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By Joe Brucker

BROOKLYN – As the government prepares to rest its case, defense attorneys for former leaders of OneTaste, a sexuality-focused wellness education company, questioned the personal responsibility of former members who testified that they had been “manipulated.”

Rachel Cherwitz and Nicole Daedone, respectively the former head of sales and founder of OneTaste, are on trial in federal court in Brooklyn with one count each of forced labor conspiracy, a charge that can carry a 20-year prison sentence with conviction. Prosecutors allege that their company, which offered retreats, courses, and communal living spaces all focused around “orgasmic meditation,” or OM, used manipulative tactics to coerce subjects into working for little to no pay, including sexual labor.

In opening arguments, the defense maintained that the sensational nature of the company’s focus and the community that formed around it are a distraction: participants were “well-aware” of what their practice entailed, that accusations of “high-pressure sales tactics” were exaggerated, and while “unusual,” OneTaste was an otherwise “legitimate company.” The government’s witnesses, the defense argued, were “well-aware” of what OM entailed: they were “full-grown adults” who couldn’t “take responsibility for their own actions”; they could leave at any time, but now “regretted their decisions” or had an “ax to grind.”

Thursday and Friday’s witnesses brought remarkably similar stories to the stand. Michal Neria and Lyndsi Keves had both begun their relationships with OneTaste as students, which escalated quickly into taking coaching courses and ultimately joining the OneTaste sales team. Both had opted, for a time, to live in member or staff housing and met a significant other through OneTaste. Both Keves and Neria testified that they’d been given the idea to ask their partners for financial support to pay for the expensive OneTaste courses (which could range into the tens of thousands) by OneTaste staff. Both became engaged while at OneTaste and expressed stress over their partner’s interest in nonmonogamy, which was encouraged at OneTaste. Both also had graduate degrees. Both opened credit cards at the suggestion of OneTaste staff.

Debt

The indictment asserted that Cherwitz and Daedone, as one of the “abusive and manipulative tactics in order to obtain the labor and services” of OneTaste participants, had “induced” them to “incur debt, and at times facilitated the OneTaste members in opening lines of credit, to finance expensive OneTaste courses that the defendants knew the OneTaste members could not afford.”

Keves told US Attorney Kaitlin Farrell why she opened the credit card: “There were these often, like, high-pressure sales tactics, so there was—we were at an event, and it was, like, you know, everybody is going to the women’s intensive, all of these other women that I was close with in the group, and this feeling of, you know, being left behind, a feeling of wanting to, like, get the approval of the leaders of OneTaste.”

Michal Neria told US Attorney Nina Gupta how she came to apply for a credit card to take OneTaste’s coaching course, which she testified cost $12k. “I would have to think about that,” she said. “That was a lot of money for me.” She recounted that Rachel Cherwitz took her to sit on her bed, saying, ”I feel like you need to attend” the coaching course. “When I have an intuition, I know.” “She said, ‘You know, where there’s desire, there’s a way.” She retold her conflicted feelings: “On the one hand, my brain was like, ‘You can’t pay for it.'” But on the other, “I was really impressed with her. […] I felt like she saw something special in me.”

Defense attorney for Rachel Cherwitz, Michael Robotti, questioned Keves during cross-examination on whether she felt responsible for opening a credit card to pay for classes: “You’re blaming [the OneTaste employee] for your decision to open up a credit card, is that right?” Keves was resistant but conceded, “I’m just recalling the facts, but she suggested I open a credit card, but I did it, yes.” “I made the decision to do that.”

Significant Others

Debt wasn’t the only way that Keves and Neria paid for courses. They also received support from the significant others they met through OneTaste.

Neria testified that Cherwitz “that I could ask him to pay and that it’s completely his decision whether to say yes or no, you know, and that—you know, where there is—again, this kind of thing of where there’s a desire, there’s a way. And in the world of orgasm, you can ask people to pay.” Misha Safyan, she testified, paid for flights and hotels.

The responsibility for asking Safyan to pay, Neria testified, rested on Rachel Cherwitz. “Rachel and other higher-ups put that idea in my head. I would have never come up with it by myself.” “So, you take no responsibility for asking Misha to pay for your courses?” Daedone’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, asked. Neria confirmed, “I take no responsibility.” The government raised an objection, which was sustained.

Collecting sensitive information

The indictment also asserted that Cherwitz and Daedone “collected sensitive information about the OneTaste members, including but not limited to information pertaining to the OneTaste members’ prior trauma, sexual histories, and relationships, as a means of influencing and controlling the OneTaste members.”

To this end, prosecutors took interest in a daily practice some OneTaste members participated in, called a “Fear Inventory,” which mirrors a similar 12-step exercise. While the exercise elicited sensitive information, it seemed possibly intended as self-help, to help participants overcome fears. Neria described the practice during her Thursday testimony. Following a morning group OM session, it was recommended that participants “pair up” with someone “neutral,” who wouldn’t be “triggered,” and each participant would “list fears and resentments you have.” Participants would then read their lists to each other and then “tear the list up.”

Another subject of focus for prosecutors was customer calls that OneTaste team members would make to customers after they’d signed up for classes. After the court sustained an objection asking if the calls sought information on past trauma, Keves described that sales staff had asked prospective attendees “what their goals were.” Learning from sales trainings, she testified, she used the information to “hone in on that kind of weakness, goal, or desire in hopes that they would buy the course.”

During cross-examination, defense attorney Robotti sought to clarify that this was a standard sales practice. Keves confirmed that spreadsheets of potential customers were often stored in Salesforce to “remember details” across sales interactions. Keves “didn’t know” if this was a common sales technique, having only worked in sales for OneTaste.

Leaving OneTaste

Neria and Keves had similar testimony as to why they hadn’t left OneTaste earlier: “Because I devoted so much—not only money and my time, but so much of my like soul into this. Like, you know, I worked—I fought with my family every time I saw them to convince them that this was an organization that did positive in the world and that was—you know, that the mission was good. […] And for me to—to admit to myself that I was led on, that this was a lie, that I just spent all this money, that I got married to somebody I just met several months ago, that I, like, threw so much of my life away for this thing, it was a very—it was a very big deal, and it took me time to—to have the courage to do that.”

Keves also emphasized sunk costs: “Well, I had already paid for the coaching program, and I’d also begun a relationship with somebody in OneTaste. He was a student at the time as well.” Keves also had a similar answer to Neria as to why she found it hard to leave: “Because for almost a year I had been—I spent so much of my time, all of my money in that organization, and then it’s hard to admit that you—for me, it was hard for me to admit that I had been so, like, manipulated or persuaded.”

What made her feel she’d been manipulated? “It was around, you know—the philosophy was around, you know, desire, but often it was taught that, like, you don’t know your own desire; somebody else knows what you desire. And so I lost kind of—I felt like I lost touch with myself because I had—I was being told who I was and what I wanted and what to think.”

Both departures, according to their own testimony, were precipitated by the witnesses experiencing “panic attacks.” For Neria, this was in response to “admissions” from Safyan regarding their relationship. For Keves, this followed a conversation with a “hypnotherapist” who she’d met at a OneTaste workshop. The substance of both conversations was specifically not allowed on the record.

Monogamy

“Monogamy was not really encouraged,” Keves told prosecutors Friday. The subject was a source of strain for both Neria and herself.

Safyan asked for advice for make-outs not going well. Neria testified that Nicole Daedone instructed Safyan “to have sex every day for a month” with a different person each day, and that he did. Neria testified that beyond feeling “jealous” and “humiliated,” it made her feel “dependent on him.” “If he didn’t pay for me, how else would I take those classes?” “And I wanted to take as many classes as possible.”

The pressure to be “open” and “get messy” came from multiple directions: Keves testified that while there was group pressure to “open” her “OM practice” to the group, the pressure had mostly come from her boyfriend from within OneTaste. The feeling wasn’t mutual, and Keves testified that she was harangued for it. Rachel Cherwitz, Keves testified, called her up in front of the rest of the OneTaste sales team to talk about how Keves was “stifling”: “Somehow, energetically, I was distracting Rami from doing a good job.”

Labor

While other testimony may have fared differently, the unpaid work Neria and Keves testified to was notably mild. Both former members testified to performing various tasks for OneTaste. Neria stated she would “set up chairs.” Keves mentioned that for events, she would help “cut fruit” and “get everything organized.” Keves testified about one occasion of putting up flyers from 5 a.m. During cross-examination, it was clarified that this specific instance of flyering was for one day.

Enthusiasm

At certain points during their involvement, both witnesses expressed enthusiasm. Keves initiated a talk she co-hosted called “Women, Food, and Orgasm,” which she confirmed was her idea. In mid-2017, after about nine months of OMing, Keves believed the practice had beneficially changed her relationships, helping her overcome a previous terror of people, particularly men, and fostering more connection and intimacy.

Introduction to OneTaste

Both Keves and Neria testified that it wasn’t something they’d expected to be interested in upon first hearing about it but were quickly hooked.

Keves testified that someone told her about OneTaste at Unity Church. “Upon first hearing about it, it sounded crazy, like something I would not want to do.” Then after watching Nicole Daedone’s TED Talk, she was “curious.” She signed up for an “Intro to OM” class and was invited to another event that preceded it, where she became more optimistic: “[it] seemed like people are kind and friendly, so I started to become more open to the idea.” At the Intro to OM class, she testified, she signed up for the Coaching Program.

Neria had a similar trajectory. She was attending a yoga teacher course, and an “anatomy teacher” mentioned it as part of her own practice in the “sexual health section” of the course. Neria “thought it sounded very weird. I did not feel drawn at that moment.

After Neria told her yoga teacher she’d never experienced an orgasm and was worried she wouldn’t, the teacher encouraged her that the people in OneTaste “were sensitive, vulnerable people” and “speak my language.” She attended OneTaste’s “Intro to OM” class and then signed up for multiple additional events.

Awareness

Witnesses acknowledged an understanding of OneTaste’s focus. During cross-examination by Ms. Bonjean, Keves agreed she understood she wasn’t “signing up for a cooking course” and knew OneTaste encouraged sexual exploration.

During Keves’s cross-examination by the defense, attorneys confirmed that over the “20-30” courses she’d taken, she “signed at least seven consent forms” disclosing that “Certain participants may make statements or take actions that I disagree with or find offensive” and that she was “familiar with the sexual nature of the practice of OM.”

This week, the government wrapped up testimony from immunized witness and OneTaste cofounder Robert Kandell, who finished on Wednesday.

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