Jane Doe and Friends: Lies and Anonymity in OneTaste Lawsuit

For more than a year, the law firm Kohn Swift of Philadelphia has advertised on its website that it wants plaintiffs to sue OneTaste Inc., “a purported wellness and sexual empowerment company, and its former leaders Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz.”

Kohn Swift invited contact from any who “are or were a member … and/or believe you were harmed by the group’s practices.”

It won’t cost a dime upfront.

“Our firm generally works on a contingent fee,” Kohn Swift advises.

After the media reports in Bloomberg, Vice, Playboy, BBC, and Netflix, finding plaintiffs for a class action civil lawsuit should be easy. Then the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York indicted Daedone and Cherwitz for forced labor conspiracy making it easier still.

Kohn Swift explained to potential plaintiffs: “Forced Labor is defined by the International Labour Organization as ‘all work or service exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.’”

Thirty-five thousand had attended a OneTaste event, 16,000 had paid for courses, and more than 1400 had taken advanced courses.

Because the US Attorney for EDNY could not find any evidence of actual forced labor, prosecutors were limited to charging Daedone and Cherwitz with forced labor conspiracy – the attempt to force people to labor.

But the standard of proof for a civil lawsuit is lower.

Kohn Swift found four individuals willing to sue. One is an educated man who, long before he had come to OneTaste, had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, rendering him unemployable, and three women from affluent families. The three women asked the lawyers at Kohn Swift to keep their full names off the lawsuit so they could sue anonymously.

Anonymity and Allegations

The law firm drafted a complaint with the three anonymized women and one man alleging that OneTaste founder Nicole Daedone and five others associated with her company had taken away their self-determination, intelligence, and instinct for self-preservation and consequently, though they never allege physical force and admit they consented verbally to everything they did, it was forced labor.

The law firm also alleges human trafficking based on a theory that people can be brainwashed. Kohn Swift defines it as “coercive control – the act of manipulating an individual … to act against their best interests… a gradual process … during which peoples’ behaviors change drastically… brainwashing and mind control are other common ways of referring to it.”

To state it simply, the four plaintiffs wanted to be compensated by actual and punitive damages for being brainwashed, plus an extra one-third for the lawyers at Kohn Swift.

The only male plaintiff put his full name on the lawsuit. He is Mark Gottlieb, 76, of San Francisco.

The three woman wish to remain anonymous.

In the complaint filed in Brooklyn federal court, one plaintiff identifies as Jane Doe (of San Francisco). The other two are identified by their first names: Kara of Washougal, Washington, and Michal (pronounced Me-Haul) of Kingston, NY.

Naming Others

The lawsuit focuses on Daedone and Cherwitz, and another OneTaste employee, Rachael Hemsi.

The complaint, however, names others—not as defendants, but as OneTaste employees and students for context, to illustrate how OneTaste allegedly exerted coercive control. The complaint names some of these non-party OneTaste people by their full names, some by their first names only, some by their last names only, and some by no name but only by their actions.

The rules for naming, partially naming or not naming non-party individuals is unclear.

The complaint refers to two people by their last names only. For instance, defendant Racheal Hemsi “was married to Williams, another member of the Inner Circle.”

He is Kevin Williams, counsel for OneTaste Inc.

The lawsuit provides the first and last names of Justine Dawson and Marc Quinn, “the Directors of OneTaste’s center in London” and “members of the Inner Circle” – a group alleged to be closest to Daedone.

Brooke is also allegedly “a member of the Inner Circle.” The complaint only reveals her first name. Her partner is identified only by his last name “Martinez,” a “teacher that had been involved with OneTaste for many years.”

Employees are sometimes identified with first and last names, such as “Maya Gilbert, a OneTaste employee.”

Other employees, such as Courtenay and Chris, enjoy first-name-only status.

Contradictory Naming

While Jane Doe enjoys anonymity for herself, she offers the full name of someone who, she claims is a victim like herself.

Doe alleges, “Cherwitz and Hemsi shamed, humiliated, and reprimanded Ali Wahl, a Member.”

In the next paragraph, Doe protects the anonymity of two  alleged victims, by leaving out their last names: “Daedone, Cherwitz, and Hemsi shamed, humiliated, and reprimanded Members Sharmil and Ian.”

Revealing Jane Doe’s Identity

Since the plaintiffs identify third parties who might have desired anonymity, they can enjoy what they offer others. Jane Doe is Caitlin D’Aprano. She is a real estate salesperson for Vanguard Properties in San Francisco. She comes from family money.

Her bio reads “Caitlin is a fourth-generation entrepreneur and grew up in her family’s luxury fashion business, Scanlan Theodore, known for its Italian silks and yarns and the first to import Christian Louboutin to Australia.”

D’Aprano’s Allegations

Using the name Jane Doe, D’Aprano alleges she “did not want to OM [a meditative practice that involves the sexual arousal of a woman by the stimulation of her clitoris] with male members of OneTaste who threatened her and appeared to have anger issues.”

She alleges certain OneTaste men threatened her but does not name them. D’Aprano alleges that a man at the OneTaste house in London “put her hand on his penis and held it there, even as Jane Doe said she did not want to have sexual contact with him and physically pulled away from him.”

This man is also not named. The lawsuit adds, “Jane Doe did not report the assault.” D’Aprano alleges she “began a relationship with another member of OneTaste. On one occasion, he strangled Jane Doe.”

Why doesn’t she name him, but names alleged victim Ali Wahl? D’Aprano stated she did not report the strangling to the police.

D’Aprano continues: “Jane Doe was required to share a room with three other Members, and even share a bed with another Member.” All not named.

Unnamed Boyfriends

D’Aprano alleges Daedone and “OneTaste orchestrated a romantic relationship between Jane Doe and another Member.” D’Aprano knew he was Dana Levine. Why doesn’t she name him?

She describes her relationship: “Jane Doe learned that her partner had been unfaithful to her, and she decided to end their relationship… Jane Doe’s partner persuaded Jane Doe not to end the relationship… Jane Doe’s partner frequently verbally abused Jane Doe in public, but instead of reprimanding him, OneTaste executives asked Jane Doe how she had caused the abuse.”

When she complained about her boyfriend, Hemsi recalls asking if D’Aprano contributed to the argument, as she had with others.

Then, there was a dark and stormy night when D’Aprano said yes to sex with one of her boyfriends. For reasons unclear, in the middle of the sex, she had enough. She alleges, “On one occasion, when Jane Doe withdrew consent during sex, her partner raped her.”

D’Aprano does not name her rapist.

Michal Neria

Frank Report previously identified Michal as Michal Neria. Neria had sex with many men. She alleges: “On one occasion, a sexual partner, claiming to give Michal ‘body work’ twisted her legs in a way that was painful. She was too frightened to say no to him or report the incident to anyone else for fear of being shunned.”

If he was one of her sexual partners, why didn’t she say, “Hey, it hurts”? Why didn’t she name him?

She identifies Hamza Tayeb with his first and last name because he taught her in class and was once married to Rachel Cherwitz.

However, she does not identify a man to whom she was once married. The lawsuit alleges: “Michal was introduced to Misha, another Member in OneTaste. Michal was not interested in a romantic relationship with Misha.”

Misha’s Proposal

“Michal told Cherwitz and other Teachers that she was not attracted to Misha,” she alleges, but “Misha began a relationship with Michal, by paying for her to participate in Courses in exchange for spending time with him.”

Then she alleges a funny thing happened at a OneTaste course. Another member identified with two names, “Yia Vang called Michal up onto the stage. When Michal got on the stage, Misha joined her and proposed to her. Michal was shocked and angry, but the entire class began clapping and Michal said yes.” Here is the video. It shows she said yes before the clapping. You can judge for yourself how angry she looks. They were also not on stage.

Despite her alleged anger, Michal Neria married Misha Safyan on August 14, 2015. They left OneTaste within weeks and divorced within months afterward.

Kara Cooper

Like the other plaintiffs, Kara Cooper picks and chooses who she names. Here are some she does not name:

• “An individual recruited Plaintiff Kara to participate in a OneTaste event.”
• “A Member pressured her to sign up for Courses,”
• “An older male Member asked her to OM. Kara did not want to OM with him.” But she did. She “felt pressured to do so, and she felt violated.”
• “A Teacher told Kara that she should participate in daily OM practice.”
• “A Teacher told Kara that she could earn commissions from selling OneTaste Courses.”

Unnamed Victimizers

More unnamed people made her a victim:

“Kara … moved into the OneTaste house in Bernal Heights in San Francisco… Kara was also required to share her bed with another. Kara was afraid of everyone in the house, including the man she was forced to share a bed with.”

Cooper does not mention that the unnamed Member who frightened her and with whom she shared a bed, was a man she had sex with before moving in to persuade him to let her share his bed with him, a salient fact that will assuredly come out at trial.

Dark Room Incident

She also does not name another man with whom she alleges a bad experience.

Cooper alleges she participated in “a five-day-long program. Participants were required to masturbate with a partner in a dark room. Kara did not want to partner with the man who approached her but there was intense pressure to participate and Kara believed that she would have been publicly reprimanded if she refused to consent.”

FR interviewed the man in the “dark room” who went on record with his full name and two woman who were there. We will save their comments for an in-depth report on Cooper’s claims.

Prostitution Allegation

Though Cooper admits she engaged in prostitution when she “had sex with another Member in the hopes that he would pay for her to participate” in an expensive advanced course, she did not need the money. She was a trust fund baby.

Cooper, while complaining about being required to share a bed and have roommates she was afraid of in the house in San Francisco, she neglects to admit the house had a waiting list of OneTaste students. The roommates had to vote her in. To ensure her entre, she sought out three men who lived there and agreed to have sex with all three in immediate succession to show her amiability as a roommate. She got the votes and moved in.

Gottlieb’s Scary Story

The name-and-no-name discussion would not be complete without hearing from the sole male plaintiff, Mark Gottlieb.

He names one woman but not the other in one of the strnagest stories in the lawsuit.

The complaint alleges: “While Gottlieb lived in the OneTaste house at Folsom Street, Hemsi and another member of the Inner Circle entered his room unannounced and performed oral sex on him on numerous occasions. Gottlieb was coerced into engaging in these sex acts.”

Apart from the implausibility of the story, why does he not name the other woman, who was, after all, a “member of the Inner Circle?”

Ten years later, he alleges he was coerced.

FR interviewed both Hemsi and the other unamed woman. She is Joanna Van Vleck, the former president of OneTaste.

The women said Gottlieb sought the exchanges, and his emails show he tried to have more personal encounters with the two women and failed.

At the very least, he had alternatives. He could have locked the door. He could have thrown them out of the room. He could have called for help. He could have called the police. He could have declined to take his pants off.

He appeared to have enjoyed the moment, or at least never said a word until ten years later in a civil complaint.

What is interesting is who gets named and who doesn’t, and in reporting the story, we understand the desire for the women to remain anonymous. They look like silly gooses more than legitimate victims, and someone other than self-interested lawyers should have competently advised them that there was zero chance they would remain anonymous.

Someone who cared about them might have reminded them that in a lawsuit, “what is good for the goose, is also good for those doing the goosing.”

Frank Parlato

Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist, media strategist, publisher, and legal consultant.

Frank Parlato

Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist, media strategist, publisher, and legal consultant.

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