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Allison Mack, an actress and one of the most high-profile members of the cultlike group Nxivm, pleaded guilty on Monday to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy charges.
“I must take full responsibility for my conduct,” Ms. Mack said, sobbing while giving a lengthy statement at the Federal District Court in Brooklyn.
Ms. Mack, who is best known for her role as Clark Kent’s friend in the television series “Smallville,” was one of six defendants in a federal racketeering indictment filed last year against members of Nxivm.
Some women in the organization, which was based near Albany, were part of a secret society in which they were branded with the initials of Nxivm’s former leader, Keith Raniere, and forced to have sex with him, federal prosecutors have said.
In her statement on Monday, Ms. Mack admitted to recruiting women into the society by telling them they were going to become members of a female mentorship group.
Her goal, she said in court, was to promote Mr. Raniere’s teachings and help him further his objectives. To do so, she said, she engaged in criminal conduct.
As a condition for membership in Nxivm’s secret sorority, women were required to offer up “personally damaging or ruinous” secrets, Ms. Mack said. The group also collected explicit photos and videos from members as well as rights to their properties, she said.
Prosecutors have said that the women who joined Nxivm’s secret sorority were warned that the damaging or embarrassing information they volunteered would be made public if they revealed the existence of the society.
The sect was arranged into circles of women “slaves” that were led by “masters,” prosecutors said. When Ms. Mack was arrested last year, officials said that she recruited women into the society as “slaves” and required them to have sex with Mr. Raniere.
In court on Monday, Ms. Mack admitted that she had obtained “labor and services” from the two women mentioned in the indictment.
Before Monday’s hearing, Ms. Mack had previously pleaded not guilty to charges including sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and forced labor. She had been released on $5 million bail.
The actress, the indictment said, was part of Mr. Raniere’s “inner circle.”
Ms. Mack, 36, told the court that she first joined Nxivm, which long billed itself as a self-help organization, because she was seeking a sense of purpose.
“I was lost,” she said.
Ms. Mack’s biography on her website, which was no longer active on Monday but was still accessible in archives, said that after “Smallville” ended, Mr. Raniere had mentored her in her study of acting.
She said in court that as she spent more time with the group and with Mr. Raniere, she became persuaded Nxivm and its messages would be beneficial to others.
But almost a year after her arrest, Ms. Mack said on Monday that she had concluded through introspection and “self-examination” that Nxivm’s leader and some of his followers had broken the law.
Last month, one of the group’s co-founders, Nancy Salzman, pleaded guilty to charges in the case. Two weeks later, her daughter, Lauren Salzman, also pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy and racketeering counts.
Others charged in the case include Mr. Raniere and Clare Bronfman, an heiress to the Seagram’s liquor fortune.
Ms. Mack, who wept as she gave her statement and had to pause to compose herself, apologized to victims of Nxivm’s scheme.
Each count to which she pleaded guilty carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. She is scheduled to be sentenced in September.
The trial of the remaining defendants in the case is scheduled to begin later this month.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/08/nyregion/nxivm-allison-mack.html
2019-04-08 18:45:00Z
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