Smallville star charged with sex trafficking

Actor Allison Mack, from the TV series Smallville, was charged on Friday with sex trafficking for her alleged involvement in an organisation promoting itself as a self-help group for women. The group forced its members to have sex with its leader, prosecutors said.

Mack, 35, helped gain recruits for what was purported to be a mentorship group but instead exploited its followers, who were branded with a symbol containing the initials of the organisation’s leader, Richard P. Donoghue, said the US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, in a statement.

The actor participated in a group known as Nxivm (pronounced Nex-e-um), the authorities said. The organisation, near Albany, New York, was led by Keith Raniere, 57, who was arrested in March by federal officials in Mexico on sextrafficking charges. Its followers were forced to have sex with him because they feared that if they didn’t do so, compromising material that they had provided about themselves would be released publicly, according to a complaint.

Raniere created a secret society within Nxivm called “DOS,” which derived from a Latin phrase that loosely translated to “Lord/Master of the Obedient Female Companions,” or “The Vow,” officials said. “DOS operated with levels of women ‘slaves’ headed by ‘masters,’” the statement said. “Slaves were expected to recruit slaves of their own (thus becoming masters themselves), who in turn owed service not only to their own masters but also to masters above them in the DOS pyramid.” Mack was one of the women on the level of the pyramid immediately below Raniere, officials said.

THE NEW YORK TIMES