Federal prosecutors said the former «Smallville» actress «provided substantial assistance to the government» \u2014 and thus recommended a light sentence.<\/b>
\nCasting the former \u201cSmallville\u201d actress as \u201cboth a slave and a master\u201d of NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere, a federal judge sentenced Allison Mack to three years in federal prison for two racketeering offenses at an emotional 90 minute sentencing hearing on Wednesday. \u201cWhen it came to DOS and the monstrous crimes he committed in that organization, you were an essential accomplice,\u201d U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis told Mack in the courtroom, referring to the secret \u201csisterhood\u201d she led in Raniere\u2019s service. \u201cMr. Raniere could not have done that without you,\u201d Garaufis added. One of Mack\u2019s victims, Jessica Jones, likened Mack to another alleged sex-trafficking organization during a thundering monologue in court where she called the duo of the \u201cmost evil monsters\u201d she ever met. \u201cShe is the Ghislaine Maxwell to Keith\u2019s Jeffrey Epstein,\u201d Jones said, recounting falling \u201cprey\u201d to the duo after a history of molestation and abuse. Mack delivered a tearful apology to her victims, calling her behavior \u201cabusive,\u201d \u201cabhorrent,\u201d and \u201cillegal.\u201d \u201cI renounce Keith Reniere and his teachings,\u201d she intoned. Since her guilty plea, Mack has spent the past three years living with her family, which supported her in court. Garaufis\u2019s sentence is well below the federal sentencing guidelines, calculated between 14 and 17.5 years in prison. The judge justified that on her government cooperation and partial victim. \u201cIn the language of DOS, you were both a slave and a master,\u201d he said. This story is developing. Read more of the background below. Mack was for years a member of NXIVM (pronounced \u2018NEX-ee-um\u2019), an organization led by Keith Raniere. Raniere,60, a self-styled self-help guru known as \u201cMaster,\u201d \u201cGrandmaster,\u201d and \u201cVanguard\u201d within the organization, was sentenced to 120 years in federal prison for a series of crimes. He was arrested just before an oral sex session was supposed to begin at a villa in Mexico, his case revealed; he was convicted as charged after just four hours of deliberation. The jury agreed with federal prosecutors that Raniere\u2019s crimes including forced labor, human trafficking, sex trafficking, money laundering, child exploitation, possession of child pornography, racketeering, identity theft, obstruction of justice, wire fraud, and visa fraud \u2014 despite Raniere\u2019s attempt to proclaim his innocence through his entire trial and his subsequent sentencing proceeding. Mack and several other defendants, including Seagrams liquor heiress Clare Bronfman, pleaded guilty to much lesser counts and avoided serious jail time. Mack admitted to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy. Federal prosecutors asked Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis to sentence Mack to some term of imprisonment that would be less strict than the usual 168 to 210 months \u2014 that\u2019s fourteen to seventeen-and-one-half years \u2014 because Mack \u201cprovided substantial assistance to the government\u201d in other connected cases. That assistance included providing the government with recording roughly a month before Raniere\u2019s trial which showed a branding ceremony which initiated followers into the secret sisterhood of NXIVM sex \u201cslaves\u201d \u2014 a ceremony that burned women\u2019s bodies with Raniere\u2019s initials. Mack\u2019s attorneys lashed out repeatedly at Raniere while arguing that Mack deserved no time in prison whatsoever. They characterized Mack as a woman whose hectic career left her devoid of meaningful family connections and therefore as someone ripe for manipulation by Raniere. They argued in a sentencing memorandum filed late Friday that Raniere was the true culprit and that Mack has gone through a positive \u201ctransformation\u201d since leaving NXIVM. From that lengthy defense memorandum: \u201cI threw myself into the teachings of Keith Raniere with everything I had,\u201d Mack wrote in a letter to the court. \u201cI devoted my loyalty, my resources, and, ultimately, my life to him. This was the biggest mistake and greatest regret of my life.\u201d \u201cI am sorry to those of you that I brought into Nxivm,\u201d the letter continued \u2014 directly addressing those whom she admits she harmed. \u201cI am sorry I ever exposed you to the nefarious and emotionally abusive schemes of a twisted man.\u201d Have a tip we should know? [email protected]<\/p>\n