Ed. Note: Allison Mack is awaiting a sentencing date on her federal conviction for racketeering and racketeering conspiracy. She did not go to trial. She took a plea deal in April, just weeks before her joint trial with Keith Raniere and the other Nxivm defendants was scheduled to start.
The sentencing guidelines for Mack are estimated to be between 3-5 years. The judge has discretion. The maximum she could get is 40 years – which is extremely unlikely.
It is believed she could have gotten a much better plea deal in the summer of 2018, when her lawyers were reportedly trying to arrange a deal that included cooperating with the feds. She did not take it. Instead, she waited, faithful to Raniere, living at her parent’s house in California, under house arrest for almost a year. Then, after the feds added another charge – against Raniere – of sexual exploitation of a child and possession of child porn [later transferred to the Northern District of NY, but remaining as predicate acts in the Eastern District of NY, where the trial was to be held] did she and her other co-defendants rush to the feds to cut deals, leaving only Raniere to stand trial.
Frank Report has been making a study of Mack, prior to her sentencing, to try to examine the balance between her being a victim and a perpetrator. She was originally charged with sex trafficking. If she had taken the early plea deal and testified for the prosecution, early, when they needed her – when she could have provided a break in the solidarity of the Nxivm defendants – she might have come out looking more like a victim. And with a better plea deal. Instead she spoke of “taking one for the team.”
The trial, based on testimony of witnesses, revealed her to be a perpetrator. Lauren Salzman, who cut a a deal to cooperate with the feds and who did testify, and who, in my opinion, was every bit, if not more a perpetrator than Mack, came out looking like a victim, crying so bad during cross examination that a visibly moved judge, calling her a damaged human being, stopped the cross examination, declaring he is a human first and judge second.
Allison never got her chance on the witness stand to cry and explain how everything that happened to Lauren, for instance, all the abuse of the monster Raniere, happened to her as well. Consider, while Mack may have been a little tough with her slaves, Lauren Salzman actively worked to imprison Daniella for 700 days then deprived her of her ID when she was freed. Yet Lauren was given a pass. She’s a victim.
In the spirit of examining the balance between victimization and personal responsibility, using Mack as an example, let us hear from our champion of eschewing victimization – and taking personal responsibility – our erudite commenter, Actaeon.
By Actaeon
It seems to me that Allison Mack didn’t embrace the idea of sister wives and polygamy. She accepted it because she had to, and pretended to be pleased because it’s what Keith Raniere wanted.
I remember reading her blog when she was gushing about him and his “project”.
It was obvious that she was smitten by him from her worshipful tone. I vaguely remember a post of hers, about a trip to Peru (I think it was) she took with her “friend and mentor”. There was a snapshot of her sitting in an empty bathtub, clothed, but the context was creepily sexual. Leads me to believe that their relationship was physical from early on. She would have been in her mid-late 20s then, he old enough to be her father.
Well, to each their own.
That was the early days. The first blush of romantic infatuation typically fades, especially so if the man has a steady influx of young nubile sex bunnies. Which Keith had. From his “teachings”, he’s perfectly okay with that. And he clearly expects his girls to be okay with it too. If they are properly “integrated”. He doesn’t want to hear about their hurt feelings, their sense of betrayal, lest it upset his delicate digestion.
No, the old hens consigned to the background are supposed to accept their lot with smiles and encouragement. Even to hunt up new, younger sex bunnies for his sweaty bed.
That was Mack’s happy lot. Settle for crumbs. She was no longer the cute 20-something pretty actress, fresh from her girl-next-door stint on Smallville. She was an aging, stringy has-been, no longer the exciting new conquest she had been. She would diet for him, do whatever he asked, but he was tired of her. He lost interest.
Lauren Salzman with Allison Mack – well into their DOS days.
All she had to give him was her loyalty. Her obedience. So she groveled, did whatever he wanted and pretended she liked it. She is, after all, a professional actress. The silly girl probably actually thought he might someday pick her as his favorite once again.
Like Camilia Fernandez, Allison debased herself. Practically begged. It’s so humiliating, the way Cami degraded herself. Groveled.
Camilia Fernandez, as we learned from the trial, when her texts with Keith Raniere were read in front of the jury, was a groveling, abject slave to Raniere, begging him for a crumb of love or attention. Despite him taking everything away from her, including rescinding his promise to have children with her – she stayed loyal. A perfect slave. At one point – after telling her that he would not have children with her, which she said broke her heart, he assigned her to find a virgin to replace her for him to sire children.
It’s exquisitely sad, knowing a human being can be so abject, so debased. Eagerly allowing themselves to be treated like dirt, literally like slaves. Quite literally like slaves. Branded with his initials, finding other women for him, lying for him, their “friend and mentor”.
The philosopher Nietzsche called Christianity a slave religion. The appeal of being a slave is real: “mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa”.
“I am a sinner; I do not deserve your grace O Lord; I writhe in the dust before thee.”
A lot of people find subservience and self-abnegation deliciously satisfying. I find it absolutely disgusting.
Allison and Cami seem to hate themselves. It’s not uncommon, really. Having read Mack’s blog, she always seemed to think she was uneducated and inferior.
A lot of people take masochistic joy in thinking about themselves that way. In reality of course, she had a very successful career. She’s a pretty good actress, or was. She had talent, she was making phenomenal $, and had a far more interesting career than most folks. She threw it all away.
I suspect she threw it away half-deliberately. To punish herself. Because she didn’t think she deserved it.
Though she wept for Keith Raniere, he seems to have lost interest in the aging actress.
