United States of America v. Nicole Daedone

Brooklyn, New York, criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with conspiracy to fore labor.

Nicole Daedone, the founder and former Chief Executive Officer of OneTaste, Inc. (OneTaste), a sexual wellness education company founded in San Francisco, California, was accused of engaing in a conspiracy to force labor.

“This case exposed a decade-long scheme in which the defendants used psychological, emotional, and financial coercion to control their victims and extract labor and services for their own benefit,” stated United States Attorney Nocella. “The jury’s verdict and today’s sentences demonstrate that coercion can take many forms—and that those who exploit others through such means will face serious consequences. Coercion disguised as wellness or empowerment is still exploitation and it is a crime that causes harm to vulnerable victims. The defendants’ combination of forced labor with sexual exploitation caused trauma to the victims in ways that extend beyond lost wages or long hours.”

“For decades, Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz preyed on vulnerable women, coercing them into a calculated forced labor conspiracy. These defendants subjected their victims to repeated psychological manipulation and sexual abuse to obtain unpaid or underpaid labor and services for their personal and financial benefit. The FBI is committed to holding accountable those who traffic in human labor and exploit others for profit. We thank the victims for their courage in coming forward,” stated FBI Assistant Director in Charge Barnacle.

OneTaste was a privately held company co-founded by Daedone in 2004. Its principal place of business was San Francisco, California, and it operated at various locations within New York, Los Angeles, Denver, Austin, and London. OneTaste promoted itself as a sexually focused wellness education company that offered hands-on classes on “orgasmic mediation” (OM), which involved stroking a woman’s genitals for 15 minutes. OneTaste generated revenue by providing courses, coaching, OM events, and less-publicized courses in other sexual practices in exchange for a fee.

From approximately 2006 through May 2018, Daedone and Cherwitz orchestrated a scheme to obtain the labor and services of multiple young women who had turned to OneTaste seeking healing and spiritual growth by coercing them to perform labor, including sexual labor, for the defendants’ benefit. OneTaste advertised that its courses and teachings could heal past sexual trauma and dysfunction. In reality, Daedone and Cherwitz used abusive and manipulative tactics designed to control OneTaste members by making them emotionally and psychologically dependent on OneTaste, including encouraging them to incur debt by opening lines of credit to finance the expensive courses, subjecting them to constant surveillance in communal homes, collecting sensitive information about their prior trauma and sexual histories, depriving them of sleep, and subjecting them to sexual abuse.

Once they had secured the loyalty and indebtedness of certain OneTaste members, Daedone and Cherwitz engaged in exploitative labor practices. They directed OneTaste members to work long hours—often seven days per week—with little or no compensation. This work included manual labor and the provision of sexual services. For example, Daedone and Cherwitz coerced their victims to engage in sexual acts with OneTaste’s then-current and prospective investors, clients, and employees for the company’s financial benefit. Three witnesses testified at trial about how they were coerced into becoming “handlers” for OneTaste’s initial investor, who was also Daedone’s boyfriend, which required them to live with him, perform sex acts at his direction, and provide domestic labor for him. Multiple other witnesses testified that they were coerced under threat of termination, demotion, ostracism, and financial and spiritual ruin by Daedone and Cherwitz into performing various sex acts with OneTaste’s potential clients and investors.

In 2017, Daedone sold OneTaste—a company built on the backs of coerced and unpaid or substantially underpaid labor—for $12 million.

The government’s case is being handled by the Office’s Human Trafficking and Civil Rights Section. Assistant United States Attorneys Kayla Bensing, Kaitlin T. Farrell, Nina C. Gupta, and Sean Michael Fern are in charge of the prosecution, with assistance from Paralegal Specialists Liam McNett and Marlane Bosler.

The Defendant was found guilty and was sentenced to nine years in prison.