At the back of a home goods store in New York, an upbeat voice rang out from a television screen as nearly 100 women listened raptly to a message about female empowerment.
The voice sounded like that of Nicole Daedone, the founder of a wellness company called OneTaste. It echoed through the store one evening last month, mixing with the voices of women who called out responses of approval to the woman speaking on the screen.
But it was not Ms. Daedone, who was in jail in Brooklyn. It was an artificial intelligence avatar, trained on her mannerisms and teachings about sexual liberation for women. For roughly 10 minutes, it offered spiritual guidance to the women, many of whom had also spent time behind bars. Women were not usually allowed to be this free, Ms. Daedone’s avatar said in front of a background image of jail cells.
“This is your dispatch from your sisters on the inside,” said the avatar, which looked like Ms. Daedone. “Thank you for making a table where women can speak without interruption, and listen without fixing.”
The stunt, at a dinner in the store, was emblematic of the nonstop campaign by Ms. Daedone, OneTaste and her fervent fans to burnish her image as a martyr for women’s liberation since she and Rachel Cherwitz, OneTaste’s head of sales, were convicted of forced labor conspiracy last year. The women who testified at the trial likened the group to a sex cult.
Sentencing is scheduled for Monday, with federal prosecutors asking that Ms. Daedone receive 20 years and Ms. Cherwitz 14 years. Both women are being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. They were indicted in June 2023.
At its height, OneTaste operated centers in cities including San Francisco, New York and Austin, offering sessions in its signature practice of orgasmic meditation — the ritual stroking of a woman’s clitoris for 15 minutes. In 2017, Ms. Daedone sold OneTaste for $12 million to Anjuli Ayer, who is now the chief executive and has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Under Ms. Daedone and Ms. Cherwitz, according to former employees who testified against them, OneTaste fostered a culture of fear and intimidation. Employees were instructed to sexually service prospective investors, carry out menial tasks around OneTaste’s communal homes and destroy romantic relationships — all while Ms. Daedone and Ms. Cherwitz lived lavishly, benefiting from their labor, the employees said.
One woman testified that Ms. Cherwitz forced her to receive orgasmic meditation. Sex at OneTaste, prosecutors wrote to Judge Diane Gujarati in December, was also a “means of encouraging productivity.”
Forced labor schemes often involve tangible threats against victims, such as physical violence, blackmail or the confiscation of travel documents from workers. Yet Ms. Daedone and Ms. Cherwitz did not physically threaten employees into remaining at OneTaste, evidence and testimony at trial showed. Rather, the employees said that they felt psychologically and emotionally coerced into accepting OneTaste’s doctrines as a way of life, and that working there bankrupted them.
Obeying Ms. Daedone and Ms. Cherwitz was required to ascend in the organization, the women testified. OneTaste’s supporters have said the case was novel and claimed that it was a targeted prosecution against people who believed in an alternative lifestyle.
Prosecutors have flatly rejected the notion of a prosecution targeted at OneTaste’s beliefs. During the government’s rebuttal argument at trial, Kayla Bensing, an assistant U.S. attorney, said Ms. Daedone was “not on trial for her lectures.”
“It is irrelevant under the law if they really believed in the mission of orgasm,” Ms. Bensing told jurors. Ms. Bensing also said that a forced labor scheme could be in place even though women were physically capable of leaving.
Over the years, Ms. Daedone had expanded her empire to include dinner events, a book publishing press and a program that provided free food to homeless people in New York.
After years of rebranding since the indictments, the company has started offering in-person instruction for orgasmic meditation. At the same time, the group has made criminal justice reform part of its mission.
The trial “only strengthened everyone’s conviction and their willingness to fight,” Ms. Ayer said.
Ms. Ayer and others with OneTaste have courted figures in right-wing media and in President Trump’s orbit, seemingly following a playbook for people who have won clemency.
They found common cause with Douglass Mackey, a conservative activist convicted of conspiracy against rights for sharing misleading memes before the 2016 election. His conviction, which OneTaste members say was wrongful, was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit last year.
OneTaste has sought legal advice from Alan M. Dershowitz, the defense lawyer who used his access to Mr. Trump to win pardons and commutations during the president’s first term. Mr. Trump has granted clemency to a number of allies — or people who hire his allies, often for a steep price. In an interview, Mr. Dershowitz declined to say how much OneTaste was paying him, but said he was deeply troubled by the case and wanted to fight for Ms. Daedone and Ms. Cherwitz’s freedom.
“I’m worried that this is the kind of a prosecution that can easily be directed at other groups,” he said, citing religious groups that could be targeted for their beliefs.
The group has further courted conservative figures like Roger Stone, Matt Gaetz and Steve Bannon, who have referred to the case on their media platforms. Topeka K. Sam, a prison reform activist whom Mr. Trump pardoned for cocaine possession and distribution, has been a close ally of Ms. Daedone and attended several of her dinner events. During Mr. Trump’s first term, Ms. Sam pushed for clemency for Alice Johnson, who was sentenced to life in prison for a nonviolent drug offense.
She declined to say whether she had lobbied for Ms. Daedone and Ms. Cherwitz to receive clemency, but said, “I believe that based on what I witnessed, they were unjustly incarcerated.”
Ms. Daedone said she had maintained an ascetic lifestyle while in jail. In a recent email exchange, she said she teaches other inmates meditation, without the component of orgasm. She wrote a book about her experience in the Metropolitan Detention Center, sending over a draft through the email system monitored by the Bureau of Prisons.
The night of the dinner at the home goods store, as Ms. Daedone wrote and meditated in jail, her avatar told the dinner’s attendees that “the light from your tables is bringing light into ours.”
“I believe there will be a revolution, but it will be an inner revolution, because freedom is an inside job,” the avatar said.
At the conclusion of the dinner, the women were asked to donate to fund more dinners. If they gave $100, they were told they would receive a copy of Ms. Daedone’s book.
Such events are separate from OneTaste, Ms. Ayer, the chief executive, said, but she expressed optimism about the organization’s efforts to revitalize itself. Yet the next step, she said, is still about Ms. Daedone and Ms. Cherwitz.
“My goal is to get justice for my friends,” Ms. Ayer said.
Kenneth P. Vogel contributed reporting.
Santul Nerkar is a Times reporter covering federal courts in Brooklyn.
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