Smallville actress Allison Mack has pleaded guilty to charges related to her involvement with a controversial self-help group described as having a secret society of “masters” and sexually subservient “slaves” within it,PEOPLE confirms. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York tells PEOPLE that Mack appeared in court at 11:30 a.m. to plead guilty. The spokesman says she is pleading guilty to racketeering conspiracy and racketeering.
Prosecutors have accused her of recruiting sex slaves for Keith Raniere, who co-founded the controversial self-help group Nxivm and its subgroup, DOS, described as an all-female secret society in which women allegedly were forced to be sexually subservient to Raniere.
On Monday, Mack, 36, appeared in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, where jury selection in her trial was set to begin.
Best known for her years-long role as a young Superman’s friend, Chloe Sullivan, on The WB’sSmallville, Mack was charged last springwith sex trafficking, sex trafficking conspiracy, and forced labor conspiracy.
One of the group’s most prominent members, Mack faces a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison if convicted on all charges.
“Alison Mack’s life is in ruins and I can’t help but feel sadness for her. At the same time, she had to be stopped. What she participated in was dangerous and criminal,” actress Catherine Oxenberg, whose daughter India Oxenberg was also famously involved with Nxivm, said in a statement to PEOPLE.