On April 3, 2023, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York filed indictment 1:23-cr-00146 in the clerk’s office of the US District Court in Brooklyn.
When I read Indictment 1:23-cr-00146, I thought a grave had opened, and Franz Kafka had come out with a new work.
I confess I have never seen anything like it. What makes this indictment incredible is not the alleged conduct of the defendants—Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz—or their company, OneTaste, but that the government brought charges without informing the defendants what they are alleged to have done.
To date, this salient fact has eluded detection by the media.
However, a careful reading of the indictment makes it clear that no one can determine what Daedone and Cherwitz allegedly did. The indictment charges the defendants with forced labor conspiracy. Daedone and Cherwitz each face a maximum sentence of 20 years if convicted. But nowhere in indictment 1:23-cr-00146 does the government identify how the defendants conspired to force anyone to labor, what labor the “victims” did, or when they did it.
Assistant US Attorneys Gillian Kassner, Devon Lash, and Jonathan Siegel wrote this masterpiece of obfuscation and are in charge of the prosecution. To date, they have not told the defense who the “victims” are or even how many there are. Indictment 1:23-cr-00146 is over a year old, and the trial is tentatively scheduled for nine months from now. Trials take a lot of preparation.
As of now, US Attorney Peace has gamboled into a world where the government, if left uncorralled, can charge a citizen with a secret crime, secret not only to the public, but also to the defendant.
Kafka wrote “The Trial” more than 100 years ago, a novel about a man arrested by unknown agents for an unspecified crime. A profoundly influential work, “The Trial,” portended a creeping totalitarian injustice.
Indictment 1:23-cr-00146 tries to take Kafka’s vision to the realm of nonfiction.
Let me be clear. In this unique indictment, the US Attorney will not disclose to Daedone and Cherwitz who they forced into labor, how many were forced, when they forced them, what labor the unknown “victim” or “victims” were forced to do, or even how they forced them.
A federal indictment usually destroys the life of anyone indicted. Daedone’s money has been seized; both women are limited in their ability to travel. Daedone, at 57, faces a virtual life sentence, and Cherwitz, at 44, could see her entire future unravel.
Yes, you can argue, that the defendants do not need to be told what they did. They know what they did and to whom.
This is the argument of the prosecutors and it requires a presumption of guilt. Suppose we presume Daedone and Cherwitz are innocent. How would they know what, in the universe of things they did not do, what the prosecutors plan to claim they did? What do they defend against if they are innocent?
As a touch of irony, the judge ordered that Daedone and Cherwitz could not speak to each other, creating an additional obstacle in their attempts to determine what on earth the prosecution alleges they have done.
Granted, indictment 1:23-cr-001 may be persuasive to those who read it cursorily. The incessant recitation of conclusory allegations without a single substantive detail might persuade the gullible stenographers who often pass as reporters in the mainstream media.
To me, it reads more like the prosecutors have no case.
Indeed, the US Attorney has taken to advertising for victims after the indictment. And we offer his ad here in this space:
“If you believe you are or may be a victim in this case, please call the FBI New York’s main line at 212-384-5000.”
We have no idea if anyone has called. Based on the language of the indictment, we cannot be entirely sure that there were any victims before the indictment. The prosecutors may have adopted a variation of the developer’s credo – “build it and they will come,” with “indict them and victims will come.”
What else can we deduce when the defendants have to make a motion before the judge to compel the prosecutors to do what all good prosecutors do without being forced – tell the defendant what they did and who they did it to?
US District Judge Diane Gujarati will hear the defense’s motion in early May. The US Attorney and his team have brusquely argued they need not tell the presumptive guilty defendants until literally hours before the trial. If they want to know sooner, they can always read or watch the media reports that predate the indictment.
Outrageous statements like these make one suspect that they’re talking about things of which they don’t have the slightest understanding, and it’s only because of their stupidity that they’re able to be so sure of themselves.
They may not have a single victim. If they did, where is he or she? If there were victims wouldn’t the prosecutors want to disclose them to induce the defendants to take a plea deal?
Those with a smidgen of discernment will see indictment 1:23-cr-001 for what it is or rather what it isn’t: It isn’t anything. It doesn’t say anything. But the fact of the indictment itself may be more than enough in the Kafkaesque world of Brooklyn.
Let me therefore give the defendants some advice: Don’t make a fuss before the prosecutors, or the media, about how innocent you feel. They are very comfortable among themselves. They think you are guilty. At least they think your guilt will be proven.
“But I’m not guilty,” says the defendant, “it’s a mistake.”
“Oh that’s the way guilty people talk,” they will say.
Indictment 1:23-cr-00146 suggests that the prosecutors in Brooklyn believe it is an essential part of the system that a citizen should be indicted not only in innocence but in ignorance.
And for some prosecutors, it is not necessary for an indictment to be true. The defendant must only accept it as necessary that prosecutors must indict the innocent along with the guilty because they need convictions. They never expect to go to trial and rarely do. They expect the innocent and the guilty to take a plea deal.
“A melancholy conclusion,” Kafka wrote more than 100 years ago. “It turns lying into a universal principle.”
If the prosecutors had any true victims, I believe they would have filed Indictment 1:23-cr-00146 with specific conduct of forced labor, even if they had to use John or Jane Doe, or victims identified by numbers to protect their anonymity from the public (not from the defense). They would want to do this to avoid the humiliation of filing such a vacuous indictment as 1:23-cr-00146.
Stay tuned for the next post in our series on the indictment of Daedone and Cherwitz.
See also https://frankreport.com/2024/04/21/feds-cant-stroke-up-evidence-in-onetaste-case/
Frank Parlato 
Janine Morrison 
J.J. O'Hara 
Richard Luthmann 
Marie White 
Paul Serran
Please leave a comment: Your opinion is important to us!
Mr. Parlato writes:
“However, a careful reading of the indictment makes it clear that no one can determine what Daedone and Cherwitz allegedly did. The indictment charges the defendants with forced labor conspiracy.”
Did anyone else catch how these two sentences completely contradict each other? In one breath, Mr. Parlato claims (after *careful reading*, mind you) that “…no one can determine what Daedone and Cherwitz allegedly did.” And in the *very* next breath, he goes on to name EXACTLY what Daedone and Cherwitz are charged with (what they “allegedly did”) which is to commit the CRIME of CONSPIRACY.
All this sound and fury about the particulars of the case being some great mystery, or that the case itself is some kind of unprecedented overreach on the part of prosecutors, or it’s some kafkaesque miscarriage of justice, – ALL of that noise is quieted the moment one acknowledges the simple fact that in this indictment, Nicole and Rachel are being charged with the CRIME of conspiring to commit crimes.
Why does that distinction matter? Because CONSPIRACY – being involved in any kind of plot, scheme, plan, caper, discussion, or what have you, in which illegal acts are discussed with the clear intent to eventually carry out those acts, IS A CRIME in and of itself. And here’s the kicker…
It DOESN’T MATTER if any actual resulting crime was committed or not!
Yes, planning a bank robbery is just as illegal as robbing a bank, even if you *never* carry out the plan and don’t end up robbing the bank. The very act of CONSPIRING to break the statutes named in the indictment (and in this case, the gov’t specifies statute 1589 parts (a) & (b) as having been the crimes Daedone and Cherwitz conspired to commit) *is itself* a chargeable offense and is the offense Daedone and Cherwitz are being charged with.
And to be clear, section 1594 of Title 18 of the US Code is not some novel, untested, vaporous black hole of jurisprudence that the prosecutors are reaching into in order conjure up their case. On the contrary, it’s part of a set of statutes passed by *both* houses of the US Congress with nearly unanimous bipartisan support and signed into law by then President Bill Clinton in 2000 and called the “Trafficking Victims Prevention Act” (TVPA). The Act was designed to codify and clarify the law as it relates to human trafficking and forced labor, and to broaden their legal definitions so that more subtle forms of coercion and control (you know, like you miiiiiiight find in some cults) would be recognized and prohibited by law. And as with a great many statutes in the US Code, any *conspiracy* to commit said crimes was ALSO codified as being a criminal act in and of itself.
So the charges are there. The statutes the government alleges were broken are right there. It’s no mystery. It’s no conspiracy. And it’s certainly no strange or novel legal argument lacking substance or specificity. US Attorneys are really not in the habit of bringing flimsy cases built on specious legal arguments before Federal judges. And just to clarify one more point, the government has argued in recent court filings that whatever details the defense claims (and Mr. Parlato so faithfully parrots) they’re entitled to know, but are being kept in the dark about, have, in fact, *already* been shared with the defense in roughly 2.7 terabytes of pre-trial discovery data produced and given to the defense lawyers in the past year or so.
So…this coming Friday, in a courtroom in the NY Eastern District Court in Brooklyn, both sides will argue the merits (or lack thereof) of the defense’s argument that the government’s case should be dismissed. And when the judge eventually issues a ruling, perhaps the defense will prevail and the government’s case will collapse due to a lack of substance or specificity. If so, Mr. Parlato’s coverage here will seem downright prescient, no question, and I’ll be among the first to concede as much. If, however, the judge rules *against* dismissal and the case proceeds, I wonder what the spin will be then? Guess we have to wait and see.
The practices of federal prosecutors Jonathan Siegal and Gillian Kassner have raised concerns, with their high rate of prosecuting people of color, and the upcoming criminal trial of Black entrepreneur and producer Carlos Watson, founder of Ozy Media, both located in California but being prosecuted in Brooklyn. While a 2022 study found most white-collar crime is committed by people who are white, prosecution often targets people of color, and in the case of Watson, a successful entrepreneur plucked from across the country in California. (See Watson Motion to Dismiss). In a recently passed resolution, NYC Avenue Church is calling for an independent investigation into the practices of the DOJ in the Eastern District of NY, including these two prosecutors. https://baystatebanner.com/2023/07/13/the-troubling-case-of-carlos-watson-too-black-for-business/
https://www.vicetv.com/en_us/video/orgasmic-meditators/56f30082b4c6b35109b2cc04
This Vice News story is excellent and totally highlights Frank’s story.
It pokes fun at One Taste but also highlights the ridiculous prosecution of One Taste…
Thank you for this. This indictment should be dismissed immediately. There is no basis for the charges. Nicole and Rachel are not guilty of this made up charge. They are good humans with good hearts.
I’m guessing that the victims are not aware of the article. The names of the victims is being protected due to the nature of the case. The justice system weighs the rights of the victims. When you have a group of people testify. There is always a risk of harassment when you are testifying.
The folks identified as witnesses in this case have already encountered some shady surveillance from, presumably…
Thank you very much for doing this series!! It’s filling a void in the media about this case that honestly I feel as tho a lot of us who were involved have been waiting for!
I worked for OneTaste NYC, I did sales in Austin and Dallas. I spent time in London, LA & San Francisco. I agree with another comment that while sure there was a specific kind of grind mentality that happened…..how is that different than literally any other company in the US? We worked with some of the top sales trainers in the nation but it’s somehow on Nicole and Rachel? It’s BS in my opinion. There being extreme stigma about anything intimacy related in our society is actively harming us on the daily.
I mentioned in my comment in your other article that Nicole helped save my life. I want to make it clear that Rachel Cherwitz did too. I have always had a very specific kind of wild feral side to myself as an adult because I was repressed in a lot of extreme ways because of my strict Christian upbringing.
Not only did Rachel embrace and love my wild, she helped me do the same internally. I have been called crazy my whole life mostly cuz I’m hyper sensitive and very self aware. Rachel saw that in me and loved me to the other side of healing. And helped me see it is my gift!
I spoke with the FBI and it was ridiculous. They called me and said “we don’t have an agenda….” Be serious. I am thankful on the daily as an adult my parents were hippies and raised me to be very suspicious of the alphabet boys.
Thank you again!!!
Amber-
Thank you so muck for sharing!
I know someone who went to these meetings to appease his gf. He said that at first it was exciting because he learned to “ please “ his lover. The problem was after a while he realized that there were other levels behind closed doors . This organization was working with human traffickers.
Former member here, can attest that there was no human trafficking.
This is bewildering and infuriating – how can they spend time and resources on theoretical allegations? Particularly at a time when we have a presidential candidate threatening to dismantle this essential branch of government. This case seems extraordinarily unsettling and without precedence. My experience with Nicole and Rachel and their teaching was that these two women actually cared – deeply. They had a taste of freedom and wanted other women to have it too. I’ve been in other “self help” programs and found this one exceptional – everyone who worked at OT had a level of dedication that I haven’t found anywhere else.
Thank you for writing this and keeping the pulse on this. I have been OMing for over 10 years, took many classes with Nicole and Rachel and have had incredibly fulfilling growth experiences from them. Both of them are really amazing, honest people dedicated to the highest benefit of humanity.
This feels to me like an attack on women and sexuality. Which is really nothing new, it’s something that humanity has been doing for a long long time. But now it’s time to push back and say no that is enough. No more witch hunts. No more baseless accusations that get moved through and acted on due to hysteria, fear or an abuse of power.
From my perspective the charges are indeed vacuous! Let’s keep the light on this and may the truth prevail.
I worked at OneTaste for years. Although there were some general business practices I don’t miss such as long hours and intense financial stress. I never felt any forced labor was happening. And I was in a lot of back rooms with managers and leaders. Everyone who worked there or volunteered wanted to be there, and they knew upfront it was an intense place to work. They knew this because the people who worked there were interested in the practice and the mission. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have chosen to work there – neither the money nor benefits nor hours were great.
Be so for real right now: how could you possibly say that? I don’t think you understand what forced labor IS. We don’t “volunteer” for a FOR PROFIT company. I mean, we DID, for years and years, because that’s coercive control for ya. But you need only look at who wasn’t under “financial stress,” not for a minute, to understand wtf was going on. I really, truly wish you well in your recovery from OneTaste. But make no mistake: your labor was absolutely exploited.
I was always paid for my work and never coerced into anything. Consent was #1 priority and so was safety. I was very intimately involved with the work and the teachers for several years. Just because you feel like you had a bad experience, doesn’t mean everyone did so don’t put your trauma onto others or make uneducated assumptions about what people went through. You are part of the problem,
Just because you feel like you had a good experience, doesn’t mean everyone did so don’t put your pleasure onto others or make uneducated assumptions about what people went through.
See how that cuts both ways?
It’s important to hold the FBI and federal prosecutors to account. I had my assets involved in an unlawful (based on the 4th amendment) seizure by the FBI, and thankfully it was dropped in the end. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-01-23/appeals-court-finds-fbi-did-violate-rights-of-some-beverly-hills-safe-deposit-box-holders
Just because it’s government doesn’t make them infallible. Thanks for writing on this case.
FBI is part of the problem.
Every defendant has a Constitutional rights to see all the evidence incriminating OR exculpating in order to mount a proper defense. The ramifications if this is let go will have a huge ripple effect on all of our rights.
Last Friday the court rejected the arguments that defendants have had any rights denied or that the prosecution withheld any evidence (the discovery process is still under way, ffs) by rejecting the defense’s motion to dismiss the case. The only “ripple effect” this is having is inside the brains of OneTaste’s current followers as they try to resolve the cognitive dissonance they’re experiencing now that this hare-brained legal analysis they’ve hung their hopes on has been tossed out of court.
This article rightly points out the glaring lack of specificity in the indictment against Daedone and Cherwitz. How can the defendants be expected to mount an adequate defense when the prosecution doesn’t even tell them what alleged crimes they committed, who the supposed victims are, or when the offenses took place? It’s a clear violation of due process.
I’ve long been bothered by the prosecution’s conduct in this case. Their post-indictment advertising for victims reeks of desperation and suggests they lacked sufficient evidence to bring charges in the first place. Now, they want to keep the defendants in the dark about the particulars of the case against them until the eve of trial. It’s beyond outrageous.
The Kafka references are apt – this has the makings of a true witch hunt, with the presumption of innocence thrown out the window. I hope Judge Gujarati sees through the prosecution’s cynical tactics and compels them to provide the information the defense is entitled to.
Daedone and Cherwitz deserve a fair trial, not an underhanded railroad job. Prosecutors wield immense power and are obligated to pursue justice, not convictions, at any cost. I’m grateful to the author for shining a light on this alarming abuse of prosecutorial authority. The public should be deeply concerned.
I love that you articulated this: “Suppose we presume Daedone and Cherwitz are innocent. How would they know what, in the universe of things they did not do, what the prosecutors plan to claim they did? “!!
I feel like when OT started to be accused of these things from the media, they did exactly what you are saying, they went looking to try to pre-emptively figure out what they did wrong. As a result of their introspective they wrote a 25 part series on Medium breaking down each problem it could have been, and offering an explanation for each “mistake” that was made, but just like you said, most people just thought “That’s exactly what a guilty person would write.”
I took OneTaste classes starting in 2015 and they were stellar. I was not new to transformational work, and I even volunteered with them. As I follow this case I don’t understand even yet what they are being accused of actually doing wrong.
This article rightly points out the glaring lack of specificity in the indictment against Daedone and Cherwitz. How can the defendants be expected to mount an adequate defense when the prosecution won’t even tell them what alleged crimes they committed, who the supposed victims are, or when the offenses took place? It’s a clear violation of due process.
I’ve long been bothered by the prosecution’s conduct in this case. Their post-indictment advertising for victims reeks of desperation and suggests they lacked sufficient evidence to bring charges in the first place. Now, they want to keep the defendants in the dark about the particulars of the case against them until the eve of trial? It’s beyond outrageous.
The Kafka references are apt – this has the makings of a true witch hunt, with the presumption of innocence thrown out the window. I hope Judge Gujarati sees through the prosecution’s cynical tactics and compels them to provide the information the defense is entitled to.
Daedone and Cherwitz deserve a fair trial, not an underhanded railroad job. Prosecutors wield immense power and have an obligation to pursue justice, not convictions at any cost. I’m grateful to the author for shining a light on this alarming abuse of prosecutorial authority. The public should be deeply concerned.
So much clarity and detail. I wonder can this finally start to be a conversation about the facts, all the facts
Since when do guilty people have to be told what crimes they did? They know. They did the crimes. If we want to stamp out crime we need to do what the great brain Breon Peace is trying to do. The presumption of innocence MUST be replaced with the presumption of guilt.
So there’s going to be a whole series of legal analyses of this case? If you were being paid by the defendants or their supporters would you disclose that? Didn’t think so.