On June 9, 2025, in United States v. Daedone et al., a federal jury in Brooklyn returned guilty verdicts against Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz on a single count of conspiracy to commit forced labor.

On March 30, 2026, U.S. District Judge Diane Gujarati imposed sentences of 9 years’ imprisonment for Daedone and 6.5 years’ imprisonment for Cherwitz.

06one-taste-indictments-superJumbo - Frank Report — Rachel Cherwitz and Nicole Daedone

The Theory of the Trial

OneTaste is a sexual wellness and meditation company founded by Nicole Daedone and aided by her sales director, Rachel Cherwitz.
Approximately 35,000 people participated in OneTaste workshops, retreats, classes, coaching sessions, and community events.

Event at OneTaste - Frank Report — Over 35000 adults attended OneTaste events

During the five-week trial, nine women testified they were victims. Nine voices selected from a population large enough to fill a small city.

Somewhere inside the numerical imbalance — nine out of 35,000 — sat the central tension of the case: whether the meaning of a community is determined by the many who experienced it one way, or by the few who later understood it differently.

The trial turned on a question: Can a system, be it religious, or for health, sex, or anything that teaches concepts of belief and practice, a system experienced voluntarily by thousands, be redefined through the testimony of a few who later came to regret their participation?

Nine Out of 35,000

Defense lawyers returned to it repeatedly, suggesting that the prosecution had constructed a sweeping criminal theory based on a tiny fraction of dissatisfied former participants.

Prosecutors argued that the issue was not the number but the psychological coercion on the nine women.

Prosecutor Nina Gupta said in closing,

“Members of the jury, there may not have been physical chains holding the victims in place. There may not have been locks on the door. But as you heard repeatedly throughout this trial the victims who testified did not feel like they could leave OneTaste.”

Nine witnesses had described the OneTaste process as mind control.

At the end of the trial, the government asked the jurors to determine whether ideas themselves could constitute coercion.

nine college educated brainwashed women - Frank Report — Mine women testified that they were brainwashed

The Prosecution’s Theory

The government’s theory, stated by prosecutor Kaitlin Farrell, was that the defendants:

“put some of the testifying witnesses, our victims, in psychological distress and also taught them concepts that taught them basically to consent to everything and to be willing to engage in certain sexual activities that even at the time they would have viewed as something they wouldn’t consent to, but they did so because they were taught this was a philosophy or a religious practice that was good for them.”

Prosecutor Bensing told the jury:

“They were grown women, these were adults. And they were educated, they were smart… that just shows how powerful the coercion was.”

The Happiness Is Part of the Brainwashing

One of the nine, Rebecca Uma Halpern, testified it was something gradual.

She was “carefully, gently brainwashed over time.”

F780B1A0-D3EE-46FD-B84F-08E087D44BED - Frank Report — Rebecca Uma Halpern

Halpern was confronted with her journals, posts, and texts, which suggested she was happy while at OneTaste.

Defense counsel asked: “You were happy?”

“Yes,” Halpern said.

“You also testified that you were brainwashed?”

“Yes.”

“How do those two things work together?”

“The happiness is part of the brainwashing. People don’t stay in places where they’re not happy.”

Christina Berkley testified that she enjoyed it. She remembered it as something vivid, even wild

— “some of the cool, crazy shit you’ve done.”

Christina Berkley - Frank Report — Christina Berkley

Berkley testified about Daedone and the courses:

“So yeah, it was amazing. She was amazing.”

The government asked her what her trauma was.

“The brainwashing.”

-anthia+gillick-1254 - Frank Report — Anthia Gillick AKA Brooke Sheffer

Anthia Gillick testified:

“It became my entire belief system. It was my moral compass. I would have done anything.”

michal neria - Frank Report — Michal Neria

Michal Neria said,

“It was like a religion.”

The Catalog of Harm

AUSA Bensing described the harm:

“That’s the entire conspiracy. They’re being whittled down into the various things that they identified it as brainwashing, loss of identity, loss of self esteem, exhaustion. That is serious harm that left them feeling like they had no choice.”

Not force. Not chains. No locked door. Not a bruise. No confinement. Not the old and familiar forms of coercion. No restraint. No physical barrier. No act of force.

The danger was in the mind. The idea that people would later regret what they once agreed to. That influence itself — teachings, persuasion, emotional dependency, the gradual shaping of thought — could produce regret.

The completed act recedes. The internal experience is evidence of crime.

Not what happened. But what the leaders intended to cause inside the human mind.

A theory built around retrospective meaning, inferred psychological consequence — where thought itself becomes the field of prosecution.

A Doctrine That Travels

A theory that can be used on other religions, groups, and companies.

It will be carried to other communities, even philosophies of life.

Free societies have been careful in the past about thought and belief. Beliefs are invisible and difficult to measure. It is difficult to separate persuasion from influence, loyalty, love, fear, hope, or even belonging.

Until the OneTaste case, thought and belief had occupied sensitive constitutional ground. Not because ideas are harmless, but because every religion shapes identity. Every ideology conditions behavior. Every community rewards loyalty and discourages dissent.

In the OneTaste precedent, the state acquired authority to define psychological influence as criminal coercion.

With the OneTaste precedent in place, the state can finally decide which beliefs are safe.

What the Constitution Says

The government said it protected nine women from brainwashing.

The Constitution was written to protect all people’s right to choose. To believe. To gather. To try something strange or different if they wanted to. Even to fail and later regret.

Freedom was the thing protected.

The Constitution drew a line between religion and government. Not because the founders believed every gathering would be wise or harmless.

They understood that people would pursue unusual ideas, difficult philosophies, eccentric communities, strange spiritual experiments, and unpopular causes.

There is a reason the framers placed religion, speech, and assembly beyond the comfortable reach of government authority.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The founders understood something about power: the state is always tempted to protect people not merely from force but, eventually, from ideas.

Replicatable

The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York’s prosecution dismantled OneTaste. For the sake of nine women, the government took the choice away from tens of thousands of men and women who may have enjoyed it, believed it, and gained something from it.

It also took the freedom of two women.

The state concluded that their teachings were dangerous.

Once the state begins evaluating belief systems for their psychological effect on willing participants, the authority grows broad enough to dismantle other organizations, redefine spiritual practice, and decide which forms of influence remain acceptable.
It will be used again.

This prosecution theory was birthed by the “Victim Centered Approach,” a doctrine first introduced during the Obama Administration to combat what they referred to as “modern forms of slavery.” The Victim Centered Approach will be covered in more detail in a future segment of this series.