Month: July 2021

Actor Allison Mack, 38, was sentenced to 3 years in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to charges she manipulated women into becoming sex slaves for NXIVM’s leader, Keith Ranier.  NXIVM was a cult group that masqueraded itself as a self-help organization. Mack also received a $20,000 fine.

Mack – best known for her role on the series “Smallville” – appeared in Brooklyn federal court, seeking credit for cooperating against Raniere and taking responsibility for helping him create a secret society of brainwashed women who were branded with his initials. Mack wrote in a letter filed with the court last week that devoting herself to Raniere “was the biggest mistake and greatest regret of my life.  I am sorry to those of you that I brought into NXIVM. I am sorry I ever exposed you to the nefarious and emotionally abusive schemes of a twisted man.”  Mack was once part of the inner circle of Raniere, whose group attracted millionaires and actors among its adherents. Prosecutors said she became a “master” for “slaves” whom she ordered “to perform labor, take nude photographs, and in some cases, to engage in sex acts with Raniere.”

Mack provided information to prosecutors about how Raniere encouraged “the use of demeaning and derogatory language, including racial slurs, to humiliate ‘slaves,’” the government papers said. More importantly, she provided a recording of a conversation she had with Raniere about the branding. Raniere was sentenced last year to 120 years in prison for his conviction on sex-trafficking charges.

Pennsylvania’s highest court overturned Bill Cosby’s sex assault conviction Wednesday, after finding an agreement with a previous prosecutor prevented him from being charged in the case. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, Cosby was released from prison on Wednesday afternoon, after serving more than two years of a three- to 10-year sentence at a state prison near Philadelphia. He had vowed to serve all 10 years rather than acknowledge any remorse over the 2004 encounter with accuser Andrea Constand.

In a statement Wednesday afternoon, District Attorney Kevin R. Steele said, “The majority decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court orders the release of William H. Cosby Jr. from state prison. He was found guilty by a jury and now goes free on a procedural issue that is irrelevant to the facts of the crime.”  The 83-year-old Cosby was convicted of drugging and molesting Constand at his suburban estate. The trial judge had allowed just one other accuser to testify at Cosby’s first trial, when the jury deadlocked. However, he then allowed five other accusers to testify at the retrial about their experiences with Cosby in the 1980s. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court said that testimony tainted the trial, even though a lower appeals court had found it appropriate to show a signature pattern of drugging and molesting women.

In May, Cosby was denied paroled after refusing to participate in sex offender programs during his nearly three years in state prison. He was adamant that he would resist any treatment programs and refuse to acknowledge wrongdoing even if it meant serving the full 10-year sentence.