Arguably best known on TV for portraying Clark Kent's much-beloved BFF Chloe Sullivan on DC's Smallville, actress Allison Mack became far more notorious for her actions off-screen as tied to the cult-like organization NXIVM and its use of forced labor and racketeering/sex trafficking. Following a fairly lengthy trial, Mack was sentenced in June 2021 to three years of prison, among other major penalties, and she first went behind bars in September of that same year. Now, less than two full years after going to prison, Mack has been released.
Allison Mack was let loose from the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, on July 3, 2023, having served 21 months of her initial three-year sentence, according to the Alberta Times Union. The 40-year-old actress was in danger of facing up to 14 years in prison during the trial, but her legal team requested for the judge to show her leniency given how remorseful she was, as well as how cooperative she was when it came to sharing information about NXIVM leader Keith Raniere and the group's operation director (and Seagram's heiress) Clare Bronfman.
At this time, it's not clear why Mack was released 15 months earlier than expected, and whether it had anything to do with further cooperation with authorities will behind bars. She is currently the first person of those sentenced in connection with the NXIVM group to be released from custody.
In 2019, Mack pleaded guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy, and copped to playing a part in the extortion and fored labor that plagued NXIVM. At the time of the 2021 sentencing, which itself was delayed due to COVID reasons, Mack was also given three years of probation, 1,000 hours of community service, and a fine of $20,000.
Leader Keith Raniere, 62, was convicted of sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, and racketeering charges, along with with other embedded crimes such as identity theft, possession of child pornography, and extortion. He is currently serving time in a Tuscon, Arizona federal prison, with a sentence of 120 years.
Former NXIVM president Nancy Salzman, 68, was slapped with a three-and-a-half year sentence for racketeering conspiracy conviction, and is expected to be released from custody in July 2024. The aforementioned Clare Bronfman was convicted of conspiracy to harbor illegal immigrants for financial gain, and fraudulant use of identification, is currently serving an 81-month sentence, with a release expected in June 2025. The group's education director Lauren Salzman and its bookkeeper Kathy Russell both received probation.
The first big news to shine a spotlight on the NXIVM cult came in the fall of 2017, when a New York Times exposé shared tales of women who were tattooed and branded as part of initiation techniques that also included new recruits to share nude photos of themselves to be used as collateral in case of future transgressions. Mack was revealed to be one of the higher-ranking "slaves" in the group that worked directly below Rainiere, and were partly responsible for coercing women into the group, hyping it up as a secret society for female empowerment.
The scandal was dramatized for at least one TV movie so far in the 2019 Lifetime original Escaping the NXIVM Cult: A Mother's Fight to Save Her Daughter. In the project, Secret Girlfriend star Sara Fletcher starred as Allison Mack.
