Frank Parlato
His name was Sean Fern, an Assistant US Attorney in the Eastern District of New York, and he was making legal history in the Brooklyn federal courthouse.
He was making his opening statement in the case of the USA v Rachel Cherwitz and Nicole Daedone — on trial for a single count of forced labor conspiracy. The date was May 6, 2025.
Prosecutor Seeks to Redefine Consent in Orgasmic Meditation Trial
The courtroom was filled with the echo of trauma, as Fern told a tale of villainy where the victims are grown women with credit cards.
Fern wants to expand the legal concept of “serious harm,” the essential element of forced labor.
Fern wasn’t talking about violence. The defendants didn’t beat anyone. The women weren’t chained.
They were broken girls looking for peace. Instead, he said they got gaslit and made to serve. They were mind-melded, tracked like deer, gaslit, and left as shells of their former selves.
Fern alleged that the defendants’ company, OneTaste, institutionalized sexual servitude—the company’s flagship practice. Orgasmic Meditation – fifteen minutes of genital rubbing – was an act of labor.
The women weren’t trafficked in the legal sense. They weren’t caged. They paid to be there. Fern argued that adult women lost their agency. They were hypnotized with orgasm. They got horny and hopeful and ended up in hell.
Fern, seeking to change the law in America, wants a Brooklyn jury to set a precedent – to give the government the authority to invalidate consent retroactively.
And he wants the two women who made a handful of adult women regret their consent to go to prison.
Prosecutor Fern Speaks
(You can read prosecutor Sean Fern’s remarkable complete opening statement here.)
Fern spoke:
For over a decade, the defendants, Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz, worked together to coerce vulnerable women to perform labor, including sexual labor for their benefit. These women typically came from traumatic backgrounds, and they were looking to improve their lives…
OneTaste claimed to promote female empowerment…. After gaining their victim’s trust, the defendants set out on a criminal scheme to control these women.
The defendants drove their victims into debt. The defendants isolated their victims from the world outside of OneTaste and interfered with their family and romantic relationships.
The defendants tracked their victims’ innermost fears. The defendants used psychological tactics to control their victims. They gaslit them and deprived them of sleep and privacy.
They subjected them to sexual abuse.
The defendants did those things… to coerce their victims to perform unpaid or underpaid labor for OneTaste.
Working long hours, performing meaningless tasks, sexually servicing OneTaste clients… These victims came to OneTaste seeking personal growth. They left as shells of their former selves….
OneTaste was selling hands-on courses involving what Daedone called orgasmic Meditation, or OM. OM involved rubbing a woman’s naked genitals for 15 minutes….
At its beginning, OneTaste relied on funding from a wealthy tech investor. Daedone and others recruited multiple women to sexually service him to keep him happy so he would fund and continue funding OneTaste. After they used up his money, the defendants switched to targeting anyone whose money they could get, charging them tens of thousands of dollars for what the defendants claimed to be advanced programs, exclusive memberships, and so-called personalized coaching sessions. That labor also included selling courses, transcribing notes, cleaning, cooking, setting up events, and attending to … Daedone’s every whim….
Throughout this trial, you’ll hear from a series of women who turned to OneTaste for healing but left … as remnants, broken remnants …
Dana will tell you how she came to rely on OneTaste for her housing and basic needs. She will tell you how she was psychologically manipulated by the defendants. How she was coerced into debt by their claims that the path to personal growth ran through more and more expensive courses.
To payoff that debt, the defendants ordered Dana to work. That work involved rubbing perspective client’s penises until they climaxed.
And serving OneTaste’s primary investor by taking care of his garden, making him breakfast, and performing sex acts on him….
Michelle will tell you how she came to live in a OneTaste residence. To pay her for rent and OneTaste courses, the defendants ordered Michelle to … work in the kitchen, and sexually servicing that same wealthy OneTaste investor….
Becky worked off substantial debt brought on by OneTaste by becoming a member of the OneTaste sales team where she was directed to let prospective clients rub her naked genitals…
You’ll also hear from … other women. Some of these women worked seven days a week from early in the morning until late at night. They slept in shared beds. They were expected to work through illness and to answer calls and text messages immediately….
They all provided a variety of sexual services to support OneTaste. For this work, they were paid very little or nothing at all…
They worked because they were taught that the way to enlightenment was to obey the defendants’ demands. They worked because they were isolated from their friends, their families, and the world outside the OneTaste.
They worked because they were taught there was no such thing as being a victim, and that doing the things they found sexually disgusting was the path to freedom. They worked because if they refused, they were shunned, called viruses or addicts and sent to addiction meetings designed to cause them to mistrust their own intuition.
But they also worked because they were scared. They were afraid that if they said no, they would be exiled from their homes and the only community they had. They were afraid if they said no, they would be spiritually ruined.
They were afraid that if they said no, they would be verbally abused and humiliated. And they were afraid if they said no, they would be financially devastated…
Dana, Michelle, Becky, and others will tell you how the defendants’ tactics broke them down financially, physically, and psychologically until OneTaste was the only thing the victims had…
As these victims lived in shared beds and crowded spaces working long hours, Daedone used OneTaste’s funds to enjoy a lavish lifestyle.
At the conclusion of this case … we will ask you to return the only verdict consistent with the evidence …guilty. Thank you.
Analysis of the Prosecutor’s Opening Statement
So, what do we have? A woman built a business out of orgasms. The customers were adults. In a country that advertises sex on every billboard, Daedone sold it naked—fifteen minutes at a time.
The buyers were adult men and women looking for a better way to feel, to be close. Nicole told them it was through touch. They came to be touched and were touched.
Thirty-two thousand took a class. Sixteen thousand paid for classes. More than a thousand coached and sold it. Fern didn’t say thirty-two thousand never complained.
Fern names three women – Dana, Michelle, and Becky and alludes to others – and recites a catalog of damage: debt, sleep deprivation, and sexual labor.
“They left as shells.”
He does not ask why thousands like them did not collapse.
Prosecutor Argues Belief Itself Was Coercion
Fern laid it out like a grifter’s script: a cult with pretty girls and richer men. Living in crowded houses.
Fern told tales of penis-rubbing and omelet service like he was describing a hostage crisis at a spa.
Dana strokes some guys and makes a frittata. Her choice to stay is evidence of domination. Michelle cleans up after a dinner party and gives the investor a wink. Her rent is exploitation.
“Doing things they found sexually disgusting was the path to freedom,” Fern said as he explained the philosophy on trial. His statement captures the totalitarian judiciary: that belief, when divergent, is dangerous.
These women, stripped of autonomy, are victims because they believed in a philosophy. They didn’t get dragged in off the street—they signed up. They smiled. They wrote blogs. They didn’t scream. They stayed.
Becky came looking for empowerment. Fern tells us she found humiliation. He says she let strangers touch her—not because she wanted to—but because she was told it would make her whole.
She worked through pain. Through silence. She believed in something and feared exile. She feared being alone. She feared losing the only place that told her she mattered. To Fern, Becky wasn’t just wrong; she didn’t just make a mistake. She was brainwashed.
Prosecutor Asks Jury to Reimagine Consent as Coercion
Becky, Dana, and Michelle went to an orgasm temple, lived in that community, rubbed strangers, maxed out their credit card, and Fern says they were forced.
Fern wants the power to say that a woman’s “yes” means nothing. That a whisper in the past could be tried like a scream.
He was asking for the power to call regret a crime. He wants to rewrite consent. Not just for sex. Not just for labor. But for belief, for trust, for community.
He wants the government to decide what people meant when they gave themselves—emotionally, spiritually, sexually. And to determine if they didn’t mean it.
With every syllable, Fern invites us into a world where belief is betrayal, touch is trafficking, women are unreliable, and their will unknowable—a law where consent exists only in the government’s present.
Sean Fern, an assistant US attorney, is not prosecuting crime. He’s prosecuting regret.
He wants a world where one may be convicted not for what one did—but for what one once believed.
You’re not just watching a trial. You’re watching Fern v. Consent—now in Brooklyn but coming soon to a courthouse near you.
Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist, media strategist, publisher, and legal consultant.
Please leave a comment: Your opinion is important to us!
Imagine if you could separate out the victims before hand. Imagine that each step of the way you had considerable conversation about personal responsibility. Agreement and consent. Agreement and consent.
But I got my fingers burned, so I realized instead of taking responsibility or finding my own part in the experience, I could cry wolf, or cult, which ends up bypassing all reason or accountability.
The cult of the victim is a packed house.
Even the judge disagrees with the prosecution!
The Judge rejected the prosecution’s many requests to muffle Frank’s Free Speech.
The OneTaste case is about prosecutors looking for a Plea Bargain.
This should have never gotten past the
Grand Jury.
The NXIVM, R. Kelly, and P. Diddy cases all have vast amounts of evidence of SEXUAL blackmail, coercion and threats of physical violence!
The One Taste Case has no true evidence of wrongdoing.
I keep looking for evidence where is the evidence?
It seems like Nicole capitalized on wealthy men with no social skills who wanted to get laid, and emotionally vulnerable women looking for security and a sense of belonging and community.
It’s a business model. And Nicole got rich and many people enjoyed themselves and the vast majority left unscathed.
Nicole seems to have exploited many many people for financial gain but capitalism isn’t a crime. It’s supply and demand. When sex demands of paying clients is high, the women need to provide the labor- they could have left.
https://www.courthousenews.com/bay-area-sex-cult-workers-forced-to-service-wealthy-clients-sexually-witnesses/
Bay Area ‘sex cult’ workers forced to service wealthy clients sexually: Witnesses
A second government witness said OneTaste leaders assigned her to sexually service an early investor in the controversial company.
NINA PULLANO / May 13, 2025
BROOKLYN (CN) — Former members of OneTaste, a Bay Area organization that sold sex acts as mindfulness, said their bosses had them sexually service high-paying clients and encouraged them to date people who repulsed them.
OneTaste founder Nicole Daedone, 57, and former head of sales Rachel Cherwitz, 44, each face one count of forced labor conspiracy. They could serve up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
The core teaching at OneTaste, branded as “orgasmic meditation,” is a far cry from the traditional solitary practice of meditation; instead, it’s a partnered activity that involves methodically stroking a woman’s genitals for 15 minutes.
Behind closed doors, prescriptive sex was even more overt than was publicly espoused, witnesses said.
Dana, who took the stand Tuesday, was the second government witness to testify that she was assigned to sexually service Daedone’s former partner and an early investor in OneTaste named Reese Jones.
She was instructed to engage in BDSM activities like walking Jones around on a leash or whipping him with cattails, she said, and at one point moved in with Jones for about three months. The two had sex frequently, which she understood was part of the job. She didn’t particularly enjoy it.
“I liked him as a person; I wouldn’t say I was attracted to him,” she testified on cross-examination.
While she was never officially on OneTaste’s payroll, Dana, whose full name is being withheld, worked for Daedone and other leaders, including gardening and making food arrangements. Meanwhile, she paid the group around $30,000 for courses, which she funded in part from sex work that a friend in OneTaste helped her arrange. She was also instructed, including by Cherwitz, to engage in sex acts with other high-paying clients, Dana testified.
Like other witnesses have testified, after getting involved with OneTaste, Dana moved into a communal living space where she shared a bed and participated in daily group “orgasmic meditation” sessions.
Dana said she largely cut herself off from other relationships outside of OneTaste and lost her sense of reality and values, echoing previous witnesses who said that through Daedone’s teachings, they were “brainwashed” into doing things they normally wouldn’t have done.
“Enlightenment was brought about by pushing past any barriers around sex and sexuality,” Dana explained. “If you’re repulsed by someone, push through it because that repulsion is keeping you from being free.”
According to defense attorneys, pushing boundaries was part of the personal growth people gained through OneTaste. They have likened it to working with a personal trainer who pushes the trainee to work out harder at the gym.
During Dana’s cross-examination, defense attorney Michael Robotti of Ballard Spahr showed photos of the witness going on trips with her family and a boyfriend who wasn’t part of the group. He pointed out that, despite her concerns about losing her entire support system if she left the company, she did at one point move out of the community and then return.
The defense also argues that open relationships and fluid sexuality were common at OneTaste, but always between consenting adults. However, multiple witnesses have said that leaders of OneTaste interfered with and even broke up romantic relationships that didn’t support the company’s goals.
Dana testified that while she was dating another woman, Daedone made comments like, “Oh, look, the lesbians are here,” and explained, “It was a little bit mean-spirited, from my perspective.”
And when Dana wanted to try out a monogamous relationship with her then-boyfriend, Robert, Daedone discouraged her, too.
According to the company leader, “I was not standing in my full power as a woman; I was taking away from his ability to be a turned-on man, and I should not be in a relationship with him,” Dana testified.
Instead, OneTaste leaders suggested Dana try monogamy with Jones.
“It was devastating,” Dana said. “I was head over heels in love with Robert. Reese was a job.”
On Monday, Christopher Hubbard, former chief technology officer for OneTaste, finished testimony that began Friday. (He suggested that title was a misnomer; he was more like an in-house IT guy.)
Hubbard, who called OneTaste a “sex cult” and said top brass in fact embraced that label, described how he and Daedone worked together to “seduce” Jones — and his money — in the early days of OneTaste by setting up BDSM “scenes” involving OneTaste community members for Jones to enjoy sexual experiences ranging from simple to elaborate.
One that was “The Wizard of Oz” themed, for instance, involved a yellow brick road that Jones followed to a bed where strobe lights and sound effects gave the feeling of being inside a twister, like Dorothy.
“Most of the scenes involved him either giving or receiving some form of sexual activity,” Hubbard said. “It was the thing that got his attention and he couldn’t get anywhere else in his life.”
Trial began May 5 and is expected to last for six weeks.
Are you by chance related to the commenter known as Bangkok or are you, he?
The prosecutor suggested they were afraid to say no for fear they’d be rejected, isolated or humiliated. Did this ever happen?
Were people shunned, or harmed when they chose to leave or was this just an (irrational) fear of declining to participate?
They could have left
Those OneTaste victims weren’t good enough to participate in the Puff Daddy Freak Offs.
Sounds like high school. Who should I sue?
Agree that consent must stand, but I’m unclear as to the terms of the consent forms signed by the participants.
Were those who took classes required to perform sex acts during the class? Or were these participants/ students, who then gained employment at OneTaste?
Did the requirements of employment change over time?
While they can still say no- if someone has become dependent on housing, food, income and acceptance within this cultlike community- and then Nicole raised/amended the requirements, I can see how it could be coercive persuasion-
It all depends upon the facts and testimony.
Next on the felony chopping will be husbands who coerced their wives into becoming dependent, stay-at-home moms.
I honestly agree that this case is a big stretch of the law. I sympathize with Daedone and hope she wins this case. The Feds have gone too far. I agree with Frank on that point.
But that’s not really my gravest concern right now.
Might gravest concern is Frank’s apparent hypocrisy and his wishy-washy principles of justice, which seem to change with the wind.
What’s ironic is that Frank Parlato, Jr. (a Sicilian migrant) held the opposite view of ‘brainwashing’ during the NXIVM trial.
Indeed, when NXIVM’s many victims (who were mostly grown women) made this same argument about being mentally coerced and brainwashed by NXIVM leaders, Frank supported that viewpoint 100%.
When the feds stretched the RICO laws to the point of absurdity (in the NXIVM trial) Frank acted as though it was a totally normal application of RICO laws.
My main concern is that Frank doesn’t have any solid beliefs that don’t change with the wind.
Frank seems to apply wishy-washy opinions to the idea of brainwashing —– depending on which side his bread is buttered on.
Is Frank eating too much bread and becoming fat as a house? If so, that’s a problem.
Will Frank respond to the suggestion that his principles keep changing with the wind? Or is he too chickenshit to have an open conversation about this?
Have a good day. 🙂
I will respond to the bread comment. And I do like bread with olive oil.
And butter of course. Pizza with anchovies.
As for your other comments I have no idea what you are talking about
Frank, he called you a “chickenshit”. You twk need to box.
I am prepared to duel Bangkok — not a duel to the death but a pie eating contest.
I wouldn’t trust Bangcock around pie.
Plus, Bangcock doesn’t eat pie. (cause of his gluten intolerance – poor Bangcock’s inability to pull chicks is a separate discussion.)
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CaiZ2kSpx2w
Still flirting with Bangkok, whose pie do you wanna eat, again?
Hello. You fanatical, cock-gobbling fanny-licker.
Just curious… How many male fannies have you licked since our new president was sworn in?
BTW: I did respond to your other comment (below), several days ago.
But Frank has failed to approve my comment, probably cuz he’s too chickenshit to let people discuss the issues I presented.
Have a good day. 🙂
Why won’t Frank post Bangcock’s comment?
I don’t eat pies cuz they have too many fucken carbs.
But I’ll gladly participate in a bacon eating contest. Bacon has no carbs and is a wonderful food.
Have a good day. 🙂
I’ll help poor little Bangcock become coherent. He’s saying your real-time NXIVM trial views on the tactics of the prosecution are not mirroring your real-time OneTaste trial views.
IMO, this was partly due to post-trial info the dead-enders presented and all the additional post-NXIVM trial unpacking you did.
You’ve learned the tricks and shady tactics used by prosecutors and you’re currently calling them out for it.
But even during the NXIVM trial, we all could see some sleight of hand being used by the prosecution. I don’t remember anyone on FR (including Frank) getting behind the brainwashing.
Maybe I’m wrong, but the tone on FR was more of rooting for your team to win than championing the brainwashing & RICO angles that were used against Keith.
This probably helped make the pivot easier to call out the prosecution for the camera card etc. And is helping all of us see that the Feds have gone way too far with OneTaste.
Sorry dipshit, but if you go back and read some of the articles from 2018 (before Allison, Lauren, India, and many others had left NXIVM) —- you’ll see that Frank made fun of these women when they attempted to claim that they weren’t brainwashed and were giving ‘consent’ without coercion.
When Park Deitz evaluated one of these women and claimed that she was healthy & happy (and not under any coercion) —- Frank wrote a story mocking that idea, citing Rick Ross’s opinion that she was actually suffering from cult-like brainwashing.
https://artvoice.com/2018/04/12/catherine-oxenbergs-daughter-india-identified-criminal-co-conspirator-sex-slaver-nxivm-cult/
Frank wrote many stories about these women back in 2018 and 2019 (while they were still loyal to NXIVM) which basically mocked them as fools and idiots who were brainwashed (i.e., Frank was always implying that they were too brainwashed to think for themselves in a rational/adult manner).
Indeed, back in 2018 — Frank believed that NONE of these women had the ‘agency’ to act in their own best interests (i.e., the same ‘agency’ which he now claims every OneTaste victim possesses).
Frank has done a total 180 and flip-flopped on this topic.
When OneTaste members claim brainwashing or coercion, Frank just mocks them and laughs.
Frank also spent years trashing Nicki Clyne and questioning the legitimacy of her marriage to Allison — only to reverse himself (and to disavow his previous articles) after she left NXIVM.
Hey, Nutjob… You must have amnesia if you cannot remember this flip-flopping shit, my friend.
Also… IMO, it’s possible that Frank may wind up fat as a house in the near future —- unless he stops eating all bread. I am trying to save Frank’s health. I’m a benevolent soul and my benevolence knows no bounds.
Have a good day. 🙂
Once this OneTaste trial ends, I’d be very interested to read Frank’s breakdown of how his beliefs have changed over the last 7 years. The similarities between OneTaste and NXIVM have been ignored on FR since Frank’s original article.
Post a comment about this I would like to hear it. Don’t pretend you didn’t get this message. I know you read this shit.
😉
This OneTaste scam is more evidence why, throughout history, women have gone from the father’s home straight to the husband’s with no break in between.
Fern does make all women seem stupid. There were just as many men who joined OneTaste but only the women were brainwashed
Three Simple Questions:
1. Where is the black mail?
2. Where is the coercion?
3. Where are the threats of violence?
It’s all nonexistent.
It’s a logical progression of drunk sex prosecutions: women who are drunk cannot consent; men who are drunk are predators.
Are you by chance Scott Johnson’s wife?
Dear Mr. Parlato,
Who amongst us can not relate to these insufferable wenches. I masturbated once, been drinking ever since.
Anybody wanna buy some detergent give me a call?
Yours Truly,
Scotty Johnson
Amway Sr. Executive
***
THE DEMON RESPONSIBLE FOR MASTURBATION:
https://youtu.be/eT3uE_javL4