Actress Pleads Guilty In Sex Trafficking

Allison Mack tearfully told a judge on Monday that she first joined the cultlike group known as Nxivm to “find purpose.” She was unsatisfied with her acting career, she said, despite her role on the successful television series “Smallville,” according to The NY Times.

Allison Mack

Led by Keith Raniere, the group, based in Albany, billed itself as a self-help organization. It offered workshops and classes that promised participants greater self-fulfillment.

Mack became so involved, federal prosecutors said, that she began recruiting other women into a secret sect within Nxivm in which women were branded with Mr. Raniere’s initials and were forced to have sex with him.

In a lengthy, tear-filled confession at Federal District Court in Brooklyn, Ms. Mack admitted to luring women into Nxivm (pronounced NEX-ee-um), where they were extorted and coerced into following Mr. Raniere’s orders.

“I must take full responsibility for my conduct,” Ms. Mack, 36, said.

The racketeering counts were among the least lurid ones that Ms. Mack faced. When the actress was arrested last year, she was also charged with sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and forced labor.

Her arrest was part of a larger federal case against high-ranking members of Nxivm, including Mr. Raniere and four others. Federal authorities had begun investigating the organization after The New York Times published an article in late 2017 detailing the inner workings of the secret sorority within Nxivm.