The founders of an “Orgasmic Meditation” group that forced employees to perform sex acts on paying members have been found guilty on federal forced labor charges.
A jury found that Nicole Daedone, founder of OneTaste Inc., and the company’s former sales director Rachel Cherwitz had manipulated vulnerable individuals into performing thousands of hours of unpaid work.
The pair were found guilty on Monday, following a five-week trial. Jurors deliberated for two days before returning the verdict.
Founded in 2004, OneTaste Inc. promoted itself as a platform established by Daedone to rekindle participants’ “connection with intimacy, sexuality, and each other,” according to the original complaint, obtained by The Independent.
Quickly becoming popular through media exposure, the company later opened locations in major U.S. cities including Austin, Chicago, Denver, and New York.
One Taste’s doctrine viewed female orgasms as key to sexual and psychological wellness and interpersonal connection through practices including “Orgasmic Meditation,” which involved a man stroking a woman’s genitals for 15 minutes, and also vice versa.
“Defendants falsely claimed that ‘Orgasmic Meditation’ had scientifically proven benefits as a contemplative discipline that had ‘sparked substantial research into the intersection of sexuality and human flourishing,’” the lawsuit stated.
According to The New York Times, as the verdicts were read out on Monday, Daedone smiled and hugged her lawyer. Cherwitz did not react.
Both women face up to 20 years in prison when sentenced in September.
During the trial, prosecutors argued that the pair had used false claims and manipulation to scam people out of vast sums of money to unwittingly subject themselves to intimate sex acts “in order to be cured of all their troubles and suffering.”
OneTaste members were often forced into into sexual acts they found uncomfortable or repulsive, including having sex with potential investors or new clients.
In addition to the humiliation and disgust, thousands of people were bilked out of substantial sums of money, leading in many cases, to financial devastation, impoverishment, and bankruptcy, the court heard.
In her closing statement, Assistant US Attorney Nina Gupta, said Daedone and Cherwitz had “built a business on the backs” of victims who “gave everything” to them, including “their money, their time, their bodies, their dignity, and ultimately their sanity.”
“The jury’s verdict has unmasked Daedone and Cherwitz for who they truly are: grifters who preyed on vulnerable victims by making empty promises of sexual empowerment and wellness only to manipulate them into performing labor and services for the defendants’ benefit,” Joseph Nocella, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York said, per CNN.
Meanwhile, Daedone’s defense team had argued that she was a “ceiling-shattering feminist entrepreneur.” Cherwitz’s lawyer, Celia Cohen, argued that those who testified were not forced to do anything and were free to leave at any time.
“No matter what you think about OneTaste and what they were doing, they chose it. They knew what it was about,” Cohen said in her closing argument.
Daedone’s lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, told reporters following the verdict on Monday that she planned to appeal the case.
She was joined by Daedone, who said: “There is nothing but the spiritual aim that I set out for, and that’s the liberation of all people, and the liberation of women. I’ll do that wherever I am.”
