NEW YORK (TCN) — The founder and the former head of sales of a sexual wellness company were convicted of coercing members into performing labor and sex acts before selling the business for millions of dollars.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York announced May 9 that a federal jury convicted Nicole Daedone, the founder and former chief executive officer of OneTaste Inc., and Rachel Cherwitz, the company’s former head of sales, of forced labor conspiracy. They each face up to 20 years in prison.
Daedone founded OneTaste, a privately held company, in 2004. Their headquarters were in San Francisco, but they had locations in New York, Los Angeles, Denver, Austin, and London. Authorities said the company was a sexual wellness education business that “offered hands-on classes on ‘orgasmic mediation,’ which involved stroking a woman’s genitals for 15 minutes.” OneTaste made money through its courses, coaching, “orgasmic meditation” events, and other sexual practice classes.
According to the U.S. attorney’s office, between 2006 and May 2018, Daedone and Cherwitz subjected the company’s members, multiple young women, to “economic, sexual, emotional, financial, and psychological abuse, as well as surveillance, indoctrination, and intimidation.”
The original indictment said OneTaste members were volunteers, contractors, and employees at the company and lived in residential warehouses, where they took courses and “experimented sexually.”
According to the indictment, Daedone and Cherwitz intentionally tried to recruit members who had previously suffered trauma, and they promoted that OneTaste’s courses and teachings could heal sexual trauma and dysfunction. Many of the victims allegedly initially turned to OneTaste for “healing and spirituality.” However, the defendants reportedly implemented “abusive and manipulative tactics” to control its members “by making them emotionally and psychologically dependent on OneTaste.”
OneTaste’s courses reportedly ranged in price from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars. According to prosecutors, Daedone and Cherwitz encouraged their victims to open lines of credit to finance classes, and they continuously surveilled them. The defendants reportedly obtained information about their sexual histories and past trauma, deprived them of sleep, and subjected them to sexual abuse after securing their “loyalty and indebtedness.”
The U.S. attorney’s office said the defendants forced their members to work long hours every day of the week with little or no pay, including manual labor and sexual acts. Daedone and Cherwitz reportedly manipulated their victims into engaging in sex with current and prospective investors, clients, and employees “for the financial benefit of the company.”
During the trial, three witnesses said they were “coerced into becoming a ‘handler'” for the company’s original investor, Daedone’s boyfriend, “which required them to live with him, perform demeaning sex acts at his direction, and cook for him.”
Other witnesses said the defendants used the “threat of termination, demotion, ostracism, and financial and spiritual ruin” to get them to perform sex acts with potential clients and investors.
Daedone reportedly sold OneTaste in 2017 for $12 million. Prosecutors noted, however, that the company was “built on the backs of coerced and unpaid or substantially underpaid labor.”
In a statement, United States Attorney Nocella said, “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.”
