Witness testifies to mix of love and darkness living at OneTaste sex ‘cult’
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BROOKLYN (CN) — Defense attorneys on Friday finished cross-examining the first government witness at the trial against leaders of OneTaste, a company that sold a ritualized genital stroking practice as a form of meditation and, according to court testimony, required employees to be willing to engage in the practice with “anybody off the street.”
The Bay Area-based company’s founder, Nicole Daedone, 54, and former head of sales, Rachel Cherwitz, 44, face one count each of forced labor conspiracy. If convicted, they face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Both women pleaded not guilty.
In earlier testimony Becky, a former sales employee, branded OneTaste as a cult. The company closely associates itself with yoga and meditation; its flagship teaching of “orgasmic meditation” is shortened to OM, pronounced like the chant commonly invoked in those ancient schools. In stark contrast to the traditional solo practice of meditation, however, Daedone’s invention is a partnered sex act that involves methodically stroking a woman’s genitals for 15 minutes.
Defense attorneys have argued that sexual relations at OneTaste were always between consenting adults, and the door to leave remained open.
But Becky, whose full name Courthouse News is not publishing given the nature of her testimony, said she lost her sense of reality while at OneTaste, took on thousands of dollars in debt to pay for coaching courses and underwent daily verbal abuse that escalated to unwanted sexual touching by Cherwitz, her boss.
On cross-examination, Daedone’s attorney Jennifer Bonjean asked Becky to confirm that nobody had forced her to get involved.
“No one cast a spell on you?” Bonjean asked Friday, to which Becky replied, laughing: “Not that I know of.”
Before joining OneTaste Becky, a Westchester native who first got involved with the company while living in San Francisco after college, lived and worked in a yoga community before she moved back to New York with roommates on the Upper East side.
Referring to Becky’s direct testimony about strict rules while she was living in a communal home in Harlem with other OneTaste members — roommates shared beds, privacy was scarce and they were instructed to report to management on their peers’ behavior — Bonjean noted those rules were advertised up front and applied to everyone in the “commune,” not just employees. After all, Cherwitz, too, shared a bed.
“If you wanted privacy, you could have stayed with your roomies and had your own bedroom, right?” Bonjean asked Becky, who agreed that was true.
From their group “OM” session at 7 a.m. until bedtime between midnight and 1 a.m., employees had to respond immediately to a constant stream of text messages and group chats from OneTaste, Becky testified. They were to send notices if they’d be unavailable even briefly: “Offline, 15 minutes, shower.” “Offline, 10 minutes, bathroom.” “Offline, 20 minutes, OM circle.”
During cross on Thursday Cherwitz’s attorney Celia Cohen sought to paint a kinder picture of that time in Becky’s life. She showed the court photos of Becky and her classmates during training to become an “OM” coach — dining out at the buzzy French restaurant Balthazar, posting selfies on social media, posing for a photo at a Halal Guys cart.
Cohen, of the firm Ballard Spahr, also pointed out Becky’s own admission that she wasn’t very good at sales. In a group where open relationships were common, Becky and Cherwitz dated some of the same men, leading to jealousy between them.
Becky, now a social worker, readily acknowledged that she and Cherwitz had a competitive, love-hate relationship. She cried at several points when she was asked to review letters and videos from her past life in OneTaste, but otherwise remained composed, and laughed along with defense attorneys about her less-than-stellar sales record.
When it came to leaving OneTaste, which Becky did in 2014, Becky said she feared losing the community that became like family to her.
“It was abundantly clear to me that if I was to really leave, that would be a very permanent decision,” she testified Thursday.
Yet parting with Daedone happened on friendly terms; Daedone thanked her for her service, and Becky told the company chief she loved her. “And I did,” Becky testified at the end of cross-examination.
Asked to explain on redirect, Becky again broke down in tears.
“There can be love and there can be admiration … and also a great deal of darkness and abuse. Those things existed concurrently,” she said.
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