NEW YORK — At the back of a home goods store in New York, an upbeat voice rang out from a television screen as nearly 100 women listened raptly to a message about female empowerment.

The voice sounded like that of Nicole Daedone, the founder of a wellness company called OneTaste. It echoed through the store one evening last month, mixing with the voices of women who called out responses of approval to the woman speaking on the screen.

But it was not Daedone, who was in jail in Brooklyn. It was an artificial intelligence avatar, trained on her mannerisms and teachings about sexual liberation for women. For roughly 10 minutes, it offered spiritual guidance to the women, many of whom had also spent time behind bars. Women were not usually allowed to be this free, Daedone’s avatar said in front of a background image of jail cells.

“This is your dispatch from your sisters on the inside,” said the avatar, which looked like Daedone. “Thank you for making a table where women can speak without interruption, and listen without fixing.”

The stunt, at a dinner in the store, was emblematic of the nonstop campaign by Daedone, OneTaste and her fervent fans to burnish her image as a martyr for women’s liberation since she and Rachel Cherwitz, OneTaste’s head of sales, were convicted of forced labor conspiracy last year. The women who testified at the trial likened the group to a sex cult.

On Monday, in a Brooklyn courtroom packed with dozens of her supporters, Daedone was sentenced to nine years in federal prison. The judge, Diane Gujarati of U.S. District Court, said Daedone had caused “long-lasting, if not irreparable” harm to former OneTaste employees.

“What she was doing wasn’t about enlightenment or operating in a different dimension,” Gujarati said. “It was criminal.”

Daedone, 58, did not change her expression as the judge delivered the sentence. Showing grayer hair than she had at trial last year, Daedone smiled and clasped her hands toward Gujarati after the proceeding. Cherwitz, her co-defendant, received a sentence of more than six years later Monday.

Jennifer Bonjean, Daedone’s lawyer, flanked by Daedone’s supporters in a news conference outside the courthouse, said she planned to appeal the conviction. Anjuli Ayer, the CEO of OneTaste, called it a “terrifying day for freedom.”

“We will just stand by Nicole as she does this time,” Bonjean said.

Offered Sessions in Orgasmic Meditation

At its height, OneTaste operated centers in cities including San Francisco, New York and Austin, Texas, offering sessions in its signature practice of orgasmic meditation — the ritual stroking of a woman’s clitoris for 15 minutes. In 2017, Daedone sold OneTaste for $12 million to Ayer.

Under Daedone and Cherwitz, according to former employees who testified against them, OneTaste fostered a culture of fear and intimidation. Employees were instructed to sexually service prospective investors, carry out menial tasks around OneTaste’s communal homes and destroy romantic relationships — all while Daedone and Cherwitz lived lavishly, benefiting from their labor, the employees said.

One woman testified that Cherwitz forced her to receive orgasmic meditation. Sex at OneTaste, prosecutors wrote to Gujarati in December, was also a “means of encouraging productivity.”

Forced labor schemes often involve tangible threats against victims, such as physical violence, blackmail or the confiscation of travel documents from workers. Yet Daedone and Cherwitz did not physically threaten employees into remaining at OneTaste, evidence and testimony at trial showed. Rather, the employees said that they felt psychologically and emotionally coerced into accepting OneTaste’s doctrines as a way of life, and that working there bankrupted them.

Obeying Daedone and Cherwitz was required to ascend in the organization, the women testified. OneTaste’s supporters have said the case was novel and claimed that it was a targeted prosecution against people who believed in an alternative lifestyle.

Prosecutors have flatly rejected the notion of a prosecution targeted at OneTaste’s beliefs. During the government’s rebuttal argument at trial, Kayla Bensing, an assistant U.S. attorney, said Daedone was “not on trial for her lectures.”

“It is irrelevant under the law if they really believed in the mission of orgasm,” Bensing told jurors. Bensing also said that a forced labor scheme could be in place even though women were physically capable of leaving.

Over the years, Daedone had expanded her empire to include dinner events, a book publishing press and a program that provided free food to homeless people in New York.

After years of rebranding since the indictments, the company has started offering in-person instruction for orgasmic meditation. At the same time, the group has made criminal justice overhaul part of its mission.

‘Strengthened Everyone’s Conviction’

The trial “only strengthened everyone’s conviction and their willingness to fight,” Ayer said.

Ayer and others with OneTaste have courted figures in right-wing media and in President Donald Trump’s orbit, seemingly following a playbook for people who have won clemency.

They found common cause with Douglass Mackey, a conservative activist convicted of conspiracy against rights for sharing misleading memes before the 2016 election. His conviction, which OneTaste members say was wrongful, was overturned by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year.

OneTaste has sought legal advice from Alan Dershowitz, the defense lawyer who used his access to Trump to win pardons and commutations during the president’s first term. Trump has granted clemency to a number of allies — or people who hire his allies, often for a steep price. In an interview, Dershowitz declined to say how much OneTaste was paying him, but said he was deeply troubled by the case and wanted to fight for Daedone and Cherwitz’s freedom.

“I’m worried that this is the kind of a prosecution that can easily be directed at other groups,” he said, citing religious groups that could be targeted for their beliefs.

At the conclusion of the dinner, the women were asked to donate to fund more dinners. If they gave $100, they were told they would receive a copy of Daedone’s book.

Such events are separate from OneTaste, Ayer said, but she expressed optimism about the organization’s efforts to revitalize itself. Yet the next step, she said, is still about Daedone and Cherwitz.

“My goal is to get justice for my friends,” Ayer said.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Santul Nerkar/Brittainy Newman
c. 2026 The New York Times Company