The OneTaste Case — What It Is, and What It Isn’t

Two‑minute overview of the charged crime and the global push‑back against the conviction

In June 2025, a federal jury in Brooklyn convicted Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz — the founder and the former head of sales of OneTaste, the company behind the wellness practice Orgasmic Meditation — of one thing: conspiracy to commit forced labor.1,2 No one was convicted of forcing anyone’s labor. The government argued the teachings themselves were the evidence of the conspiracy to force labor, by teaching people that service was an essential component of spiritual growth.3

They were neither tried for nor convicted of any sex crime.2 The FBI’s five-year investigation into sex trafficking instead turned up only the single charged count of conspiracy to commit forced labor.2 This case marks the first time in U.S. history anyone has been convicted on this stand‑alone conspiracy theory.4

After the conviction, prosecutors tried to add a sentencing enhancement for criminal sexual abuse that would have roughly tripled the sentences — under a lower standard of proof than a jury conviction requires.5 The judge, who had presided over every day of the trial, denied it:

“The government argues that the felony offense of a violation of the federal sexual abuse statute was committed during the commission of or in connection with the forced labor conspiracy. The Court does not find that the government has demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that this is so.”5

What further makes this conviction unprecedented is the government’s definition of “force.” No restraint. No threats of violence. No one held against their will. The adults involved chose to join, were admittedly happy during their time involved, stayed of their own accord, and left the community on their own free will.3,4 The prosecution’s theory was that their consent didn’t count — that they had been “brainwashed,” and that spiritual teaching was itself coercion.

Every witness who testified described being happy at the time — in their journals, their texts, their own words. None said her “no” was ever overridden.3 What changed was not what happened; it was how they felt about it, years later. The government was explicit that none of that mattered:

“Our theory of the case is that the defendants… taught them concepts that taught them basically to consent to everything… they did so because they were taught this was a philosophy or a religious practice that was good for them, and if they continued to do it they would reach enlightenment. This all goes to the psychological aspect of how the labor is forced.”6

Professor Eugene Volokh, one of the country’s most-cited First Amendment scholars, summed up the charged offense in an amicus brief, arguing to overturn the conviction on First Amendment grounds:

“The ‘indoctrination’ and ‘teachings’ for which Defendants stood trial only describes proselytization, the very essence of religion, which cannot be criminally punished.”7

Professor Alan Dershowitz, who has argued more than three dozen cases before the U.S. Supreme Court:

“This case presents a terrible, terrible, terrible precedent. With a few changes of words, this indictment could have been directed against Mormon groups, against Hasidic groups, against various Protestant or Catholic sects.”4

Since the conviction, 102 faith groups and religious freedom scholars — spanning Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Buddhist communities — have signed on to a petition in defense, fearing their own communities could be charged under the same statute. The petition cites a concerning trend of faith groups sued under this same subjective theory, absent any violence, restraint, or fraud, including the Maryknoll Nuns, the Salvation Army, a Christian youth camp in Wyoming, and BAPS, one of the largest Hindu organizations in the world.4

Nicole Daedone was sentenced to nine years and Rachel Cherwitz to six and a half.5,8

In September 2026, the case reached the United Nations Human Rights Council: CAP‑LC delivered an oral statement in Geneva on September 22, 2026, and filed a written statement (A/HRC/62/NGO/102) calling on the United States to restore constitutional limits and raising humanitarian review of the sentences.9,10