NEW YORK — A Los Angeles woman who belonged to Keith Raniere's secret "master/slave" group testified Tuesday that she carefully plotted to escape the "cult" after being horrified at an order to seduce and have sex with the NXIVM spiritual leader.

The 29-year-old woman, identified in court as "Jay," said that as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse she was aghast when actress Allison Mack and NXIVM member India Oxenberg gave her the "assignment" to seduce Raniere.

She said Mack, a former star of the television show "Smallville," and Oxenberg, the daughter of former "Dynasty" actress Catherine Oxenberg, were her respective "grand master" and "master" in the shadowy group known as The Vow or Dominus Obsequious Sororium (DOS), which is Latin for "Lord/Master of the Obedient Female Companions."

Jay, the fourth member of DOS to testify against Raniere, first became involved with NXIVM in the summer of 2016 through a friend; she joined DOS that November. She said she was outraged when Mack told her in the spring of 2017 that seducing Raniere would help her overcome all of her past trauma.

"It was basically my worst nightmare come to life," Jay testified. "The worst thing is it would be a cult and someone would want to sleep with me — and that's what it was."

Jay, a model and actress, said she was never sexually attracted to Raniere and would not have joined DOS if she knew a man was running what she thought was a women's empowerment group. The witness said she had moved from Los Angeles to the Capital Region because Raniere convinced her it would help her start a T-shirt company. It never got off the ground.

Under questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Lesko, Jay described Mack as emotionally abusive and vindictive. When she told Mack she didn't want to have sex with Raniere because she still loved her ex-boyfriend. Mack reminded Jay that in an earlier DOS assignment, she had taken a vow of celibacy. Mack told her, "What's one person? ... I give you permission to enjoy it," Jay testified.

"Pardon my French, but I needed to get the f__ out of there," she testified. "I decided first and foremost that I needed to get out of Albany."

Jay's testimony came as the trial of Raniere, known as "Vanguard," continued in its sixth week in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. The 58-year-old former Halfmoon resident is charged with racketeering, sex trafficking, forced labor and conspiracy.

Raniere, wearing a blue sweater over a dress shirt, scribbled notes and handed them to his lawyers as Jay testified Tuesday. Other times, he appeared fixated on every word she said.

Jay said she was required to attend regular volleyball games held in a sports facility in Halfmoon. She said Mack once punished her for missing a game because she was sick — Mack called it "rude and disrespectful." During breaks in the games, Jay testified, female and male members of NXIVM would line up and kiss Raniere on the lips and shower him with gifts such as chocolate.

She testified that women in DOS were ordered to adhere to 500-calorie-a-day diets, which for some women interrupted their menstrual cycles and caused hair loss. As punishment for a supposed breach, she needed to ask permission to eat. Jay said she also was told not to groom her pubic hair — a Raniere preference brought up by several previous witnesses. She said she was told Brazilian waxing was "propaganda from the porn industry and ... violence against women."

Jay, like other members of DOS, said she was required to take part in "readiness" drills. At any point in the day, she explained, she could receive an encrypted text message asking her to respond within 60 seconds to her "master." If she failed to respond in that time, she and other "slaves" would be punished.

And Jay testified that she another DOS slave were asked to fill out a questionnaire that asked them for details about their sexual interests.

After making the decision to break with NXIVM, Jay planned her escape quietly. She sent Raniere love notes and acted as if she would follow through on the assignment to seduce him. She said Oxenberg told her she had a similar assignment with Raniere that was "amazing."

Jay had no intention of having her own sexual encounter with Raniere. She said that like all members of DOS, she had to give "collateral" to her master in the form of embarrassing or sexual photos. She said she later recruited her own "slave," a woman named Val, who gave her collateral that falsely made it appear she was snorting cocaine on video — and that her sister was a terrorist.

Jay said she made screenshots of information about collateral that was kept online in Dropbox.

"I did that protect myself as insurance," she said, "to have leverage if they tried to blackmail (her)."

Jay said she wanted out of DOS but had left her car in San Diego, where Mack had an apartment. She said she and Oxenberg were in town to see a play starring Mack. On the way back to Mack's apartment, Jay said she asked Oxenberg, "If I wanted to leave (DOS), nothing will happen to my collateral, right?"

She said Oxenberg reminded her she had made a lifelong commitment to the group.

"Are you threatening me? I feel like I'm being threatened right now," Jay said she asked Oxenberg.

She later told Mack she was "really freaked out" by the assignment to seduce Raniere. She told Mack she had Googled information about him and was concerned.

She said Mack started crying, and asked her, "Are you saying I was an accomplice to a child molester?" — a possible reference to the 2012 Times Union series "Secrets of NXIVM," which included allegations that Raniere had sexual relations with underage women.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Jay responded.

She said Mack told her she had "failed" her and tried to convince her to stay. She said she later told Mack to "back off."

Jay said she invoked a NXIVM expression, telling Mack that if she wanted to feel like she failed her, she was "entitled" to feel that way. They never spoke again, she said.

Mack pleaded guilty in April to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy. Four other members of NXIVM's have pleaded guilty in the case, leaving Raniere to face trial alone.

Jay said she later convinced her "slave" and another woman in the group to leave DOS. They had all been summoned to fly to Albany for a supposedly important ceremony in Halfmoon. As she and her "slave" went on a hike in California, Oxenberg's mother kept calling her, warning her not to get on the plane to Albany. The elder Oxenberg told her illegal and dangerous activity was taking place within NXIVM, she said.

"I took that as a sign from God," Jay said.

Jay said she later learned that other DOS members were being branded with Raniere's initials. Jay said she was never branded with what was pitched to her as a "tiny tattoo" symbolizing the elements of nature. She later learned the process — involving the application of a cauterizing tool — was extremely painful.

India Oxenberg left NXIVM after Raniere's March 2018 arrest in Mexico.

She said former senior NXIVM member Mark Vicente — one of the first prosecution witnesses — and Vicente's wife, Bonnie Piesse, helped her and the other women leave NXIVM. She said she later received a threatening letter from an attorney in Mexico ordering her to stop disturbing NXIVM's operations in Mexico.

"Did you have any connection to NXIVM Mexico?" Lesko asked Jay.

"No," she replied.

"Do you know why you got the letter?"

"An intimidation tactic," she said.

In cross-examination, Raniere attorney Marc Agnifilo asked Jay about her sham marriage to a friend to allow him to stay in the country. She said they divorced a year later.

Later Tuesday, a retired IRS criminal investigator specializing in money laundering cases testified that the credit card and bank account of Raniere's longtime girlfriend and NXIVM associate Pamela Cafritz was charged for more than $328,000 after Cafritz had died of cancer, including $15,000 charged on Nov. 7, 2016 — the day she died.

The investigator will be cross-examined on Wednesday.