Smallville actress charged
Actress Allison Mack, best known for her decade on TV’s Smallville, and Keith Raniere, the leader of what authorities allege is a sex cult, were indicted on Friday in New York on federal charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit forced labour, the Albany Times-Union reported.
Raniere and Mack are each charged with multiple counts, and could face a minimum of 15 years in prison.
Mack was arrested in New York City on Friday and will be held pending a bail hearing today. Raniere has been in custody since he was arrested in Mexico in March.
Raniere is the founder of NXIVM, which bills itself as a selfhelp and empowerment organisation, but is described by authorities as a cult-like group whose members recruited women to be sex slaves, and branded their pubic regions with Raniere’s initials.
The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle said Mack was indicted ‘‘for her role in DOS, a group ... that purported to be a women’s empowerment sorority. Prosecutors, however, say DOS was actually a sex-slave ring led by Raniere, with women known as ‘slaves’ who reported to ‘masters’ who ultimately reported to Raniere himself. Mack is an alleged co-conspirator, reporting directly to Raniere.’’
Mack, 35, is alleged by prosecutors to have recruited slaves for pay, forcing the women to have sex with Raniere, and using explicit photos and damaging information to ensure their compliance.
According to AP, prosecutors said Mack told recruits that they were joining a female mentorship group.
Assistant US Attorney Moira Kim Penza also said in court that ‘‘under the guise of female empowerment’’, Mack ‘‘starved women until they fit her codefendant’s sexual ideal’’, the AP wrote.
Mack starred in the CW Network series as Chloe Sullivan from 2001 to 2011, and has been in a handful of television series roles since, according to her IMDB page.
According to CBS News: ‘‘Former NXIVM publicist Frank Parlato told Inside Edition that Mack is ‘completely enamoured with Raniere and completely under his thrall.’ He also said that Mack and her Smallville co-star, Kristin Kreuk, were used as ‘poster girls for normalising the group’. Kreuk says she left NXIVM years ago and commended the women who exposed DOS.’’
Raniere, 57, known to his followers as ‘the Vanguard’ - was living in a villa in Puerto Vallarta with several women, according to federal prosecutors, before he was apprehended in March. Mexican authorities took him into custody and delivered him to Texas; he’s now in federal custody in Brooklyn. As Raniere was taken from the villa, The Post‘ s Kyle Swenson wrote, citing prosecutors, the women chased after authorities in their own car at high speed.
‘‘In my opinion, NXIVM is one of the most extreme groups I have ever dealt with in the sense of how tightly wound it is around the leader,’’ cult expert Rick Ross told the Times-Union in 2012.
The US Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn last week wrote in court documents that Rainere has ‘‘a decades-long history of abusing women and girls’’, and accused him of having sex with minors.
In a statement attributed to Raniere on NXIVM’s website, he proclaimed his innocence and said he believed the justice system would prevail. He also denied affiliation with DOS, the sorority.
The Times-Union, however, wrote that ‘‘federal court records indicate emails seized from Raniere’s private messaging accounts support the conclusion that Raniere created the club, which was known as ‘Dominus Obsequious Sororium,’ which means ‘Master Over the Slave Women’.’’