Frank Parlato
FBI Ranked OneTaste Alongside Epstein and NXIVM — Then Couldn’t Charge Trafficking
Inside the FBI, the case became a matter of pride.
An internal FBI briefing shows how the FBI described the OneTaste investigation to its leadership.
The New York field office listed it as one of the most important human trafficking cases in the country. It placed the case beside two others the Bureau considered major: Jeffrey Epstein and NXIVM.
The briefing came from the Criminal Investigative Division. It was prepared for the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI in New York. In the section covering the Human Trafficking program, it said:
“NY continues to work the highest profile HT cases in the FBI: i.e. Epstein, NXIVM, OneTaste.”
The document helped justify a rating of High Performing, the highest mark available. The office received that rating for six consecutive years.
There was a problem with the OneTaste trafficking story.
When prosecutors finally brought the case to court, they did not charge OneTaste founder Nicole Daedone and head of sales, Rachel Cherwitz, with trafficking.
Under federal law, trafficking requires a commercial sex act. Money or something of value must be exchanged for sex.
Paticipants of OneTaste paid for courses and coaching in a practice the company called orgasmic meditation.
Epstein ran a sex trafficking operation. There were hundreds of victims, most of them minors. There were recruiters, planes, houses, and a private island.
NXIVM’s subgroup DOS branded women, who took vows of slavery and handed over blackmail-worthy material. The government charged a sex trafficking conspiracy. Keith Raniere was sentenced to 120 years.
OneTaste was a company that taught a controversial practice to consenting adults who paid for courses.
The Bureau placed the three names together in an official document sent to senior leadership. Once an institution writes a story like that and sends it up the chain of command year after year, the pressure grows. The case must live up to the label.
When the indictment came, the trafficking theory was gone.
There was no human trafficking.
So it charged a forced labor conspiracy instead.
It was not what the Bureau had spent years telling its leadership the case was.
The Journal Was Never Real
The government’s star witness was Ayries Blanck. The 2022 Netflix documentary Orgasm Inc: The Story of OneTaste featured Blanck’s journals as the final act.
In 2023, the prosecutors presented the journals to a federal grand jury as authentic. One month later, the grand jury indicted Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz.
There was a problem with the journals. They had been written years after the events they described and backdated.
Government Presented Journal as Real
The government presented them as authentic.
“First, Jane Doe 1’s (Blanck’s) journals include various statements of her then-existing state of mind and future intent, including statements regarding her ongoing physical and psychological pain, and her intent to obtain employment, stability, and a support network in an effort to rebuild her life.”
“Jane Doe 1 recorded the journals much closer in time to her experiences at OneTaste as part of her own personal healing process, indicating a high degree of trustworthiness.”
“The journals constitute the best evidence of Jane Doe 1’s then-existing psychological and emotional state; accordingly, their admission would be consistent with the rules of evidence and the interest of justice.”
In reality, Blanck reconstructed entries seven years after the dates she put on the journals and edited them while collaborating with a Netflix producer. The prosecutors got caught and admitted it.
“The government no longer believes that the disputed portions of the handwritten journals are authentic.”
The defense replied:
“The government has admitted that Blanck committed federal crimes by falsifying evidence and lying to federal agents, and that the government relied on those lies and false evidence in prosecuting the defendants.”
Two women had been indicted in part on journals that had been altered.
The agent who submitted those journals was Special Agent Elliot McGinnis of the FBI’s New York office.
April 29: Silent Gallery
On April 29, 2025, one week before jury selection, a hearing was held before Judge Diane Gujarati in the Eastern District of New York.
Four Assistant United States Attorneys appeared. Their names are in the transcript.
A Frank Report correspondent in the courtroom counted more than 20 Assistant United States Attorneys seated in the audience. He knew who they were.
The hearing was supposed to concern Ezra Landes, counsel for OneTaste, who had sent a 22-page letter to the Department of Justice. In it, he accused the FBI of obstruction of justice, evidence tampering, perjury, and the suborning of perjury in connection to the fake journals.
Judge Gujarati called the letter “quite a remarkable letter.” She also called it “troublesome.”
The prosecutors said the letter was meant to intimidate them. None of the prosecutors in the gallery addressed the facts raised in the letter. Their presence was their argument.
The judge took Landes’s attorney into chambers. When they came back, Judge Gujarati told both sides to work it out quietly.
May 6-7: 30 Agents
One week later, jury selection began.
Hours earlier, the Daily Mail had published a story reporting that a sitting member of Congress, Troy Nehls (R-Texas), who also sits on the House Judiciary Committee, had written to FBI Director Kash Patel, accusing the lead case agent in the case, Elliot McGinnis of fabricating the evidence of a journal.
The letter said he had turned Netflix material (the journal) into federal evidence. It said he filed misleading affidavits. It said he directed witnesses to destroy evidence. It said he used a personal email to avoid scrutiny.
That morning, as jury selection began, the courtroom was filled with federal agents.
On both May 6 and May 7, about 30 FBI agents appeared. Twenty sat inside the courtroom. Ten more waited in an overflow room that opened after additional DOJ and FBI personnel arrived.
A sworn complaint later filed with the Congressional DOGE Caucus described the incident.
“Their duties consisted primarily of occupying benches, standing at the walls, and conferring quietly among themselves while the U.S. Marshals Service and court security officers handled all standard courthouse functions.”
One defendant’s husband was turned away at the door. The courtroom was full.
Agents sat in the front row of the gallery. Defense lawyers struggled to find a private space to speak with their clients. Members of the public were turned away.
There was no security issue. The defendants were not violent. They were on bond. There was no operational reason for 30 federal agents to occupy the courthouse.
Special Agent Elliot McGinnis, the FBI agent who led the OneTaste investigation, was not among them. Thirty of his colleagues were.
The Record
For years, the FBI placed OneTaste alongside Epstein and NXIVM in documents sent to senior leadership.
When the indictment came, there was no trafficking charge.
The prosecutors abandoned the witness whose journals helped drive the indictment. The lead investigator faced accusations of fabricating evidence, based on a Netflix documentary.
A defense lawyer who raised these matters was answered with a gallery full of silent prosecutors.
On the first morning of jury selection, 30 agents filled the courthouse.
This is the record.
Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist, media strategist, publisher, and legal consultant.
Please leave a comment: Your opinion is important to us!
What if one taste was also compared to Sandusky / Second Mile scandal, Then we still would wood have a dirty Da Dirty Judges and so on. mystery image sent up the chain..