Frank Parlato
In November 2022, Netflix released Orgasm Inc: The Story of OneTaste, a Lena Dunham-produced “true crime” documentary about a sexual wellness company that taught a partnered practice called orgasmic meditation.
It was geared towards women and promoted a philosophy that was sure to rankle some in Big Brother’s government.
That philosophy in part, horrible as it may sound, was that women could experience sexual activity with the same freedom from strictures and lack of guilt as men.
That was the problem.
The First Brainwashing Prosecution
Out of 35,000 who took at least one course or participated in one event, nine college-educated youngish White women saw fit to regret their experience with mature sexual non-infantilized female experiences and consequently chose to proclaim themselves, with the government’s coaching and encouragement, “brainwashed victims.”
It is a curious contextual issue in the entire prosecution that no men were allowed to be victims by the prosecution’s very definitions. Only a female could be a “brainwashed” or as they sometimes called it “coercively-controlled” victim.
I suppose this was a practical move on the part of the government since men would be laughed out of court for claiming to be victims of their own voluntary sexual conduct with consenting adults, but since women are infants, or so says the Department of Justice, nine white women were trotted before the jury, teary-eyed, saying that while they consented every inch of the way to every sexual practice they freely engaged in, they now realized they were brainwashed. The OneTaste case shall go down in history as the first and hopefully the last brainwashing prosecution.
Five months after the Netflix absurdity, misnamed “true crime” documentary came out, a cadre of female federal prosecutors, with a token male, indicted two women, company founder Nicole Daedone and former head of sales Rachel Cherwitz on astonishingly, a forced labor conspiracy charge without a forced labor charge that usually accompanies a conspiracy to commit it. The trick of the truth in this case is that the conspiracy comes with the same maximum penalty as the real crime, a max of 20 years in prison.
Keep in mind that max is rarely handed out except for the most egregious and violent offenders who are charged with committing the act of forced labor, not just conspiring to do so.
Netflix was proud to crow that its documentary led to an indictment, ergo justice. They would have you believe theirs was journalism.
Manufacturing a Case
Evidence, common sense, and even a modest adherence to the principles of justice, buttressed by court filings, discovery, and some sealed prosecution documents that later surfaced (leaving the prosecution somewhat flummoxed, red-faced, and embarrassed) shows something more troubling than anything alleged in the indictment: Netflix didn’t report a true crime as they boasted in their advertisement, neither did they expose or investigate any criminality. The good editors and producers at Netflix helped manufacture a crime and a case with the eager help of an agent, special by designation, by the name of Elliot McGinnis, formerly of the NYPD, booted out the side of his own indictment for racially-motivated police brutality.
He therefore found the perfect home for his excesses and lack of investigative skills: the FBI. And what better way to manufacture a case than to partner with Lena Dunham and her hacks, and the ethically-challenged streaming network known as Netflix.
When the manufactured evidence began to unravel, as manufactured evidence often does, Netflix’s attorneys showed up in the criminal case to help prosecutors protect McGinnis from likely criminal prosecution by hiding and helping to hide the evidence of what McGinnis and Dunham had done.
The Journals That Never Were
The centerpiece of the fraudulent Netflix documentary were the “personal journals” of the perjurious and likely sociopathic former OneTaste participant and scorned lady, Ayries Milligan Blanck.
In the documentary, Ayries’ sister, Autymn, replete with a preposterous wig, purportedly to hide her likeness, read her sister Ayries’ journal on camera, while Dunham and Netflix lied to their audience, claiming Ayries had written this journal in 2015 when the described hurt was raw and contemporaneous with her bizarre tale of abuse.
Ayries, Autymn, Lena Dunham and her producer Sarah Gibson, along with Special Agent McGinnis, collaborated in fabricating the journal in 2022 and backdated the journals to 2015.
Court records establish beyond a shadow of a doubt – it is not disputed by either side – that the journals were fake.
The journals that were the centerpiece of the indictment, the journals that were the centerpiece of the Netflix documentary about OneTaste that led to the indictment, were fake. And what was the government’s response when they got caught red-handed?
Just Pretend It Never Happened
Well we’re this deep into the indictment, we just won’t use the journals and we won’t use Ayries Blanck. We’ll dredge up nine other White women and what we cheated to get the indictment with, we’ll all just act like it doesn’t exist.
A very compliant prosecution-friendly newly-minted, longtime prosecutor, with over 21 years of putting people in jail (innocent or guilty, it doesn’t matter), US District Judge Diane Gujarati, acted in a fashion opposite of what you might expect when she found out about the fraud. Instead of dismissing the case or at least calling the evidentiary hearing to find out why fraud was presented before her court, she handed McGinnis a get-out-of-jail-free card and told the prosecutors, well if we just drop the fake journals and the perjuring Blanck, we’ll just pretend like it never even happened, let’s get the defendants into trial and convict them as soon as possible.
But before we move onto the wished-for forgotten Ayries Blanck journals, let us look at the actual fraud committed by Special Agent McGinnis, Ayries Blanck, and Lena Dunham’s Netflix documentary. The journals were created in May 2022, in Google Docs, during filming. Dunham’s production company paid Autymn Blanck $25,000 for the journals.
Forensic evidence shows the journals were collaboratively created in a typewritten fashion with the Blanck sisters coming up with the stories of abuse and Dunham’s assistant adding the purple prose so it sounded not unlike a lament straight out of Harlequin romance.
The Google Doc’s edit history tells the whole story of fraud: the supposedly 2015 journals underwent 54 major revisions over two weeks in 2022 to create the supposedly 2015 journals.
The devil always takes a step too far, and little imitators of him always make some stupid mistake. This one was blessedly stupid. The journals, purportedly written in 2015, happen to cite a book Ayries was purportedly reading in 2015 when she “wrote” her journals, called Post-Traumatic Growth Guidebook. It was a great book to quote. It was right on point. It had everything she needed to show her suffering and abuse and how to overcome it in 2015. The only challenge in her narrative was that the book wasn’t published until December 2019.
It’s always wisest when fabricating evidence to have someone from continuity make sure that the cultural and/or specific references fit the time period and rather reminds one of the supposedly authentic quote of Abraham Lincoln where he warns a gullible public not to believe everything that you read on the internet.
The darn thing was a fraud, plain and simple. But Netflix passed it off as real, and co-author of the journal, FBI agent Elliot McGinnis sought to pass it off as an authentic journal to help make his case.
In a world where justice prevails (i.e. not in the Eastern District of New York) this fraud alone would have created grounds for dismissal, but as mentioned above, the aforementioned prosecutor cum District Judge Gujarati, confronted with indisputable evidence of the fraud (which I want to remind readers was the signal piece of evidence of the entire case), she did her best to behave as a good prosecutor would, right from the bench, and save the prosecution by choosing to ignore the evidence provided it was not used at trial.
Judge Gujarati has scheduled sentencing for Daedone and Cherwitz for March 4, 2026.
To be continued…
Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist, media strategist, publisher, and legal consultant.
Please leave a comment: Your opinion is important to us!
Beautiful history. You´re a rock star, Parlato.
The evidence was … faked … and the case continued?
I (redacted) big (redacted)
The outcome of this trial – even entertaining the claims made- has done great disservice to women. If the judge goes above sentencing guidelines – by including acts that were never proven, it will prove this case was not of crimes, but of targeting strong, capable, independent women.
Sentencing enhancements are meant for aggravating facts proven with reliable evidence. Where the government’s investigation included acknowledged evidentiary failures, caution and proportionality at sentencing seem especially warranted.
In cases that raise novel legal theories and unsettled boundaries, prudence at sentencing—particularly with enhancements—helps ensure that punishment remains tethered to clearly established facts and well-settled law.
The defendants’ lack of prior violent criminal history and the nonviolent nature of the conduct support a sentence focused on deterrence and rehabilitation, without enhancements designed for ongoing dangerousness.
When a case has involved the withdrawal of compromised evidence, the sentencing court’s obligation to rely only on verified, trustworthy facts becomes paramount. Enhancements should rest on the cleanest possible record.
They got convicted because Nicole and Rachel never testified on their own behalf’s! The defense attorneys in this case failed miserably by counseling them not to testify.
The jury never heard from the two women portrayed as abusers with intent to harm. They never have a counter narrative!
They both are charismatic and influential as number and growth of their wellness company reflect. Why didn’t they demand to take the stand and allow the jurors to get to know who they are?
Stupidity is costing them years of their lives.
If the defense believed the entire case was tainted, they had every opportunity to convince a jury — and they failed.
You can’t launder fraud by saying ‘we promise not to use it.
Once a story is packaged as moral certainty, institutions feel pressure to produce a conviction that fits the script.
When entertainment merges with prosecution, the jury pool is already contaminated.
The idea that adult women lack agency and must be retroactively classified as ‘brainwashed’ feels infantilizing. Protect people from abuse, yes — but don’t erase women’s capacity to make choices just because they later regret them.
Netflix calling this ‘true crime’ while platforming fake journals is wild. If a defense team fabricated evidence like this, we’d never hear the end of it. Why does ‘documentary’ get a free pass from basic journalistic standards?
You should see the objective reality vs. documentary for anything like this. James McGibney comes up here periodically, he’s a little rat in a human suit trying to fluff himself up into some heroic figure, and the docu-nonsense he’s been involved in is always filled with comical fail. This most recent thing with A&E is a primo example of how it works – he puffs up like a toad on Twitter, HURR DURR GOIN SCORCHED EARTH ZOMG!@!@!@! and then the actual show? The lawyers won’t let anything even vaguely like that through development.
Frank certainly does turn up a lot of weird fed misconduct …