracy. It was during these proceedings that the accusation of a sham marriage with Clyne came to light. More charges got piled up, including recruiting women to join a “female mentorship group” which was, according to the prosecution, a “highly organized scheme designed to provide Raniere with sex”. According to federal prosecutors, Mack recruited women by convincing them they were joining a women-only group for their empowerment and eradication of weakness that NXIVM taught was common in women.
Here’s the kicker: to join the group, women were required to provide sensitive, highly damaging personal information, nude photos, and rights to all personal assets. They were then starved to suit Raniere’s ideal feminine form and blackmailed into slavery. In return, Mack would receive a number of benefits, including financial, from Raniere. Convicted of all charges, both Mack and Raniere faced 15 years in prison.
In 2018, after a bond of $5 million was paid, Mack was released and placed under house arrest under the custody of her parents in California. In 2019, a court revealed that Mack and the other defendants in the NXIVM case were in “active plea negotiations” because Raniere appeared in court to plead not guilty to charges of child pornography-related to the case. On April 8 of that year, Mack pleaded guilty to racketeering and admitted to state law extortion and forced labor. She was scheduled for resentencing, but this was postponed by the court so that there was enough time to investigate the entire affair. In 2020, she, Raniere, and other NXIVM leaders were named as defendants in a lawsuit filed by up to 80 other former members of the cult. Among the charges were allegations of extortion, abuse, the organization being a pyramid scheme, exploitation of recruits, conducting of illegal human experiments, and making it “physically and psychologically impossible to leave”. Mack faced up to 17 years in prison under advisory sentencing guidelines. However, mere days before the sentencing date, she released a formal statement of remorse, claiming her involvement to be “the biggest mistake and regret of her life”. An additional letter from her attorney asked for no prison time in consideration of this remorse, after which her ultimate sentence was 3 years in prison, 3 years on probation, completion of 1,000 hours of community service, and a $20,000 fine. In September 2021, Mack reported to the Federal Correctional institution in Dublin, California to begin her sentence. Raniere did not get off so easily. In 2020, he was sentenced to 120 years in federal prison.
Thoughts on the Case:
Mack got off really easy here. Her sentence could have been far more severe, and maybe she deserves it; what do you think? It’s good to see justice being served, and we can only hope that Mack’s remorse is genuine and that she spends the rest of her life atoning for her crimes.