A Brooklyn federal courtroom delivered a moment nine years in the making Monday morning, as a judge handed OneTaste founder Nicole Daedone a nine-year prison sentence for engineering a scheme that turned vulnerable women into sexual servants for investors and clients.
Daedone, 58, stood dressed in a beige jail uniform — her request to wear civilian clothes having been denied by the presiding judge — as U.S. District Judge Diane Gujarati read her fate aloud.
The San Francisco native co-founded infamous alleged “orgasm cult” OneTaste in 2004, building what she marketed as a revolutionary female wellness empire around a practice she called “orgasmic meditation.”
Judge Gujarati pulled no punches in her remarks from the bench.
She called Daedone’s conduct “egregious” and “insidious,” and told the packed courtroom that Daedone “took actions that stripped victims of their dignity.” The judge also noted that Daedone “does not appear to be remorseful.”
When offered a chance to speak, Daedone leaned toward the courtroom microphone and declined with a brief “no, thank you.”
Prosecutors had pushed for the statutory maximum of 20 years, arguing in court filings that Daedone’s operation left “scores of victims financially, emotionally and psychologically scarred.”
Along with her prison term, Daedone was ordered to forfeit $12 million — the exact sum she pocketed when she sold her stake in OneTaste back in 2017, one year before scrutiny of the company’s practices became public.
The conviction stemmed from a sprawling forced labor conspiracy that prosecutors say ran from 2006 through May 2018, during which Daedone and OneTaste’s former head of sales, Rachel Cherwitz, manipulated young women who had come to the company seeking healing into performing sexual labor for the defendants’ benefit.
NPR reported that throughout the five-week trial, witnesses described how they were drawn to OneTaste searching for community and higher purpose, only to lose their sense of self and connection to the outside world as they became more involved with the organization.
They described love-bombing, public shaming, manipulation, sleep deprivation, and the use of shared language and surveillance practices that helped leaders maintain tight control over their time and relationships.
Three witnesses testified that they were coerced into becoming a “handler” for Daedone’s boyfriend and OneTaste’s initial investor, a role that required them to live with him, perform demeaning sex acts on demand, and carry out domestic duties including cooking.
Additional witnesses testified that Daedone and Cherwitz coerced them — under threat of termination, demotion, ostracism, and financial and spiritual ruin — into performing sexual acts with OneTaste’s prospective clients and investors.
Tactics used to maintain control over members included encouraging them to open lines of credit to pay for expensive OneTaste courses, subjecting them to constant surveillance in communal housing, and collecting sensitive details about members’ prior trauma and sexual histories.
Prosecutors described the entire enterprise in blunt terms, writing that it was “a crime of exploitation masquerading as empowerment.”
OneTaste, now operating under the name the Institute of OM Foundation, has maintained that the charges against its former executives were unjustified and that sexual consent has always been a cornerstone of the organization.
