Keith Raniere

Allison Mack, the Smallville actress who was a prominent figure of the NXIVM sex cult that operated out of Albany, has been released from prison.

NXIVM made headlines nationwide after reports of its founder's initials being seared into women's flesh.

A jury in federal court in Brooklyn took less than five hours to find 58-year-old Keith Raniere guilty on all counts of sex-trafficking and coercing women into sex.

Raniere has pleaded not guilty and denied the charges. His lawyers say his relationships with the alleged victims were consensual.

An heiress pleaded guilty on Friday in a sensational case accusing a cult-like upstate New York group of creating a secret harem of sex slaves for the group's self-anointed spiritual leader.

Health officials are investigating a doctor they say branded women under unsafe conditions at the behest of the spiritual leader of a secretive self-help group based in upstate New York, according to court documents about the accusations.

TV actress Allison Mack pleaded guilty Monday to charges she was involved in a scheme to turn women into sex slaves for the spiritual leader of a cult-like upstate New York group, a development that came on the same day jury selection began for a federal trial in the case.