The Orgasms Were Real, but the Evidence Was Fake. Judge Dismisses Case Against “Orgasmic Meditation” Founder and Former Sales Head Due to Unreal Evidence
Photo Source: Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images file via NBC News
When federal prosecutors charged a popular sexual wellness company with forced labor conspiracy in 2023, following a Netflix “true crime” documentary, little did they know that almost two years later their case would be thrown out of court.
The 2023 federal indictment accused founder and former One Taste CEO Nicole Daedone and former head of sales Rachel Cherwitz of “swaying” volunteers, employees and contractors to go into debt so they could “heal” from sexual trauma and other issues.
In a shocking new legal twist, a judge threw out the federal complaint against the defendants because the evidence used against both women was not real but had been created for the documentary.
In court papers from March during the Brooklyn court pretrial, prosecutors said they no longer could use the statements from a key witness, Ayries Blanck, in the case against the defendants.
Blanck had promised to share journals she wrote about her experiences with the group, but when prosecutors saw the hand-written pages, they discovered they had been created years after the alleged abuse.
“The government no longer believes that the disputed portions of the handwritten journals are authentic,” prosecutors told the judge, saying they would no longer include Blanck as a key witness. They also said would not “seek to admit any of Blanck’s journals at trial.”
With the criminal case thrown out of court, however, the defendants still must face a civil lawsuit, which is scheduled to be heard in court soon. However, due to the criminal case being dismissed due to lack of evidence, the Manhattan federal appeals court said it would listen to arguments from the prosecutors as to whether their evidence was not valid for a lawsuit. Blanck, the now-dismissed key witness from the criminal case, is also a vital witness in the civil case.
Photo Source: Netflix via Daily Mail
In court documents, the defendants’ attorneys said that one or more persons who assisted in creating the Netflix documentary also edited a digital journal for the film, which was written about the writer’s personal experiences from years prior to the filing of charges. This editing of the diary for a Netflix documentary was considered adulterated by the attorneys.
Furthermore, the defendant’s lawyers argued, the journals were obviously edited because they were supposedly written in 2015, as per Blanck’s claim, but contained information about things that occurred much later, such as a book published in 2019, among other writing. The lawyers said the journal entries were edited over time, not by Blanck but by other parties.
Another twist in the accuracy of the dismissed witness’ journals came about due to the fact that Netflix paid her sister, who was in the documentary, $25,000.
Due to the journal’s apparent irregularities, the FBI interviewed Blanck. She then admitted that many of her memories written in her diary were false. In a letter to U.S. District Judge Diane Gujarati, the prosecutors shared their discovery that the journals were not authentic.
"Prior to March 2025, Blanck repeatedly maintained to the government that she wrote the Handwritten Journals in and around the time she left One Taste," prosecutors said. "Her account was corroborated by her sister.”
Share This Article
If you found this article insightful, consider sharing it with your network.
Diane Lilli is an award-winning Journalist, Editor, and Author with over 18 years of experience contributing to New Jersey news outlets, both in print and online. Notably, she played a pivotal role in launching the first daily digital newspaper, Jersey Tomato Press, in 2005. Her work has been featured in various newspapers, journals, magazines, and literary publications across the nation. Diane is the proud recipient of the Shirley Chisholm Journalism Award.
A federal judge in New York has dismissed Dawn Richard’s federal lawsuit against Sean “Diddy” Combs, finding that most of the former Danity Kane member’s claims were filed too late under New York law.In a ruling issued June 12, U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla dismissed 17 of Richard’s 18...
Read
More »
America’s Next Top Model creator and former host Tyra Banks has filed a lawsuit against Netflix over its recent docuseries Reality Check, alleging the streaming giant and the project’s filmmakers manipulated her interview footage to create a false and damaging portrayal of her role on the reality show.Banks says she...
Read
More »
A Los Angeles judge has rejected Marilyn Manson’s latest attempt to dismiss a sexual assault lawsuit filed by his former assistant, allowing the long-running case to continue as both sides prepare for further litigation.The ruling, issued Friday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, marks another legal setback for the musician,...
Read
More »
A federal judge has significantly reduced the scope of a high-profile lawsuit filed by Blake Lively against Justin Baldoni and associated production partners tied to the film It Ends With Us, eliminating the majority of her claims just weeks before the case is set to go to trial in New...
Read
More »
After a spectacular fall from grace, Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced former founder and CEO of Theranos, was sentenced to 11 years and three months in federal prison for defrauding numerous investors out of almost $1 billion. Ms. Holmes, 38, was convicted on four wire fraud counts due to her deceiving...
Read
More »