'Smallville' Star Allison Mack Sentenced to 3 Years, $20,000 Fine for Role in NXIVM Cult
Actress Allison Mack was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for her involvement in the NXIVM sex cult. She will also have to pay a $20,000 fine, according to the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of New York.
Mack, known for her role in the TV series Smallville, was arrested in 2018 along with six other people involved in the controversial group. The cult's leader, Keith Raniere, is serving a 120-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2019.
Mack, 36, pleaded guilty in April 2019 to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy charges related to her high-level role in NXIVM. She was released on $5 million bail and placed under house arrest until Wednesday's sentencing.
Prosecutors, who said the actress could face up to 17 years in prison, asked U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis for a reduced sentence because of the "substantial assistance" she provided during the investigation.
Court documents say that since her arrest, Mack earned an associate's degree from a community college and enrolled in a bachelor's degree program at the University of California, Berkeley.
Her attorneys said in a memo that she has been "earnestly dedicated to her rehabilitation." They asked the court to "permit her to continue down this path of growth and reform by imposing a sentence without incarceration, and which would permit her to continue her academic studies."
Ahead of Wednesday's sentencing hearing, Mack offered apologies to those harmed by her actions.
"I am sorry to those of you that I brought into NXIVM," she wrote in a letter filed in court last week. "I am sorry I ever exposed you to the nefarious and emotionally abusive schemes of a twisted man. I am sorry that I encouraged you to use your resources to participate in something that was ultimately so ugly."
NXIVM, which is based in Albany, N.Y., describes itself as a self-help group. But investigators said within the group is a secretive, female-only sect in which women were pressured to have sex with Raniere, to be photographed nude and follow an extreme diet, and to have his initials branded into their skin.
Mack said helping recruit women for the group was the "biggest mistake of my life."
"The list of those harmed by the collateral damage of my destructive choices continues to grow as I become more and more aware of how my choices have affected those around me," she wrote in the letter.
She went on, "I am grateful that I have made it through this process alive and that I was stopped when I was. I have the court, my family, my therapist, and a few amazing friends to thank for this."
