From & # 39; Smallville & # 39; to a sexual sect: the path of Allison Mack

Six years ago, Allison Mack sat on a purple carpet and recorded a video for her YouTube channel. He looked lively and open as he responded with emotion to his disciples' questions.

What was the "most incredible" gift that I received? He said a colorful scarf that had knitted a friend. "It's like a huge hug made of yarn," Mack said.

At that time, though it sounds innocuous and charming, Mack was already fascinated by an organization called Nxvim, which was touted as a development program with mentors, but was about to become a bad cult. Mack would herself be accused later of having recruited women to become "slaves" of the group, scoring them and demanding that they deliver material "as collateral", that is, to say by compromising photos or videos.

In April, the 36-year-old actress pleaded guilty to racketeering and extortion. He faces 20 years in prison and may be called to testify in the coming weeks in the trial of Nxivm leader Keith Raniere.

Four other Nxivm women have already pleaded guilty and details about the organization have been uncovered through testimony at trial.

[Lee nuestro reportaje sobre Nxivm y Keith Raniere]

Beyond the rudimentary details of the case, there is the story of a bright and beloved young woman in Hollywood who yearned to bond and who, along the way, was ravished by a perverse leader.

"Initially, I joined Nxivm to find a purpose," she sobbed as she pleaded guilty to a federal court in Brooklyn in April. "I was lost and wanted to find a place, a community where I felt more comfortable."

Mack refused to give an interview while the trial is still ongoing, but in interviews with former members of Nxivm and with those who knew her before, she describes her journey as a Teen Choice laureate Award with a member of a sect sentenced to a criminal sentence.

Mack was 18 when she won the role of Chloe Sullivan, Clark Kent's best friend in Smallville, a captivating television series about the young Superman that lasted ten seasons. At that time, I was playing for over a decade with roles in dozens of movies made for television and programs.

"It was a great girl who seemed happy, very mature for her age and very responsible," said Diane Hardin, who was his agent and manager when Mack was a girl.

After finishing high school, Mack left Los Alamitos, California, where his parents lived, to settle in North Hollywood. There, she becomes friends with other actors of the same age, notably with Christine Lakin of Step by Step. Lakin said that he remembered a young woman "very kind and willing to do anything".

But Lakin and other interviewees said Mack was also naive.

"The only thing that comes to my mind is that I was so desperate to have a connection with something that I did not see the reason for," Lakin said. "The person I knew at the time was very curious about the world and relationships, I think I was looking for something that I missed."

In Smallville, her role as Chloe was that of the smart best friend, but somewhat acute compared to Clark Kent's dream girl, Lana Lang. The fans of the series were very cruel when they compared Mack to his co-star, Kristin Kreuk, and Mack noticed him because he was very sensitive to criticism.

Although the audience compared them like in a competition, Mack and Kreuk became close. It's Kreuk who took Mack to the first meeting of Jness, a group of women part of Nxivm [nexium]), in 2006.

The weekend seminar was held at a Vancouver hotel where Mack was fascinated because she had caught the attention of Nancy Salzman, Nxivm co-founder, according to Susan Dones, who ran a Nxivm center but began to question Raniere's motives. . Dones said the seminar Salzman gave at that time was about how men are genetically polyamorous.

By the end of the seminar, Mack had approached Salzman and was very excited about the offer to meet Rainere in Albany, New York aboard Sara Bronfman's private jet, heiress to the Seagram Refresh and one of the women. close to the Nxivm chief.

"Oh, my God, they had their claws on him," Dones remembered when he left the meeting. Dones left Nxivm in 2009.

Clbades taught at Nxivm were presented as ways to eliminate psychological and emotional barriers. Mack thought that they were a good way to improve their relationships and acting skills, according to Barbara Bouchey, Raniere's ex-girlfriend, who was part of the Nxivm board of directors until his departure in 2009.

Mack was someone who embarked on various experiments. On her personal website, now disabled, the actress wrote: "I am insatiable, greedy, in a way, I like to live voraciously and intensely … voratensidad".

For 2007, he urged all those who had engaged certain elements of his career to also attend the Nxivm courses, in order to ensure that his team had "ethical foundations". At the same time, Mack was becoming increasingly self-absorbed and obsessed with what he saw as his shortcomings, said a woman who worked for Mack for eight years and asked to remain anonymous, out of fear to be contacted by people who remain members of Nxivm.

"One of the most insidious things of the sect is to break you, break you and focus only on your imperfections," said the woman, who left Nxivm in 2013. The same year, Kreuk Nxivm left and kept only "minimal" contact with those who were still involved in the group, the actress said last year on their social networks.

Mack began to run out of friends.

"She went from an incredible and wonderful friend to a person with a brainwashing and did not know how to get her back," said Frank Martorana, his confidant for several years.

Their relationships deteriorated after Mack's invitation to a recruitment event at Nxivm in Los Angeles. "Honestly, I've never felt so much pressure in my life," said Martorana. "I understand how he got carried away by this current."

Mack fell into the philosophies of the organization. In 2014, I was involved in creating an information website for Nxivm in order to remove the "bias" for information.

A year later, according to the prosecutors, a secret society within the Nxivm, called DOS, was an acronym for a Latin expression that could be translated as "control of the female obedient escort" – in which women had to comply with He ordered his master and forced them to have bad with Raniere.

Prosecutors say Mack was looking for vulnerable women in Nxivm on the grounds that they would gain autonomy, lose weight, and stop eating until they realize the ideal. Raniere and threaten to disclose the "guarantee" and compromising information if they said anything or they wanted to go out.

Mack seemed to be in love with Raniere, according to former members of the group.

But Raniere, who faces charges of bad trafficking and coercion of a minor to commit badual acts, is now alone on the dock.

In April, when Mack appeared in court and pleaded guilty, he apologized and cried.

"I thought Keith Raniere's intention was to help people and that my adherence to his belief system would help others to empower," he said. "I was wrong."

* Copyright: 2019 The New York Times Press Office