Actress accused of helping to recruit, brand sex slaves
UNITED STATES: An actress who starred in the US television series Smallville has been arrested on charges of sex trafficking.
Allison Mack, 35, is accused of recruiting sex slaves for a self-help guru and helping to brand them with his initials. Mack appeared in
a show about Clark Kent’s childhood in Kansas before he becomes known as Superman, which ran from 2001 to 2011. She played Chloe Sullivan, one of the main character’s best friends.
She later became involved with a group called Nxivm – pronounced Nexium – which was promoted as a mentorship organisation for women, with courses costing up to US$5000 (NZ$7000).
The leader of the group was Keith Raniere, 57, who called himself Vanguard and presented himself as a guru to the stars. Prosecutors alleged that Mack was a slave of Raniere and recruited other female slaves for him, at times holding them down while a symbol bearing his initials was burned into the victims with a cauterising pen.
At a brief hearing in a New York court on Friday, US time, Mack pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking. Richard Donoghue, the prosecutor, said in a statement that Raniere had, over two decades, established Nxivm in Albany, New York, and it had centres in the US, Mexico, Canada and South America. He said it was a pyramid scheme in which participants were encouraged to recruit others in order to rise in the system.
Within Nxivm, there was a secret society called DOS which was an acronym for a Latin phrase, loosely translating as ‘‘Lord/Master of the Obedient Female Companions’’. It was also known as The Vow. Those who were part of The Vow were referred to as slaves and masters.
Donoghue said: ‘‘Raniere stood alone at the top of the pyramid. Other than Raniere, all members were women. Mack is one of the women in the first level of the pyramid.
‘‘The victims were exploited, both sexually and for their labour, to the defendants’ benefit.’’
He said up to 50 women were recruited and forced to have sex with Raniere. They were placed on extreme diets and subjected to ‘‘readiness drills’’ in the middle of the night, which meant they were ‘‘seriously sleep-deprived.
On joining the secret society, they had to provide ‘‘collateral’’, such as naked photographs of themselves, which could be used against them if they left, prosecutors said.
Moira Kim, an assistant US attorney, told the New York court: ‘‘Ms Mack was one of the top members of a highly organised scheme, which was designed to provide sex to Raniere.
‘‘Under the guise of female empowerment she starved women until they fit her co-defendant’s sexual ideal, and she targeted vulnerable women.’’