The wellness start-up appeared to be a manifestation of San Francisco’s social culture and billed itself as having a subversive dedication to female sexual liberation.
The company, OneTaste, offered a communal lifestyle, teaching classes in so-called orgasmic meditation to help achieve female empowerment. But federal prosecutors said it was masking something darker.
Its leaders recruited vulnerable people, survivors of sexual trauma, to work or participate in the company’s activities, according to prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York. In controlling the lives of their employees, OneTaste’s leaders pushed them into debt, withheld pay and sexually coerced them, they said.
Nicole Daedone, OneTaste’s co-founder and former chief executive officer, and Rachel Cherwitz, its former head of sales, were each charged with one count of forced labor conspiracy in June 2023. They have pleaded not guilty and face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys began choosing a jury Monday, and opening statements could take place as early as Tuesday. The trial is expected to take as long as six weeks.
In court filings, lawyers for Ms. Daedone and Ms. Cherwitz have said the women have, in effect, been framed. In an interview with The New York Times, Ms. Daedone said the accusations against her were “a narrative shaped by the media and adopted by the government.”
Ms. Daedone’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, who is also defending Harvey Weinstein in his retrial on sex-crime charges, is known for taking an aggressive approach with witnesses during trials involving sexual misconduct.
During recent court proceedings, Ms. Daedone could be seen grasping beads while appearing to silently chant. On Monday, several of Ms. Daedone’s supporters in the courtroom gallery looked on, twirling their own beads.
Ms. Daedone, who founded OneTaste in 2004, has said she did so to address the gap in sexual satisfaction between men and women. The name OneTaste, according to Ms. Daedone, derives from a Buddhist expression, which she said is translated as “just as the ocean has one taste of salt, so does the taste of liberation.”
The “orgasmic meditation” ritual involved a woman, naked from the waist down, lying on pillows as a man stroked her genitals. In a 2011 TEDx speech, Ms. Daedone said people arrived at OneTaste’s classes with a “gnawing sense of hunger.”
“There is a pleasure deficit disorder in this country,” Ms. Daedone said during the speech. “I do think, though, that there is a cure, and that cure is orgasm.”
The company took off as a brand, launching a pop-up store in San Francisco and expanding its operations to cities that included New York, Austin and Denver. It hosted events in the West Village and Hell’s Kitchen and the practice of orgasmic meditation won the approval of such celebrities as Khloe Kardashian and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Yet as OneTaste’s popularity grew, so did allegations of abuse by former members, who said it bore the hallmarks of a cult.
In a 2018 Bloomberg Businessweek investigation, former members said they were encouraged to take out credit cards to pay for courses, and that employees were told to work for free to show their devotion to OneTaste. Later that year, the company closed its U.S. locations and stopped offering in-person classes.
Ms. Daedone is no longer involved with the company, which now has a free app. In a January interview with The Wall Street Journal, Anjuli Ayer, OneTaste’s chief executive, said the company aims to pursue a franchise model.
The indictment echoed many of the accusations in the Businessweek investigation, which were also featured in a 2022 Netflix documentary, “Orgasm, Inc.” Prosecutors say Ms. Daedone and her teachings ruled OneTaste members’ lives, instructing them to engage in sexual acts they were uncomfortable with, surveilling them in OneTaste’s communal homes and pressuring them to exalt Ms. Daedone’s doctrine of sexual liberation.
The government’s case was dealt a major setback in March, when prosecutors wrote that key evidence they planned to use during the trial, handwritten diaries from a former member, Ayries Blanck, could no longer be considered authentic. Portions, prosecutors wrote, had been copied from journals that had originally been typewritten.
Lawyers for Ms. Daedone and Ms. Cherwitz had argued for months that Ms. Blanck had provided false testimony, and said the government admitted the diaries were fabricated.
Ms. Blanck’s accounts were featured in both the Netflix documentary as well as the Bloomberg Businessweek investigation. Her sister was paid $25,000 to participate in the Netflix documentary, according to court papers.
“The defense has continuously raised issues about the integrity of this investigation,” wrote Celia Cohen and Michael Robotti, lawyers for Ms. Cherwitz, in a March 13 letter to Judge Diane M. Gujarati.
Prosecutors still plan to bring other former employees and members of OneTaste as witnesses.
Santul Nerkar is a Times reporter covering federal courts in Brooklyn.
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