This post is our next in the series on Ares Milligan, AKA Ayries Blanck.
A former employee of OneTaste, Blanck’s stories are one of the main causes of the media depiction of the company that prompted an FBI investigation.
Blanck described herself as a victim of what the FBI hoped was a forced labor and possibly sex trafficking case.
The FBI tried hard but could not find evidence of forced labor, sex trafficking, or any substantive crime that the company, any of its owners or executives, or anyone else did to Ayries or anyone else.
The absence of a substantive crime led the US Attorney for the Eastern District of NY to file an indictment charging OneTaste co-founder Nicole Daedone and her sales manager Rachel Cherwitz with a single count of forced labor conspiracy.
A Conspiracy Without Forced Labor
According to the indictment, the two women began conspiring in 2006, about a year before they met. After meeting, they continued to conspire to try to force people to labor for a decade, while Daedone owned the company and Cherwitz worked for the company.
Daedone sold the company in 2017, but the US Attorney – just as he added a year at the beginning of the conspiracy that predated the two women meeting – usually making it hard for people to conspire – added a year after Daedone sold the company and presumably unable to force anyone to labor for a company she did not own or control.
Nicole Daedone
Adding a year to the forced labor conspiracy after Daedone sold the company was more important than adding a year at the beginning.
Statute of Limitations: A Crucial Twist
Without extending the conspiracy by a year after Daedone sold the company, the US EDNY would not have been able to charge the two women with anything because the forced labor conspiracy charge has a five-year statute of limitations.
Happily for the DOJ, Cherwitz stayed on as an employee of OneTaste until May 2018. Though Daedone was no longer an owner of the company, allegedly Cherwitz conspired with herself for another year to force someone to labor.
The charges as they stand – the only standalone forced labor conspiracy charged in American history – present an intriguing plot of failure: Two women began conspiring a year before they met, then began conspiring once they met, and continued for another year with Cherwitz conspiring alone.
Former Head of Sales for OneTaste, Rachel Cherwitz
The last year was highly obliging of Cherwitz since had she not done a one-woman conspiracy, the US Attorney would not have been able to charge them.
Why? Because the statute of limitations would have run out.
It must be rather embarrassing to try for years to force any of the 35,000 people who attended a OneTaste event, the 16,000 people who participated in a class, or any of the 150 employees to do a lick of forced labor – and fail.
A Peculiar Indictment
The two women, by the facts of the indictment, had given up trying five years before the indictment. If the indictment is accurate and not just an attempt by the DOJ to salvage a case after five long years of trying to find a crime to pin on Daedone, they brought the forced labor conspiracy charge.
Every other forced labor conspiracy charge in US legal history came with allegations of actual forced labor or sex trafficking.
No one else was ever charged with conspiring to force labor and failing.
But I ask the reader not to be too hasty in their judgment.
It is far too easy to think that the FBI got hot on the case from Ayries Blanck. When they found her an easily impeachable liar, they had to justify the years lost in this investigation and charge Daedone and Cherwitz in time not to lose the statute of limitations and walk away empty handed.
Ayries Blanck
A Trial Awaits
A jury will have to decide whether the US EDNY had a five-year conspiracy with Ayries Blanck to indict Daedone and Cherwitz on something, anything, and failed to find an actual crime. The DOJ, whose conviction stats are the measure of their success, got stuck with the feeble story that Daedone and Cherwitz had a 12-year conspiracy to force Ayries or anyone to labor, then gave up trying precisely four years, eleven months and 29 days (one day short of the statute of limitations).
Happily, the EDNY moved just in time to indict them and ruin their lives.
Someone here is a massive failure: the government or the defendants.
Ayries Blanck’s role in this case will be front and center at the trial. While it is clear that the US Attorney will not call Ayries, the defense likely will.
There, her testimony might save the day for the government. On the witness stand, Ayries’s many lies to the FBI will come out, and the US Attorney can save face by charging Blanck with lying to the FBI, a federal crime, and salvage a conviction stat even though they lose the case against Daedone and Cherwitz.
The two women will also save face when the jury acquits. Imagine how foolish it must seem that two savvy businesswomen tried to force thousands of people to labor for 12 years and failed. That kind of stupidity and failure looks terrible on a resume.
Sure, I know the adage that “if, at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again,” but this is ridiculous.
Almost as ridiculous as the FBI trying to find a crime and bringing charges anyway on the backs of the taxpayers.
Conviction stats are not how any justice department should run, especially when they cannot tell a liar from a real victim, and in the process make victims of the people they charge and taxpayers too.
Stay tuned for our next post on the source of this improper prosecution – Ares Milligan AKA Ayries Blanck. And in an upcoming post, we will show how Rob Kandell, co-founder and former half owner of OneTaste, worked closely with Ayries Blanck AKA Ares Milligan to create a dubious and highly impeachable narrative about OneTaste that may very well land Blanck (and possibly Kandell) in an ocean of hot water.
Ayries Blanck and co-founder of One Taste, Rob Kandell
For further reading on Ares Milligan AKA Ayries Blanck, read the following:
