https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/onetaste-orgasmic-meditation-founder-22161236.php
https://archive.ph/tc556
Nicole Daedone, center, founder and former CEO of OneTaste, leaves from federal court on June 13, 2023, in New York.
Jeenah Moon/Associated Press
Aidin Vaziri
The founder of a San Francisco company that built a national following around “orgasmic meditation” was sentenced Monday to nine years in federal prison, after a jury convicted her last year in a forced labor conspiracy case.
Nicole Daedone, 58, the founder of OneTaste, was also ordered to forfeit $12 million. Seven victims were awarded about $890,000 in restitution, federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York said.
The sentence caps the downfall of a Bay Area-born wellness company once marketed as a path to female empowerment and sexual healing. Prosecutors said it relied on manipulation and abuse.
“Coercion disguised as wellness or empowerment is still exploitation and it is a crime that causes harm to vulnerable victims,” Joseph Nocella, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.
U.S. District Judge Diane Gujarati said Daedone had caused lasting harm and did not appear remorseful.
“What she was doing wasn’t about enlightenment or operating in a different dimension,” the judge said. “It was criminal.”
Daedone did not speak at her sentencing.
One victim told the judge she had believed in Daedone’s “so-called feminist mission” only to be “left with significant financial damages and emotional harm,” according to the New York Daily News.
“In reality, I fell into Nicole’s trap,” the woman said. “I was the perfect target.”
Prosecutors had asked for a 20-year prison term, arguing in court filings that Daedone and her co-defendants used economic pressure, emotional degradation, psychological manipulation and exhaustion to control followers, many of them women with histories of sexual trauma.
Daedone co-founded OneTaste in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood in 2004. The company grew by promoting “orgasmic meditation,” or “OM,” a practice centered on guided sexual stimulation in a structured group setting with outposts in Los Angeles, New York and London and other major cities.
At trial, prosecutors said Daedone and former OneTaste sales director Rachel Cherwitz pressured members into unwanted sexual acts and labor in the name of “freedom” and “enlightenment.”
Cherwitz was sentenced Monday to 6½ years in prison.
Daedone’s lawyers said they plan to appeal.
The company’s current owners have continued to argue that OneTaste’s teachings were misconstrued and that the prosecution was unjustified.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
https://archive.ph/tc556
Nicole Daedone, center, founder and former CEO of OneTaste, leaves from federal court on June 13, 2023, in New York.
Jeenah Moon/Associated Press
Aidin Vaziri
The founder of a San Francisco company that built a national following around “orgasmic meditation” was sentenced Monday to nine years in federal prison, after a jury convicted her last year in a forced labor conspiracy case.
Nicole Daedone, 58, the founder of OneTaste, was also ordered to forfeit $12 million. Seven victims were awarded about $890,000 in restitution, federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York said.
- Related: The fall of the ‘Empire of Orgasm’: How a Bay Area journalist uncovered the truth about OneTaste
The sentence caps the downfall of a Bay Area-born wellness company once marketed as a path to female empowerment and sexual healing. Prosecutors said it relied on manipulation and abuse.
“Coercion disguised as wellness or empowerment is still exploitation and it is a crime that causes harm to vulnerable victims,” Joseph Nocella, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.
U.S. District Judge Diane Gujarati said Daedone had caused lasting harm and did not appear remorseful.
“What she was doing wasn’t about enlightenment or operating in a different dimension,” the judge said. “It was criminal.”
Daedone did not speak at her sentencing.
One victim told the judge she had believed in Daedone’s “so-called feminist mission” only to be “left with significant financial damages and emotional harm,” according to the New York Daily News.
“In reality, I fell into Nicole’s trap,” the woman said. “I was the perfect target.”
Prosecutors had asked for a 20-year prison term, arguing in court filings that Daedone and her co-defendants used economic pressure, emotional degradation, psychological manipulation and exhaustion to control followers, many of them women with histories of sexual trauma.
Daedone co-founded OneTaste in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood in 2004. The company grew by promoting “orgasmic meditation,” or “OM,” a practice centered on guided sexual stimulation in a structured group setting with outposts in Los Angeles, New York and London and other major cities.
At trial, prosecutors said Daedone and former OneTaste sales director Rachel Cherwitz pressured members into unwanted sexual acts and labor in the name of “freedom” and “enlightenment.”
Cherwitz was sentenced Monday to 6½ years in prison.
Daedone’s lawyers said they plan to appeal.
The company’s current owners have continued to argue that OneTaste’s teachings were misconstrued and that the prosecution was unjustified.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
