
Where the Judge is King: Inside America’s Last Absolute Monarchy: Family Court
The Ordinary Building Where Extraordinary Power Lives

The Ordinary Building Where Extraordinary Power Lives

This is the first part of an investigative series about the fight between the Chief of Police in the Town of Tonawanda, and the men and women of the Police Club.

IN THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK, A CRIME OF IDEAS

It happens every day in Family Court. Two lawyers walk in. They bow to the judge like it’s church. They shake hands like it’s Christmas. Then fight.

In the beginning, there was love between a man and a woman. Then they had kids. Then came the fighting. Enter Family Court: where people go to lose everything.
The Ten-Acre Battlefield

The investigation into Jerry Sandusky and the trial missed the most basic marks of science and honesty. That is the record.

Will the Department of Justice indict Ayries Blanck, the central accuser in the federal case against OneTaste? After revelations that she fabricated key evidence used to indict company founder Nicole Daedone and executive Rachel Cherwitz, the odds have gone up.

In 1978, the Bureau of Indian Affairs omitted the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe from its list of federally recognized tribes. There was no hearing. The Tribe—previously acknowledged by the federal government as the Verona Band of Alameda County—had never been terminated by Congress or executive order.

The defendants are Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz. The charge is forced labor conspiracy—not forced labor, but the conspiracy to make it happen. At the heart of the case is Orgasmic Meditation—OM. Through that, the government saw a conspiracy to coerce adults into sex.