Forced labor verdict sticks in sex cult leader case
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BROOKLYN (CN) — A federal judge on Monday denied a bid to overturn the forced labor conspiracy conviction against two leaders of a Bay Area company that sold ritualized sex acts as a form of meditation.
Nicole Daedone, 57, and Rachel Cherwitz, 44, the respective CEO and head of sales at OneTaste, failed to meet the “heavy burden” required to win their Rule 29 motion, U.S. District Judge Diane Gujarati said, after making arguments the judge previously addressed and others that fall outside the rule’s scope.
“Defendants’ reiterated and/or repackaged arguments are no more persuasive now than when previously raised,” the Barack Obama appointee wrote in the 5-page order.
Jurors convicted the pair on one count each after a five-week trial where former employees testified that they were expected to work long hours for little or no pay and perform OneTaste’s core practice of “orgasmic meditation” — essentially stroking a woman’s genitals for 15 minutes, branded as a means to deeper universal connection — with “anybody off the street.”
Daedone also instructed women who worked for her to sexually service her former boyfriend, Reese Jones, an investor in the company, and Cherwitz directed employees to have sex to break up tension and boost sales.
Gujarati swatted down Daedone and Cherwitz’s claim that the guilty verdict was based on an unconstitutional prosecution of their belief system and that the government’s evidence was insufficient.
“As the government points out, certain of the arguments advanced by defendants do not properly fall under Rule 29, notwithstanding defendants’ efforts to shoehorn those arguments into a sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge,” Gujarati said. “Assessed under the well-settled legal standards governing Rule 29 motions, the trial evidence … is sufficient to defeat the motion.”
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