Frank Parlato
Missing Thumb
How often the FBI misplaces evidence is hard to say. But a thumb drive is missing. It was last seen leaving a San Francisco apartment with Special Agent Elliot McGinnis.
McGinnis spearheaded the investigation into OneTaste Inc. His work led to the April 2023 indictment of Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz. Both were charged with conspiracy to commit forced labor. Not actual forced labor. Just conspiracy.
The Eastern District of New York made it clear in court filings: We don’t need no victims:
“The instant case charges a conspiracy and not a substantive offense. The defendants could be proven guilty if they never forced any victim to do anything—so long as the evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt that they agreed to do so.”
US District Judge Diane Gujarati set the trial date: May 5.
More to the Thumb Than Meets the Eye
A missing thumb is at the heart of this case.
It vanished on January 26, 2021. That was the day Special Agent Elliot McGinnis, joined by Special Agent Colleen Sheehan, paid an unannounced visit to the home of Mitchell Aidelbaum, an IT contractor.
Nobody likes a surprise call by FBI agents. It is unclear why, but Aidelbaum confessed.
The target wasn’t Aidelbaum. The target was OneTaste and its executives.
Maybe he thought he’d get a gold star for stealing.
But he confessed. After leaving OneTaste – he was the company IT contractor – he hacked into their servers. He copied files: documents, videos, photos. Among them was a Word file labeled Attorney-Client Privileged.
According to Aidelbaum, the Word file held “a lot of bad stuff they did over the years.”
Agent McGinnis gave him a thumb drive. “Copy it,” McGinnis instructed.
Aidelbaum did. He copied a Word file named “Attorney Client Privileged” and at the top of every page the document read “Attorney Client Privileged.” He copied it to the thumb drive FBI Agent McGinnis provided.
Then McGinnis left. No property receipt. No chain of custody. The thumb drive was never seen again. The last person to hold it before turning it over to the United States of America?
The hacker who copied the file and handed it to Special Agent McGinnis.
Missing More Than a Thumb
If Mitchell Aidelbaum is to be believed—and he swore under penalty of perjury—Special Agent Elliot McGinnis walked out with the thumb drive.
And it was never seen again.
Aidelbaum might be lying, but that would mean perjury. He claimed he copied the stolen file onto a thumb drive McGinnis handed him.
McGinnis, for his part, said he didn’t recall giving Aidelbaum a thumb drive. It’s amazing how short-term memory loss strikes right after you break the law.
Years later, McGinnis claimed he searched all the thumb drives in his possession. He found nothing. What’s he doing with so many thumb drives anyway—building a collection for the Smithsonian?
But one thing is sure: If Aidelbaum didn’t lie, the thumb drive never left McGinnis’s custody.
Thumbs Away
FBI protocol requires agents to document interviews in an FD-302 report. These reports are typed some time after interviews and shared with the defense before trial. McGinnis’s 302 report did not mention a thumb drive or, for that matter, a stolen, privileged document.
The FBI’s record-keeping system didn’t have it either.
There’s a strict process for handling digital evidence. Agents can seize it or provide storage for it but cannot examine its contents. Evidence must be turned over to the FBI’s Computer Analysis Response Team (CART). They make a copy, secure the original, and ensure no files are altered.
McGinnis didn’t follow this procedure. He never sent the thumb drive to CART.
More Than Just a Missing Thumb
The missing thumb came with another complication. The Word file inside it: its name: “Attorney-Client Privileged.”
The FBI isn’t allowed to read documents marked as such. This isn’t optional. It’s mandatory. The rule exists to protect privilege, even for targets of an investigation.
If an agent encounters such a document, they must hand it, unread, to their supervisor. McGinnis knew this.
But McGinnis didn’t report the document. He didn’t follow protocol. And now, no one can find the thumb drive.
Concealed Evidence
You or I might look. Curiosity gets the best of us. The desire to win might make one take an unfair advantage.
But we’re not special agents. We aren’t trained to enforce the law while abiding by it. What good is law enforcement when the agents break the laws they’re sworn to uphold?
Special Agent Elliot McGinnis knew the rules. Once the file was copied onto a digital device, the protocol was clear. The Department of Justice (DOJ) uses a “filter team” for suspected privileged documents. This team, separate from the investigators, reviews the material.
If deemed privileged, the investigation team never sees it. The document is excluded. Permanently.
McGinnis could never see “all the bad stuff” unless the filter team determined it wasn’t privileged. Unless of course he broke the law and obstructed.
The thumb drive never went to a filter team.
If Mitchell Aidelbaum’s story is true, McGinnis concealed the document. From his supervisors. From the defense.
Concealed Crimes
Mitchell Aidelbaum confessed to hacking into OneTaste’s server. A felony under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). He also worked with OneTaste’s competitors when he hacked. A felony under the Economic Espionage Act (EEA).
As a trained FBI agent, McGinnis knew this. He also knew the law: failing to report a felony is a crime—Misprision of a Felony under 18 U.S.C. § 4.
But McGinnis didn’t report it. And in so doing McGinnis committed a felony himself.
Built Case on Stolen Privilege
Agent McGinnis didn’t report the thumb drive. He didn’t turn it over to CART. Instead, he used it.
First to explain. Court filings revealed the stolen Word document labeled “attorney-client privileged” wasn’t what Aidelbaum claimed. It wasn’t a record of “bad stuff“ OneTaste had done.
The document was something else entirely.
OneTaste had created the file at the direction of their law firm, Goldberg & Galper, PLLC. It was a legal risk assessment. The attorneys instructed OneTaste to compile a list of any rumors, accusations, or incidents critics or former employees might raise—true or false, past or present, public or private.
OneTaste senior management created the list. They assumed the worst possible interpretation of anything critics might say.
Access to the document was restricted. It was marked “Attorney-Client Privileged“ and stored on OneTaste’s secure servers.
On July 17, 2017, OneTaste’s senior management delivered a single hard copy of the document to their attorneys in person. No email. No digital copies left unsecured.
But then Aidelbaum hacked into their servers.
And McGinnis, according to Aidelbaum, took the stolen file on a thumb drive.
Here’s the twist: though only a few critics had made allegations, the document contained a list of names.
Targeting Names in the Stolen Document
In the two weeks after Mitchell Aidelbaum claimed he handed over the thumb drive, Special Agent Elliot McGinnis began contacting people.
Seven interviews. All names listed in the stolen privileged document.
The first person McGinnis interviewed? Their name appeared on the document’s first page.
Within a year, McGinnis had spoken with 20 people from the document.
No one from the FBI had contacted these individuals in the two-and-a-half years before the document was stolen.
Some had left OneTaste years earlier. Most had no complaints. Most weren’t publicly associated with OneTaste, making them unlikely targets for FBI outreach.
During these interviews, McGinnis asked about events. Private events. Details not public but mentioned in the stolen document.
Sneaky Agent Man
McGinnis interviewed dozens of people connected to OneTaste. He didn’t find a single victim of actual forced labor.
The statute of limitations for forced labor and conspiracy was about to run out. May 2023.
In April 2023, the Eastern District of New York (EDNY) filed a sealed indictment. It accused Nicole Daedone, Rachel Cherwitz, and unnamed others of conspiring—over 12 years, from 2006 to May 2018—to force unnamed individuals to work.
But they failed.
McGinnis didn’t provide enough evidence for EDNY to charge actual forced labor. They called it a conspiracy to commit forced labor. The only real labor was the mental gymnastics required to make this case stick.
Discovery of the Stolen Document But Not His Thumb
It took a year and a half after the indictment for the truth to surface.
On September 6, 2024, the defense filed a declaration from Mitchell Aidelbaum, the hacker.
Under penalty of perjury, Aidelbaum admitted to hacking OneTaste’s servers. He said he gave Special Agent McGinnis the stolen privileged document on January 26, 2021 – on McGinnis’ thumb.
Just three days after Aidelbaum’s sworn affidavit was filed, on September 9, 2024, EDNY prosecutors made a rare move. They visited the FBI office in person.
They searched the case files manually—hard copies and digital records.
In a folder labeled with Aidelbaum’s name, they found two Word files.
Both were titled “Attorney Client Privilege: Confidential and Privileged.”
The prosecutors notified the defense but gave no answers about how the files got there.
The FBI Denies, Then Admits
Prosecutors turned to Special Agents McGinnis and Sheehan. Both denied having the thumb drive. Both denied receiving the stolen document from Aidelbaum.
At first, they didn’t recall reviewing any documents during the January 26, 2021, interview with Aidelbaum.
Then one of the agents checked their emails. They admitted it was likely they had viewed or possessed a copy of the stolen document.
The prosecutors told the court the document had surfaced at the FBI, but their office didn’t have it.
That changed a few days later. On October 7, the government admitted it had copies.
The stolen document, they said, was part of a collection segregated by a paralegal. The workspace where it was stored? Undisclosed.
How did the paralegal get the document? The government didn’t explain.
Yes, the prosecutors admitted they had the stolen document but couldn’t explain how it got there. Yeah, sure. It just teleported in.
How did the prosecutors have it on their computers, but fail to share it in discovery? No answer.
Imagine the moronic answer: Prosecutors said the document showed up in a paralegal’s workspace. What’s next? The dog ate their discovery filing
But the fact remains: The prosecutors said they didn’t have the stolen document. A few days later, they found it. Must’ve been hard, with all that integrity cluttering their desks.
Broken Chain of Custody
On December 10, 2024, AUSA Gillian Kassner denied a key claim.
She told the defense that Mitchell Aidelbaum, the hacker, had not uploaded documents to a thumb drive provided by Special Agent McGinnis.
But Kassner couldn’t explain how the stolen documents ended up on FBI and EDNY computers.
Kassner is good, almost as good at losing evidence as McGinnis. She could work as a magician. ‘And now, watch Elliot make this thumb drive disappear—along with my career!”
The judge can ignore it if she wants but it will come out. Like egg on a face, it will be noticeable.
Somewhere, the chain of custody broke.
Either the government has the thumb drive and is hiding it, or the thumb drive is lost. If it’s lost, the chain of custody is broken. Not even a judge can get away with that. No matter how hard Judge Gujarati is rooting for the prosecutors to win (she was a prosecutor for most of her career).
A stolen privileged document, hidden on a thumb. That’s the document McGinnis seems to have built his case on.
Who knew the FBI offered a MasterClass in irony.
Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist, media strategist, publisher, and legal consultant.
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