It was a mind control forced labor case!
Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz were convicted under a theory of forced labor that required no force, restraint, or demand for labor.
The case converted the voluntary conduct of nine white, college-educated women to coercion a decade after the fact, based on being brainwashed ...
The government's theory of "fear" inverts the statute under which it is charged. Forced labor requires fear of being made to stay. The fear the government documents — fear of being asked to leave, of losing housing, of social shunning — is fear of not being made to stay.
A person afraid of exclusion is, by definition, not being held.
The logic was on display in the prosecution's closing.
A government witness, Michal Neria, had testified that the defendants believed themselves to be witches. On cross-examination, she affirmed this — "a hundred percent, I don't think it, I know it."
The defense argued in closing that the testimony was absurd.
AUSA Kayla Bensing told the jury that the witness's absurd belief was evidence of the defendants' guilt: "the defendants made her believe that. They targeted somebody who would believe that."
Absurd testimony establishes the crime more powerfully because the absurdity proves how the defendants induced it.
Nine witnesses testified to non-physical coercion - mental coercion, brainwashing, mind control, witchcraft and fear of being shunned if they left.
Thousands of people took courses, attended workshops, and engaged with the organization. The overwhelming majority never reported harm.
Many described the practice as beneficial. The judge’s sentencing math treated every participant as a presumptive victim.
The Theory the Government Tried
The OneTaste prosecution was a forced-labor case in name. In practice, it was a prosecution of ideology — not what the defendants did, but what they taught.
The government's theory was stated by AUSA Kaitlin Farrell at trial: the defendants "put some of the testifying witnesses in psychological distress and also taught them concepts that taught them basically to consent to everything."
The teaching was the crime.
Government witnesses described the defendants' teachings as "brainwashing."
The prosecution treated spiritual practices as evidence of coercion. A jury was asked whether teaching that intentional sexual practice could lead to enlightenment was religion or crime.
Once that question can be put to a jury, the answer depends on which jury and which prosecutor — not on what happened.
Retroactive regret became the trigger. Nine witnesses out of a participant pool of more than 35,000 testified, years later, that they regretted what they had agreed to at the time.
Regret became the basis for a federal conspiracy conviction. The legal status of the conduct depended on what some participants felt later, not what occurred when it occurred.
Consent at the time no longer protects the act. The Biden administration's National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking states the principle: prior consent does not preclude victim status. Agreements signed, courses taken, and affirmative statements made are irrelevant under the doctrine that produced this conviction.
Under the doctrine, adult women are incapable of giving binding consent.
AUSA Kaitlin Farrell 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."
Education and articulateness become evidence of coercion. A doctrine that treats adult women as incompetents has been written into federal law.
What the prosecution offered is a theory in which the defense becomes proof of the offense. Saying yes does not count.
Denying coercion is discounted.
Staying is treated as evidence of inability to leave.
Speaking clearly is shaping. The absence of force is not a defense. There is no answer the doctrine accepts, because the doctrine was not built to be answered.
How the Prosecution Worked
In the OneTaste case, nine government witnesses — out of 35,000 over the relevant period — testified that they had experimented with sex they had consented to in a way they later felt guilty about.
They had signed agreements. They had taken courses in consent. OneTaste taught that women could consent.
The prosecution turned that into a federal forced-labor conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 1594.
The government's theory, stated in court by AUSA 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."
The structural feature of that theory is the conversion of religious or philosophical teaching into the actus reus of forced labor conspiracy. The instruction becomes the coercion.
The participant's adoption of the teaching becomes the result.
AUSA Bensing put the harm element on the record in rebuttal closing on June 5, 2025: "It's not about whether these victims actually suffered serious harm and whether they actually caused them to work. That is absolutely not the question of this trial."
The prosecution's theory entered through use of "brainwashing" by witnesses. Rebecca Halpern testified that she "had been, you know, carefully, gently brainwashed over time." Christina Berkely was asked what the trauma was; her answer was "the brainwashing."
On June 9, 2025, after a five-week trial, the jury returned guilty verdicts. Daedone was sentenced to nine years. Cherwitz to 6,5 years.
Religious organizations are the priority
The target was an organization few Americans have heard of. The precedent would pave the way for many religions and communities that have a shared belief system. Evangelical ministries, Catholic dioceses, Hasidic communities, Muslim institutions. Once prosecutors are permitted to criminalize the formation of belief, no faith tradition is secure.
The mechanics of how it gets applied are not hard to imagine, because the OneTaste indictment already wrote the template. Against any traditional church, the same playbook fits without modification. Evangelization becomes recruitment. Labor performed through ministries becomes extracted labor. Calling congregants to repentance becomes psychological control. Excommunication becomes the final stage of a coercive campaign of shame and isolation. The same vocabulary applies to a synagogue, a mosque, an ashram, a meditation center, or a recovery community. There is no theological line the OneTaste precedent respects, because the precedent is not theological. It is a theory about how belief itself is formed, and once it is the law, every institution that forms belief is exposed.
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