OneTaste trial update: verdict soon!

and what's been going on inside the courtroom

Hi all,

We may get a verdict very soon in the OneTaste founder’s criminal trial, happening now in Brooklyn.

The prosecution presented a four-week case — in line with its estimates — and finished on Monday. Then, surprisingly, the defense only put up one witness and rested in less than a day (!) — they had originally estimated two weeks. Presumably the defense felt like they had what they needed from cross-examinations.

Nicole Daedone, OneTaste’s founder, told NBC last year she would “absolutely” testify. But neither she nor her co-defendant Rachel Cherwitz took the stand. (I’m disappointed because I’m so curious about what they would’ve said.)

Closing arguments began this morning. The courtroom was packed with OneTaste associates, reporters, federal attorneys and — because it’s summer — lots of legal interns. Closing statements continue tomorrow, then the jury will likely deliberate Friday, and a verdict could come anytime after that.

Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz outside the Brooklyn federal courthouse. Their trial began May 5. (Photographer: Bing Guan/Bloomberg)

The case rests on the idea of coercion. Will a jury decide that OneTaste’s leaders coerced its employees to provide labor, and does the evidence meet the specific standards of the criminal statute?

The New York Times’s Santul Nerkar wrote a helpful overview:

The question is central to the federal case against Nicole Daedone, OneTaste’s founder and former chief executive, and Rachel Cherwitz, its former head of sales, who have each been charged with one count of forced labor conspiracy. The charge carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors say Ms. Daedone and Ms. Cherwitz deployed “psychological tactics” to groom OneTaste employees for masturbation rituals and to isolate them, leaving them reliant on the company and unable to access or even imagine a world outside.

Such forced labor schemes usually employ a tangible threat, such as physical violence or the confiscation of travel documents. OneTaste employees have not described such blunt tactics. Rather, they say, they feared that defying Ms. Daedone and Ms. Cherwitz would ruin them not financially or physically, but spiritually.

Lawyers for Ms. Daedone and Ms. Cherwitz have seized on that, noting that the witnesses were adults who had free will, and that some came from affluent backgrounds. They have pointed out that the witnesses did leave OneTaste, only to return when they yearned for spiritual community.

“Each time you left, you made a choice to come back,” Michael P. Robotti, a lawyer for Ms. Cherwitz, told one witness.

To win convictions, prosecutors must convince jurors that Ms. Daedone and Ms. Cherwitz forced OneTaste employees to work against their will, using physical, emotional or psychological coercion, and that each woman benefited. They must show that OneTaste employees had to keep working, including by engaging in orgasmic meditation, in order to avoid “serious harm.”

I have no idea what the jury will decide (honestly, not even a hunch). But whatever happens, I’ll be there to chronicle it for my upcoming book about OneTaste, and I’ll share more thoughts in this newsletter, too.

---

In the meantime, the outside of the federal courthouse in Brooklyn has become the site of many a OneTaste photoshoot, including images like this one (and slow-motion montages like this):

eros_platform

A post shared by @eros_platform

---

if you want more color, here’s my post on the trial from a few weeks ago:

---

thanks for reading! ☎️☎️☎️ always feel free to hit reply if you have a thought you want to share, or if you just want to tell me why you subscribed. it’s an easy way to make sure the newsletter doesn’t get stuck in your promotions or spam folder