These Women Are Very Relieved They Never Responded To Sex-Cult-Recruiter Allison Mack's Emails
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Last week, former "Smallville" actress Allison Mack was arrested on sex trafficking charges. Mack is accused by federal prosecutors of recruiting women into a sex cult headed by Keith Raniere and threatening to release embarrassing information about them if they didn't have sex with Raniere. The New York Times has reported that members of the cult were forcibly branded with Raniere's initials, among other human rights abuses.

In light of these charges, many people are reevaluating previous interactions they had with Mack… and thanking their lucky stars they never got involved with Raniere's organization. 

Mack seems to have spent much of 2014 reaching out to female writers and celebrities on Twitter, asking if they could "chat." Prolific feminist writer Jill Filipovic recently shared an email she'd gotten from Mack in 2014 after Mack asked her for her email address on Twitter. "Gotta love the Twitter era of friendship and meetings," gushed Mack before sharing that she was "working with an organization that focuses on empowering women from the inside out."

 

Self-help writer and speaker Jennifer Pastiloff also received an email from Mack in 2014 in which Mack invited Pastiloff to a workshop that Mack said was "the most profound and awesome thing I have ever done."

 

BuzzFeed reporter Katie Baker also unearthed a four-year-old old email in which Mack tried to sell her on an "awesome educational model" about "empathy, ethics, and compassion."

 

New York Times critic at large Amanda Hess also got an email from Mack in 2014 β€” in which Mack committed the cardinal PR-email sin of calling Hess by the wrong name.

 

So what would have happened if they had responded to Mack's email? Reporter and activist Noor Tagouri's story might give us a hint. Back in 2014, Mack sent Tagouri an innocuous-looking tweet:

 

Tagouri recently recalled what happened after that:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let this serve as a lesson to everyone: If a stranger ever contacts you on Twitter asking to "chat" without further explanation, the safest thing to do is ignore them.

<p>L.V. Anderson is Digg's managing editor.</p>

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