When Smallville ended in 2011 after 10 seasons, Allison Mack found herself a little adrift, having played journalist and town truth-seeker Chloe Sullivan for almost the entirety of her adult life.
"I was 28 and I felt not quite sure where I was going or who I was. I think that was probably the most bumpy transition," Mack told Fine Magazine for its March 2017 issue. Asked how she managed to navigate that change in her life, she said, "I have a wonderful teacher and mentor named Keith Raniere, who really gave me some incredible guidance."
Raniere had suggested she try the stage and, sure enough, she was appearing in a play, Red Velvet, at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre.
"I think everyone needs a mentor," Mack said. "I don't think any of us really know the answers without a little bit of wisdom. If you aren't willing to be humble enough to seek wisdom from other people, I think you're missing a lot of really incredible opportunities to build a certain amount of depth and value in your life that you wouldn't have if you didn't have somebody to help guide you. I chose to have this mentor in my life, and I was talking to him about my struggle, confusion, and not knowing what to do. He said, 'Why don't you take some time and think about? Give yourself some space to figure out who you are now.' So that's what I did."
At the time, that could have just sounded like appreciation. In hindsight, it just as easily sounds like indoctrination.
In April 2019, Mack pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy and racketeering acts of state law extortion and forced labor for recruiting women into a sex slavery ring led by Raniere. She was sentenced in 2021 to three years in federal prison.
Having faced a maximum of 17 years behind bars, Mack vowed in a tearful statement to "be a better person as a result of this."
In a note included in her sentencing memo, Mack wrote, "I threw myself into the teachings of Keith Raniere with everything I had. I believed, whole-heartedly, that his mentorship was leading me to a better, more enlightened version of myself. I devoted my loyalty, my resources, and, ultimately, my life to him. This was the biggest mistake and regret of my life."
She also said at her sentencing, "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, now 43, was released early in July 2023. Her journey is now the subject of the new Canadian Broadcasting Company podcast Uncover: Allison After NXIVM, premiering Nov. 10. Per the CBC, the series "dives deep into the gray zones of influence, accountability, and redemption."
Raniere was found guilty in June 2019 of seven federal charges, including sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy and racketeering—and, in October 2020, he was sentenced to 120 years in prison. He had pleaded not guilty.
"Raniere exploited and abused his victims emotionally, physically and sexually for his personal gratification," Seth D. DuCharme, then a U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement announcing the sentence. Added FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William F. Sweeney Jr., "Raniere’s reign of control over the women he scarred, both physically and emotionally, is the making of a horror story."
Now 65, Raniere ran his self-improvement company NXIVM for more than 20 years, backed by deep-pocketed believers and endorsed by satisfied customers. At the same time, he presided cult-like over a group of women who were expected to have sex with him.
"All these women are throwing their arms about him and kissing him on the lips. Not just a peck but like, slow, long, lingering kisses," Catherine Oxenberg, whose daughter India Oxenberg spent time in thrall to Raniere, said on a 2019 E! True Hollywood Story episode about NXIVM. "My husband looked at me and he went, 'Oh, he's having sex with all these women.'"
The federal criminal complaint filed against Raniere in 2018 alleged that, as the leader of the Albany, N.Y.-based NXIVM (pronunced "nexium," like the heartburn medication) since 2003, Raniere had sexual relationships with "a rotating group of fifteen to twenty women."
Those women were "not permitted to have sexual relationships with anyone but Raniere or to discuss with others their relationship with Raniere," the complaint alleged. "Some of the Nxivm curriculum included teachings about the need for men to have multiple sexual partners and the need for women to be monogamous."
Within NXIVM was DOS (short for the Latin phrase "Dominus Obsequious Sororium," which can translate as "Lord/Master of the Obedient Female Companions" or "The Vow"), a smaller group of women who eventually were tasked with recruiting other women to join.
Potential members had to provide,per the Department of Justice, "collateral" in the form of compromising photos and videos or other information about themselves or family members that they would not want made public should they be inclined to cut ties with DOS or refuse sex with Raniere.
"DOS operates as a pyramid with levels of 'slaves' headed by 'masters,'" the criminal complaint contended. "Slaves are expected to recruit slaves of their own (thus becoming masters themselves), who in turn owe services not only to their own masters but also to masters over them in the DOS pyramid."
DOS members were also branded near their pubic region with a symbol invoking Raniere's initials.
Raniere—called "Vanguard" by his acolytes—was furthermore accused of running an elaborate pyramid scheme in which women paid for his tutelage and could only move up the ladder of personal growth by forking over more cash, with a five-day workshop costing upward of $5,000.
A consumer fraud complaint filed in the summer of 2017 in New York by a former NXIVM member called the company "a cult preying on vulnerable men and women who are looking for a credible self help program," per documents obtained by USA Today. "Unless forcible confinement, branding, sex with students, and taking people who disagree with the program to court is a bona fide business in New York then I suggest all fees and tuition collected are baseless and fraudulent."
Raniere was arrested in March 2018 near Puerto Vallarta, where authorities found him living in a $10,000-a-week rented villa inside a luxurious gated community.
When federal agents took him into custody, the women he'd been living with sped after their car.
He hadn't yet been charged, but a letter posted on the NXIVM website in late 2017 in response to abuse allegations detailed by the New York Times and other outlets read, "The picture being painted in the media is not how I know our community and friends to be, nor how I experience it myself."
Raniere claimed that "independent investigations" had proved there was "no merit to the allegations that we are abusing, coercing or harming individuals. These allegations are most disturbing to me as non-violence is one of my most important values."
Raniere also maintained that he wasn't associated with the "sorority" in question and it was not a part of NXIVM, whichc he co-founded in 1998 with Nancy Salzman—the "Prefect" to his "Vanguard."
After Raniere's arrest, NXIVM said in a statement, "In response to the allegations against our founder, Keith Raniere, we are currently working with the authorities to demonstrate his innocence and true character. We strongly believe the justice system will prevail in bringing the truth to light."
Salzman pleaded guilty in March 2019 to racketeering conspiracy and, per the Department of Justice, was sentenced to 42 months in prison and fined $150,000 in September 2021.
“In her misguided loyalty and blind allegiance to Keith Raniere, the defendant engaged in a racketeering conspiracy designed to intimidate Nxivm’s detractors and that inflicted harm on Nxivm’s members,” stated then-Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Jacquelyn M. Kasulis. “Today’s sentence holds the defendant accountable for her crimes and we hope that it brings some measure of closure to the vulnerable women who were victimized and abused."
Mack, meanwhile, was accused of being a DOS recruiter between February 2016 and February 2017, having risen to just below Raniere in the DOS hierarchy.
"As alleged in the indictment, Allison Mack recruited women to join what was purported to be a female mentorship group that was, in fact, created and led by Keith Raniere," Richard P. Donoghue, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement following her arrest in April 2018. "The victims were then exploited, both sexually and for their labor, to the defendants' benefit."
Added FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Sweeney, "Today we announce an additional arrest, and an indictment, in a case that brought to light an inconceivable crime."
After Raniere's arrest, Mack's former Smallville co-star Kristin Kreuk tweeted that she had taken one of NXIVM's Executive Success Programs courses called an "intensive" to help her combat her shyness, but after leaving the organization five years beforehand only had "minimal contact" with remaining members.
"The accusations that I was in the 'inner circle' or recruited women as 'sex slaves' are blatantly false," stated the actress (who was not charged or otherwise implicated in any crime). "During my time I never witnessed any illegal or nefarious activity. I am horrified and disgusted by what has come out about DOS. Thank you to all of the brave women who have come forward to share their stories and expose DOS; I can't imagine how difficult this has been for you. I am deeply disturbed and embarrassed to have been associated with NXIVM. I hope that the investigation leads to justice for all of those affected."
Canadian actress Sarah Edmondson, another former follower of Raniere, tweeted in support of Kreuk in 2018, writing, "For the record, my dear friend @MsKristinKreuk was never in the inner circle of #NXIVM. She never recruited sex slaves and has been out since 2013 before s--t got weird. She is a lovely person who should not be dragged into this mess. Thank you. #Cult #DOS #freedom #TRUTH."
Describing the DOS branding ritual, Edmondson and others told the New York Times in the fall of 2017 that they were instructed to say, "Master, please brand me, it would be an honor."
"I wept the whole time," Edmondson recalled. "I disassociated out of my body."
She told VICE Canada in 2017 that Raniere "was pretending, it seems to me, now that I'm out, to be an ambassador for women. An ambassador to help women get over these things so they can be strong. I did 10 eight-day trainings. So, 80 14-hour days on this particular topic. That's a lot of time. And there was a lot of information plugged in there that I'm just sorting out now, like what do I believe, what do I not believe."
She continued, "I felt fear after I was in, after I committed, and when I gave more collateral to commit—that's when I gave a nude photo and video testimonials—trash talking all the important relationships in my life. That's what I did to collateralize. Which, by the way, was nothing compared to what other women gave. I didn't find that out until later. Other women gave full frontal videos of themselves, I wonder where those went. I didn't want my collateral to be released, which is how they kept us quiet."
When others questioned why she didn't just leave, Edmonson said she "didn't feel like that was an option at the time."
Authorities said that the FBI built their case against Raniere with the help of eight female victims, the federal charges coming after years of media scrutiny and state-level investigations into NXIVM and other businesses previously founded by the defendant.
Executive Success Programs' devotees over the years had included BET co-founder Sheila Johnson; onetime U.S. Surgeon General Antonia C. Novello; Seagram chairman Edgar Bronfman Sr. and his daughters Clare Bronfman and Sara Bronfman; and former Mexican president Vicente Fox's daughter Ana Cristina Fox, according to a 2003 Forbes report.
The magazine featured Raniere on the cover and the story about him was titled "Cult of Personality."
Raniere claimed to have made millions, but insisted that he wasn't in it for the money, calling his life "a somewhat church-mouse-type existence." He said he didn't draw a salary, either, telling Forbes, "I consider everything payment for what I've done."
However, Edgar Bronfman told Forbes at the time, "I think it's a cult."
The billionaire, who died in 2013, told the publication that he hadn't talked to his daughters in months and then-24-year-old Clare had loaned $2 million to the group—which she denied.
In September 2020, per the DOJ, Clare was sentenced to 81 months in prison after being convicted of conspiracy to conceal and harbor aliens for financial gain and fraudulent use of personal identification information.
"No one goes in looking to have their personality stripped away," filmmaker and former NXIVM member Mark Vicente, who made a glowing documentary about Raniere, told the New York Times in 2017. "You just don't realize what is happening."
Edmondson said she first heard about NXIVM from Vicente. She told the Times that Nancy's daughter Lauren Salzman, whom she considered a close friend and mentor, then invited her to be a recruiter in January 2017.
Lauren, who was staying in Mexico with Raniere when he was arrested and later testified against him at trial, pleaded guilty in April 2019 to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy.
"It never occurred to me that I would choose Keith—and Keith would choose Keith," she said in court.
After prosecutors noted her "extraordinary" assistance to their case in a memo to the judge, per NBC News, Lauren was sentenced in July 2021 to five years' probation.
Edmondson, author of the memoir Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult that Bound My Life, told Refinery 29 in 2019 that she was responsible for recruiting at least 2,000 people into the program over the years.
"I have a lot of guilt about the people I brought in, but if there's one thing I can hang my hat on, it's that I never lied," the actress said. "I thought Keith Raniere was the greatest, wisest, most brilliant man on Earth. I had no idea what was going on with the women and everything that came out in the FBI's investigation."
Before his arrest, Catherine Oxenberg remained unrelenting in her quest to get her daughter India out of Raniere's clutches, insisting to whomever would listen that she felt her child's life was in danger.
An Oct. 19, 2017, post on India's Facebook page read, "I'm absolutely fine, great actually. I would never put myself or the people I love into any danger."
Calling India "one of the kindest people," Oxenberg said on Today in November 2017, "I believe that her goodness and her kindness are being used against her."
Six years earlier the Dynasty actress had brought India to an introductory Executive Success Programs course, explaining, "I thought it was kind of an innocuous, personal-growth, self-help business-oriented program."
Contacting NXIVM for comment, NBC News was directed at the time to a previous statement in which the company maintained that it "firmly opposes and condemns violence, victimhood, dishonor and abuse."
By the time Raniere's trial got underway, mother and daughter had reunited.
When Mack was sentenced in 2021, India told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement, "I hope that her victims, including myself, feel vindicated and safer, given that she has denounced Keith Raniere."
Before the NXIVM pyramid collapsed, Mack had written about discovering Raniere's program after living a "conflicted" life.
"A collective inspiring a community of strong, authentically empowered women to own themselves in a way that has never been seen or understood before?" she wrote in a cached blog post linked to by FoxNews.com in 2018. "It sounded like the perfect blend of what I was looking for! So I took the leap and enrolled in a weekend workshop and within the first few hours I knew I had found my people."
Read on for more about the people involved in NXIVM's downfall:
Keith Raniere
On June 19, 2019, NXIVM co-founder Keith Raniere was found guilty of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, attempted sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, forced labor conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy.
The charges against him alleged that Raniere, known as "Vanguard" within the NXIVM community, presided over a secret smaller group called DOS, for which Allison Mack, who had risen through the ranks of the NXIVM organization to become a "first-line master," recruited other women for the purpose of having sex with him.
As part of their initiation, the women would turn over compromising photos or other items and information that could be used against them if they disobeyed, and were branded on their pelvis with an abstract symbol that incorporated Raniere and Mack's initials.
"If one woman is having an issue, it hurts Keith, and if he's hurting, you're hurting," a woman identified as a former member of DOS told The Hollywood Reporter in 2018. "So if you do something he doesn't like, you get an army of women, sister wives, coming after you. You get ostracized. No one wants to socialize with you unless you get back in line."
On Oct. 27, 2020, he was sentenced to 120 years in prison and fined $1.75 million.
Allison Mack
Allison Mack, who played reporter Chloe Sullivan on Smallville for 10 seasons, pleaded guilty in April 2019 to racketeering conspiracy and racketeering acts of state law extortion and forced labor. (Additional charges of sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy and forced labor conspiracy were dropped.)
She first attended a NXIVM seminar in Vancouver with her Smallville co-star Kristin Kreuk in 2006, a program billed as a "women's movement" called Jness. Their high-profile presences had been planned for, because some of the organization's top people (those closest to Raniere) flew in for the occasion. The group put on a charm offensive for the newcomer and invited her to meet Raniere, who, they said, could help her acting career. Mack accepted, was flown to their Albany, N.Y., location via private jet, and stayed for weeks.
When she entered her guilty plea on April 18, 2019, Mack told the court, "I was lost. Through it all, I believed Keith Raniere's intentions were to help people. I was wrong."
She admitted to selling DOS to potential recruits by describing it as a female-empowerment group, to making members hand over photos and information for blackmail purposes, and to obtaining "labor and services" from two women
A former roommate who lived with Mack after she got involved with NXIVM told The Hollywood Reporter in 2018, "I don't think she was thinking she was actually trafficking girls. It doesn't mean she doesn't deserve punishment, but I think she had drunk enough Kool-Aid to really believe that these girls were going to save the world with his super-sperm."
Mack was given a three-year prison sentence in 2021, but was released early in 2023.
Nicki Clyne
Mack's now ex-wife Nicki Clyne said she herself was a member of DOS and objected to people calling the group a sex cult.
"We're not denying that certain things took place," Clyne said on CBS This Morning in September 2020. "There is evidence that certain things happened. How they happened, why they happened and why certain people chose them—that's a whole other conversation." She added, "I wouldn't trade my experiences for anything."
The actress also said, however, that she hadn't spoken to Mack for a year and a half. The terms of Mack's bail included not being allowed contact with anyone involved in NXIVM or the case against Raniere.
"This has been the hardest, most humbling experience of my life," Clyne said.
Best known for playing flight deck officer Cally Henderson on Battlestar Galactica, Clyne stepped away from acting for a decade after leaving the show in 2008. She picked up again in 2018 as part of the ensemble on the sci-fi webseries Personal Space.
Nancy Salzman
After meeting Raniere in 1997, former psychiatric nurse Nancy Salzman co-founded NXIVM with him in Albany and was known in the organization as "Prefect."
Salzman pleaded guilty in March 2019 to a charge of racketeering criminal conspiracy after being accused of identity theft and falsifying records in relation to a lawsuit filed against the company.
"I want you to know I am pleading guilty because I am, in fact, guilty," she said in court at the time. "I accept that some of the things I did were not just wrong, but sometimes criminal. I justified them by saying that what we were doing was for the greater good."
In so doing, she also said, "I compromised my principles."
She was sentenced to 42 months in prison in September 2021.
Lauren Salzman
Nancy's daughter Lauren Salzman allegedly hosted pre-branding ceremonies for DOS members at her home before the women were allegedly blindfolded and driven to a different location for the actual procedure. Per a 2017 New York Times report, Lauren would instruct the women to say, "Master, please brand me, it would be an honor."
She was also one of the VIPs dispatched to meet Mack in Vancouver in 2006. "By the end of the weekend, Lauren and Allison were like best friends," former NXIVM member Susan Dones recalled to The Hollywood Reporter in 2018.
Lauren pleaded guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy on March 25, 2019, at a hearing that wasn't on the court docket, the transcript sealed until portions could be redacted.
In cooperation with prosecutors, Lauren testified in federal court that May. She admitted to helping Raniere attempt to hide in 2018 when the FBI raided the villa where he was staying in Mexico—where she had traveled with the intention of participating, along with other DOS members, in a "recommitment ceremony" to re-pledge their loyalty to him.
Prosecutors recommended leniency based on her cooperation and Lauren was sentenced in July 2021 to five years' probation.
Clare Bronfman
Clare Bronfman, a daughter of late business mogul Edgar Bronfman Sr. and heiress to the Seagrams liquor fortune, was accused of financing what turned out to be illegal conduct after meeting Raniere in 2002 and becoming, first, a NXIVM acolyte, and ultimately a board member, as well as Raniere's benefactor and legal advocate who allegedly financed lawsuits on his behalf against perceived enemies.
In 2003, Bronfman's father estimated to Forbes that she had loaned NXIVM $2 million, which she denied at the time. "I think it's a cult," said Bronfman Sr., who died in 2013.
On April 19, 2019, Bronfman pleaded guilty to conspiring to conceal and harbor an undocumented immigrant for financial gain, and fraudulent use of identification for helping Raniere use a deceased person's credit card. Part of her sentence called for her to forfeit $6 million.
"I am truly remorseful," Bronfman told U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis. "I endeavored to do good in the world and help people—however, I have made mistakes."
She was sentenced on Sept. 30, 2020, to 81 months in prison. Explaining the hefty penalty, Garaufis stated that he was "troubled by evidence suggesting that Ms. Bronfman repeatedly and consistently leveraged her wealth and social status as a means of intimidating, controlling and punishing" people who had left NXIVM or were perceived to be its adversaries.
Bronfman was released from prison into a halfway house in May 2024, per the Albany Times-Union.
Kathy Russell
Right after Bronfman entered her plea, longtime NXIVM bookkeeper Kathy Russell pleaded guilty to one count of visa fraud for helping to falsify documents, according to the Albany Times Union.
"I know what I did was wrong," Russell said. "I'm very sorry for the trouble I have caused. I have compromised my own principles, and I'm going to have to live with that for the rest of my life."
Bronfman and Russell were the last of Raniere's co-defendants to enter pleas, leaving him to stand trial alone.
"We don't believe Ms. Russell and Ms. Bronfman should have been charged," Raniere's attorney Marc Agnifilo told the NY Times, "and we are happy they're out of the case."
Russell was sentenced in October 2021 to two years' probation and 200 hours of community service.
Sara Bronfman
Clare's older sister Sara Bronfman, here with mom Georgiana, was not charged with any crime related to Raniere or NXIVM.
Like her sister, however, she was a longtime NXIVM member and along with Clare allegedly gave millions to the organization.
Mark Vicente, a former NXIVM member who was featured in the HBO docuseries The Vow, testified that Sara was part of Raniere's "trusted group."
Vanity Fair reported in 2010 that in six years the Bronfman sisters had taken more than $150 million out of their trusts and bank accounts for NXIVM-related purposes, including $66 million to help bail Raniere out of personal financial trouble, $11 million for a 22-seater jet, and millions to aid NXIVM's legal battles when it would go after perceived enemies (or "suppressives") in court. They tried to conceal the massive amount they were spending from their father, the report alleged.
"I think there are personal reasons regarding the conflict they have with their family that keep them affiliated with [NXIVM]," a friend of the sisters told the magazine. "On some level, I think they feel the affiliation is reinforcing their version of things, in opposition to the opinion of their family."
Frank R. Parlato Jr.
The Bronfman sisters hired Buffalo-area developer Frank R. Parlato Jr. as a consultant and in 2011 accused him of defrauding them of $1 million.
The FBI had been investigating his business dealings for several years and he was indicted in New York in 2015 on charges including wire fraud and stealing from the Bronfman sisters. He denied all of the charges, and a judge dismissed the ones pertaining to the sisters in May 2018, according to The Buffalo News.
Parlato pleaded guilty to one count of willful failure to file an IRS form in August 2022 and the remaining counts against him were dismissed.
Meanwhile, Parlato meticulously chronicled NXIVM's alleged crimes and the subsequent legal proceedings against Raniere, Clare Bronfman and others on his website, Frank Report. Per the NY Times, many NXIVM members learned about DOS for the first time from reading his site, particularly a post titled "Branded Slaves and Master Raniere," prompting more members to reach out to him.
"I am glad to have played a part [in the investigation of NXIVM] through my reporting," Parlato said in a statement in May 2018. "I have been credited by many organizations across the country with providing the information that led to the indictment against Raniere."
Raniere gave his first interview from jail to Parlato for Dateline in October 2020.
Sarah Edmondson
Canadian actress Sarah Edmondson detailed her experience as a NXIVM and DOS member to the New York Times in 2017, describing how she was branded after being told she would be getting a small tattoo.
"I wept the whole time," she told the paper about the branding, which she said occurred in March 2017. "I disassociated out of my body."
Edmondson helped establish NXIVM's chapter in Vancouver after joining in 2007, which in turn attracted other actresses, including Clyne and her Battlestar Galactica costar Grace Park.
Like former member Vicente, Edmonson was also prominently featured on HBO's The Vow.
She has said that Lauren Salzman first told her about DOS—after the actress had written a letter detailing past indiscretions and handed it over. Edmondson said Salzman described the secret society as a force for good, a way in which women could overcome their society-imposed overemotional natures. "She made it sound like a badass-bitch boot camp," the actress recalled.
In May 2017, she and her husband Anthony Ames told Lauren that they were leaving the program. Months later, NXIVM filed a criminal report against Edmondson and two other women from the Vancouver center, accusing them of mischief and other wrongdoing. No charges were ever filed.
Catherine Oxenberg
Dynasty alum Catherine Oxenberg also spoke out against NXIVM after daughter India Oxenberg joined the program—which she was introduced to by her mom, who said she thought it was just a self-help course—and ended up a member of DOS.
"She said it was a character-building experience," Oxenberg told the Times, recalling how she became alarmed when India grew scarily thin and told her she was missing periods.
"I never gave up," Oxenberg, author of Captive: A Mother's Crusade to Save Her Daughter from a Terrifying Cult, told E! News in August 2018. "I must be hard-wired as a mom, I'm not capable of giving up. Even in the hopeless moments I just kept persevering and trusting that it would turn around."
India told People in October 2020 that her mother's support had proved key to her recovery.
"She made a safe place for me to talk and she would listen when memories would come flooding back, and I remembered more and more about what happened," India said. "Sometimes I would have panic attacks and my mom would just hold me and tell me I was safe."
India Oxenberg
In 2019, India joined two fellow former members—identified by prosecutors as "Nicole" and "Jay"—in court to watch closing arguments against Raniere.
Jay testified during the trial that she became a DOS "slave" after being recruited by India, turning over an old sex tape and personal information as collateral.
Recalling what it was like providing her own collateral, which included taking nude photos of herself and revealing secrets about her family, India told People in October 2020, "In reality, it was like I handed over the keys to lock myself in prison."
India, who moved back to Los Angeles after Raniere was arrested in 2018, detailed her experience in the Starz docuseries Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult. She said that Mack limited her diet to 500 calories a day so that she would remain skinny, per Raniere's preference.
"One of my first commands was to seduce Keith," India said. "Allison said it was to make me feel less vulnerable. And I wanted to believe her."
India, who also gave a victim impact statement before Raniere's sentencing, explained, "I want to help people and reclaim my voice and be me again and not a headline of 'cult girl.' I want people to know who I really am."
Edmondson, author of the memoir Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult that Bound My Life, told Refinery 29 in 2019 that she was responsible for recruiting at least 2,000 people into the program over the years.
"I have a lot of guilt about the people I brought in, but if there's one thing I can hang my hat on, it's that I never lied," the actress said. "I thought Keith Raniere was the greatest, wisest, most brilliant man on Earth. I had no idea what was going on with the women and everything that came out in the FBI's investigation."