DOJ Slammed for Jailing Orgasm Guru Using Junk Science

Twenty of the world’s leading religious freedom experts have condemned the U.S. government for using a debunked “brainwashing” theory to imprison an “orgasm meditation” guru, PunchUp reports. Nicole Daedone, 58, founded OneTaste, the San Francisco company that ran a sexuality-focused wellness program for its paying students. Its alleged victims testified that they consented to the practices, and no physical force was alleged. Yet a Brooklyn jury convicted Daedone and former sales chief Rachel Cherwitz, 45, of forced labor conspiracy in June 2025. In March, Judge Diane Gujarati, a Donald Trump appointee, sentenced Daedone to nine years and Cherwitz to six-and-a-half years. The bipartisan scholars—among them Harvard Law’s Alan Dershowitz and the London School of Economics’ Eileen Barker—signed a memorandum through the Turin-based Center for Studies on New Religions calling the case, “a significant threat to religious liberty and democratic norms.” The memo supports an analysis by Massimo Introvigne, the Italian sociologist who founded the Turin-based Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), and is widely regarded as the world’s foremost authority on new religious movements. “Some may not understand why new religious movement scholars regard the OneTaste case as an extremely dangerous precedent,” Introvigne told PunchUp, our sister investigations Substack. “It is not about the content of the OneTaste courses and practices. It is about an American court that reintroduced the pseudo-scientific theory of brainwashing from the back door of trafficking laws, thus putting all religions that rely on volunteer labor in potential danger.” Daedone’s appeal is now before the Second Circuit. The Daily Beast has contacted the Department of Justice and the FBI for comment.

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