Inside sex slave cult NXIVM where Smallville’s Allison Mack was slavemaster and beat, starved and branded women with ‘master’s’ initials
The Smallville actress faces 20 years in jail after pleading guilty to trafficking crimes
PULLING down the waistband of her jeans, Sarah Edmondson can still see the vivid scar with the letters AM, burnt into her flesh.
The initials stand for Allison Mack - a former Smallville actress who became a brutal slavemaster in sex cult NXIVM.
Sarah was one of 15 to 20 women recruited by the cult, some of who were made to have sex with charismatic leader Keith Raniere - then branded with his initials or Mack's.
The women - who were manipulated after attending what they thought was a self-help group - were starved, forced to work for Mack and beaten with paddles if they disobeyed their ‘master.’
Yesterday, 36-year-old Mack sobbed as she pleaded guilty to trafficking charges — including extortion and forced labour. She now faces 20 years in jail.
Cult leader Keith Raniere is also on trial for sex trafficking charges and is accused of abusing girls as young as 12.
After his arrest last year Sarah told The New York Times that she was blindfolded, stripped naked and laid on a sheepskin rug in a bizarre initiation ceremony.
'Squealing and the smell of burnt flesh'
She and four other “slaves” were ordered to say: “Master, please brand me, it would be an honour.’’
She was then led to a massage table and told to restrain one of the other women who was then branded with a searing hot, laser-like device by a female doctor in an agonising 30 minute procedure.
Sarah, 40, an actress, recalls: “She was squealing like a pig, squealing like an animal being branded.”
She also endured the same torture and says: “It’s a searing, white pain. It’s being burned. I was being wounded and humiliated, and I was being filmed.
“We had surgical masks on because the smell of burnt flesh was so strong. We were in shock. I wept the whole time.
“It was like something out of a horror movie. We were shaking.”
Sarah left the cult two months later and reported her treatment to police.
Her testimony — first revealed in the New York Times in October — led prosecutors to arrest Raniere on charges of blackmailing and brainwashing often rich and famous women into joining his alleged “sex cult”.
'Forced to drink from a puddle and wear cow udders'
In the arrest documents, Raniere is alleged to have insisted that the women attending one of his classes wore fake cow udders over their breasts while they were called “derogatory names”.
He is also accused of putting women in cages, starving them on diets of 500 calories a day — the recommended daily intake for women is 2,000 — and forcing one follower to run into a tree and drink from a puddle.
According to NXIVM’s former publicist Frank Parlato, as well as 35-year-old Mack — who played Chloe Sullivan in the Noughties TV series Smallville — the “cult” was also supported by fellow actress Nicki Clyne, who played Cally Tyrol in TV series Battlestar Galactica.
Dynasty actress Catherine Oxenberg also claimed the group had brainwashed her young daughter India, and she met with prosecutors in New York to give evidence.
Forced to hand over porn and nude pictures as 'collateral'
Parlato, who was the first to make claims about the cult's allegedly sordid activities on his website The Frank Report, told Sun Online that the women - apparently including India - were terrified to break free from the cult fearing their secrets would be made public.
Catherine Oxeberg became concerned as India was not eating, her hair was falling out and she had not had a period in a year.
But she refused to leave.
But the British actress, 57, was able to rescue her daughter India who has now found love and is living with her family in Malibu.
NXIVM claimed to be a self-help group to empower women - which is how India became involved - but Parlato says there is a secret dark side to the organisation.
The women’s-only group led by Raniere is known as 'DOS', which Parlato says stands for “dominus obsequious sororium" - Latin for “master over the slave women”.
He claimed that to join, women were brainwashed into handing over blackmail-worthy material such as pornographic pictures or financial information.
Once they were a member - or “slave” - they were allegedly encouraged to recruit new women into their “slave pods”, stop dating, and be on call 24 hours a day to their “master”.
If they didn’t recruit enough "slaves" or respond to their “masters” fast enough, they were beaten with paddles, Parlato claimed.
In one shocking text seen by Sun Online, a desperate member writes: “If I suffer, cry or have any adverse reaction to being hit I get hit more.”
Women starved because 'fat interferes with leader's energy levels'
New members were later taken by surprise, told to strip naked and then forcibly branded, according to Parlato.
They had to follow strict 500 to 800 calorie a day diets because leader Raniere prefers skinny women and tells his followers that fat “interferes” with his energy levels.
The controversial leader is also said to have had a harem of women who willingly sleep with him, believing that they will “be healed” by having sex with the 57-year-old - who they apparently call “Vanguard”.
Parlato said the women were "maintaining 500 to 800 calories a day diets, sleep deprived, brainwashed and with the leader of the cult holding blackmail-worthy material in his possession which he has threatened to release if they leave the cult.
“I have spoken to about a dozen escaped members.
“I have seen many texts including correspondence between a ‘master’ and a ‘slave’.
He said there were "70 or 80 women in the cult" last year - but not all of them have been branded.
"You don’t get branded right away. The branding is done by surprise and without disclosure.
“You are told you are going to get a tiny tattoo and you end up being pinned down, no anaesthesia, while a doctor takes a hot iron and slowly brands you with about 50 to 100 strokes of this two inch by two inch brand.
“It looks like a symbol but it is actually Raniere’s initials - KR and AM.”
According to Parlato, the Emmy-winning Hollywood actress had several “slave pods” of around six women each.
He says all of the women went through a ranking system where they earned colours and stripes depending on how many ";slaves" they recruit and how well they understand the teachings.
They had to be on call to their “master” 24 hours a day and are set twisted tasks - with one woman allegedly telling Parlato she'd been ordered to seduce a child molester.
Parlato, who worked as NXIVM’s publicist for less a year in 2007, said Raniere used the self help courses to recruit rich, famous or good-looking women to his inner circle.
He claims to have joined the company without knowing what allegedly goes on behind the scenes.
“If it was just Raniere by himself he would persuade almost no one but he has all these women to induct and hypnotize new women - so you are not just indoctrinated by him but a group of other women - one of them is a well known TV actress so she has influence over them," Parlato said.
“They induct the women into this secret group by telling them it is an all women’s group - they don’t tell the women that Raniere is actually in charge.
“It is sold as something intriguing - an all women’s empowerment group where they would receive training and coaching and do powerful things in the world - like the Masons," he added.
“Then they are told: ‘Give us a nude photograph - come on it’s only us girls’.
“Once they are in they have to give even more 'collateral' to officially join, Parlato said.
“The collateral was originally uploaded on a dropbox but there is also physical box of evidence," he added.
“It includes graphic nude photographs, audio and video confessions of crimes - either fabricated or not, transmittal of assets to be held by the cult, bank account numbers and cheques written to Raniere that will be cashed if people ever leave the cult or reveal its secret practices.
“You are then given certain obligations but it becomes increasingly harrowing and demanding.”
Parlato says he was fired by Raniere when he started probing into NXIVM's financial affairs.
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At the time of Parlato's initial accusations, NXIVM issued a statement saying: "The allegations relayed in the story are built upon sources, some of which are under criminal investigation or already indicted, who act as a coordinated group.”
They added: "We will explore any and all legal remedies to correct these lies."