‘Smallville’ Actress Who Recruited Women for Nxivm Is Released From Prison

Allison Mack, the “Smallville” actress who recruited women to the cultlike group Nxivm and assisted prosecutors in convicting its leader of sex trafficking and other crimes, was released from a federal prison this week after serving two years of a three-year sentence on racketeering and racketeering conspiracy charges.

Her release, on Monday, was posted on the Federal Bureau of Prisons website. It was earlier reported by the Albany Times Union newspaper.

At her sentencing in a Brooklyn court in 2021, a federal judge said Ms. Mack had used her status as a popular actress to lure women into her orbit to “recruit and groom them as sexual partners” for the group’s leader, Keith Raniere, and called her “an essential accomplice.”

Ms. Mack, 40, was arrested in 2018. She pleaded guilty in 2019 to racketeering and conspiracy charges. While she had faced up to 17 years in prison, she received a shorter sentence after helping prosecutors who were pursuing a case against Mr. Raniere by handing over evidence.

Mr. Raniere was sentenced to 120 years in prison in 2020 for sex trafficking and other crimes. Some women in Nxivm were sexually abused by him, and some were branded with his initials in a secret ceremony.

Ms. Mack was best known as an actress for her role in the television series “Smallville,” which began in 2001 and ran for 10 seasons. She became involved with Nxivm and Mr. Raniere, and quickly became a high-ranking figure within the group, which was based in Albany, N.Y.

In court in 2019, Ms. Mack admitted that she had lured women into a clandestine subgroup within Nxivm by saying they would be part of a female mentorship program. Instead, officials said, she had recruited them into the society as “slaves,” and some women were required to have sex with Mr. Raniere.

In a 2021 letter addressed to “those who have been harmed by my actions,” Ms. Mack said she had experienced shame for the decisions she made.

“I threw myself into the teachings of Keith Raniere with everything I had,” Ms. Mack wrote in a statement before her sentencing. “I believed wholeheartedly that this mentorship was leading me to a better, more enlightened version of myself.”

But she wrote, “This was the biggest mistake and regret of my life.”