FILE: Nicole Daedone, center, founder and former CEO of OneTaste, departs Brooklyn federal court on Tuesday, June 13, 2023, in New York.
Jeenah Moon/AP
The founder of a San Francisco-based sexual wellness company and its former head of sales were sentenced Tuesday for their roles in a forced labor conspiracy that prosecutors said spanned more than a decade.
Nicole Daedone, 58, the founder and former CEO of OneTaste, was sentenced to nine years in prison, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Rachel Cherwitz, 45, the company’s former head of sales, was sentenced to 78 months. Both were convicted in June 2025 after a five-week federal trial.
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U.S. District Judge Diane Gujarati also ordered Daedone to forfeit $12 million and awarded $887,877.64 in restitution to seven victims, officials said.
“This case exposed a decade-long scheme in which the defendants used psychological, emotional, and financial coercion to control their victims and extract labor and services for their own benefit,” Joseph Nocella Jr., U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.
“Coercion disguised as wellness or empowerment is still exploitation and it is a crime that causes harm to vulnerable victims,” Nocella added, noting that the conduct caused trauma “in ways that extend beyond lost wages or long hours.”
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Investigators said the scheme operated through OneTaste, a company founded in 2004 in San Francisco that promoted itself as a sexual wellness education business offering courses centered on “orgasmic meditation,” or OM, a practice involving genital stimulation. OneTaste advertised that its courses and teachings could heal past sexual trauma and dysfunction.
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The sentencing marks the latest turn in a saga that has drawn national attention and been chronicled in recent reporting including the book “Empire of Orgasm” by Bloomberg News reporter Ellen Huet, which traces the company’s rise from a San Francisco commune to a nationwide enterprise — and its eventual unraveling.
Huet’s reporting describes OneTaste as selling courses, often costing thousands of dollars, built around Daedone’s teachings and “OM” sessions. Employees were encouraged to push sales by urging customers to open new lines of credit and take on debt, according to the account. Former members told Huet the company “gradually [desensitized] you to giving up larger and larger amounts of money.”
FILE: Nicole Daedone, center, founder and former CEO of OneTaste, center, departs Brooklyn federal court on Tuesday, June 13, 2023, in New York.
Jeenah Moon/Jeenah Moon/AP
According to court filings, prosecutors said that from about 2006 to 2018, Daedone and Cherwitz recruited young women seeking healing and personal growth. The duo then subjected them to “abusive and manipulative tactics” designed to make them emotionally and psychologically dependent on the organization. Those tactics included encouraging members to take on debt to pay for courses, monitoring them in communal living environments, collecting sensitive personal information and depriving them of sleep.
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Eventually, individuals that became indebted and loyal were directed by the defendants to work long hours, often seven days a week, for little or no pay, prosecutors said. The labor included both manual work and sexual services performed for the company’s benefit, including interactions with investors, clients and employees.
Witnesses at trial testified they were coerced under threats of termination, ostracism and financial or spiritual harm, according to the DOJ.
Daedone sold OneTaste in 2017 for $12 million. Prosecutors described the company as one “built on the backs of coerced and unpaid or substantially underpaid labor.”
“For decades, Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz preyed on vulnerable women, coercing them into a calculated forced labor conspiracy,” said James Barnacle, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York field office. “These defendants subjected their victims to repeated psychological manipulation and sexual abuse to obtain unpaid or underpaid labor and services for their personal and financial benefit.”
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