In the thickets of Brooklyn, where real crimes go undetected, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Breon Peace, indicted two San Francisco women – the founder of OneTaste, Nicole Daedone, and her former sales manager, Rachel Cherwitz, for forced labor conspiracy.
Not forced labor. But forced labor conspiracy.
OneTaste, a San Francisco company, promotes itself as a wellness education company that sells classes for adults, typically held on weekends in event spaces. The company never taught classes in Brooklyn.
OneTaste opened in 2004, and 35,000 people have participated in its events. Some 16,000 have taken classes and workshops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Boulder, Las Vegas, London, and other locations. Over 1,400 people have gone through OneTaste’s coaching program, which is taught three days per month in LA, New York, or London.
Failed Conspiracy: Women Charged for 12 Years of Unsuccessful Forced Labor
In the indictment, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of NY (Brooklyn) alleges a 12-year scheme by Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz to conspire to commit forced labor – from 2006 to 2018.
The US Attorney admits this is not an ongoing conspiracy. The women – Daedone and Cherwitz – allegedly stopped conspiring in 2018, six years ago.
The US Attorney alleges, however, that for 12 years, the two conspired to force some or all of the 35,000 men and women who participated in a class to work for them under fear of serious harm or physical restraint.
He alleges Daedone and Cherwitz also conspired to force labor from the 16,000 who paid for a class and tried again with the 1400 who took the coaching course—an advanced course in OneTaste philosophy—and failed in every instance.
Two women tried for 12 years and failed.
Rachel Cherwitz and Nicole Daedone
No Victims, No Problem: Brooklyn US Attorney Charges Women with Forced Labor Conspiracy
The US Attorney in Brooklyn tried, too. His office tried for five years to find an actual victim of forced labor and failed.
So, he charged them with conspiracy to commit forced labor.
US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Breon Peace.
Like he said in his court filings:
“The instant case charges a conspiracy and not a substantive offense. The defendants could be proven guilty if they never forced any victim to do anything—so long as the evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt that they agreed to do so.”
The US Attorney in Brooklyn is the first and only US Attorney in America to charge anyone with just forced labor conspiracy and not forced labor or some other serious “substantive” crime.
Real Criminals Forced Labor, OneTaste Leaders Only Allegedly Conspired
Like Darnell Fulton of Louisiana, who not only conspired but also committed forced labor and sexual abuse of his stepchildren.
Lawrence Ray Press Conference
Or Lawrence Ray in New York, convicted of extortion, sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy, forced labor, money laundering, and tax evasion.
Or Keith Raniere, in Brooklyn, convicted of sex trafficking and racketeering, as well as forced labor conspiracy.
These men weren’t just conspiring. They got the job done.
Take Dan Zhong, the former head of US operations of Chinese Liaoning Rilin Construction Co. Ltd. and US-based subsidiaries, including U.S. Rilin, and a Chinese diplomat. A Brooklyn jury convicted him in 2019 on charges of conspiracy to provide forced labor, forced labor, concealing passports and immigration documents in connection with forced labor, conspiracy to commit alien smuggling, and conspiracy to commit visa fraud.
“Zhong forced his workers to work 14-hour days and live in cramped, unsafe conditions, with locks on the doors so they could not escape,” stated HSI Special Agent-in-Charge Fitzhugh.
(Why didn’t Daedone and Cherwitz think of locking the doors?)
Zhong talked about more than just making them work. He took their passports and told them, “Work, or you get deported,” and they worked.
Dan Zhong, the real McCoy.
Or the McReynolds clan:
Huong Thi McReynolds, Joseph Minh McReynolds, Vincent Minh McReynolds, and James Hartful McReynolds conspired and took action. They brought women to the United States by offering them marriage, forcing them to work in their homes and business – the ‘I do! I do!’ Wedding Boutique and Sweet Nothings Lingerie store, and never marrying them.
Kelly McReynolds was one of the women in the alleged plot to trick women into thinking a handsome McReynolds’ man would pop the question.
Or take Edk Kenit from Micronesia and his gal Choimina Lukas, who not only conspired but also used document servitude to force a 19-year-old girl to clean their house for 11 months. It did not take them 12 years to get it done. They conspired, brought her here, and had her working in a matter of weeks.
In Micronesia, they look at things differently.
And don’t forget Aroldo Rigoberto Castillo-Serrano, Pablo Duran Jr., Ana Angelica, Bruno Lopez-Zalas, Erica Maisonet, and Conrado Salgado Soto. The prosecutors charged them not just with forced labor conspiracy, but forced labor, and witness tampering.
These men and one woman did not just conspire. They did the needful. They recruited migrant workers, adults, and children, telling them they would have a better life in the US than in Guatemala.
After illegally bringing them across the border, they forced the workers to perform manual labor for 12 hours a day, six to seven days a week, with little to no pay. When they weren’t working, the laborers were held in trailers owned by Castillo-Serrano and his associates at Oakridge Estates in New Bloomington.
“The work included cleaning chicken coops, loading and unloading crates of chickens, de-beaking chickens and vaccinating chickens,” said Michael Tobin, spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office.
The work was done at farms owned by Trillium Farms, which had contracted their labor to Haba Corporate Services. Haba was affiliated with Rabbit Cleaning Services and Papagos, Inc. All three companies were owned by associates of Castillo-Serrano.
It did not take them 12 years to force people to de-beak chickens.
Castillo-Serrano made people clean chicken coups.
The same applies to Nagham Hassan Burgotti, Adam Mohammad Barguthi, Mohammad Arafeh Abuawad, Lowana Mohammad Huthaifa, and Ahmad Albarghuthi. These Jordanians conspired to obtain forced labor of victims and also forced those victims to labor.
Mohamed Toure and his wife, Denise Cros-Toure, kept a slave for 16 years, forcing her to labor. They got seven years.
It is the same with Mohamed Toure and his wife, Denise Cros-Toure, who conspired and then forced the labor of a woman for 16 years. Imagine if they only conspired for 12 years. The slave would have only worked for four years.
Or again, Alec and Mike Sou conspired, yes, and at Aloun Farms in Hawaii they obtained forced labor from 44 Thai nationals.
And they grew such nice cabbage too.
The list goes on.
Maximino Mondragon, Walter Corea, Victor Omar Lopez, Oscar Mondragon, and Olga Mondragon conspired to force the labor of young Central American women they smuggled into the United States, and they also forced them to labor in bars and cantinas in Houston, Texas.
And don’t forget the woman, Dr. Elnora Calimlim, and her husband, Dr. Jefferson Calimlim. The couple were charged with both forced labor conspiracy and forced labor when they forced a woman to work for them as a domestic for 19 years in Wisconsin.
Elnora and Jefferson Calimlim got six years.
So it is always the same. Women might be involved in conspiring, but it’s always the men who get the crime done.
But up in Brooklyn, the US Attorney charged two women with conspiracy to commit forced labor, but no forced labor charge. They never pulled it off in 12 years – with one year the hard way – since they only knew each other for 11 years of their hapless conspiracy.
And yes, sometimes prosecutors make mistakes.
Prosecutorial Missteps: OneTaste Case Echoes False Forced Labor Claims
Consider the US Attorney who charged Dr. Riyaz Mazcuria, a Texas psychiatrist, along with Sanja Khimani, Rashmikant Patel, and Mehmood Dhanani with forced labor conspiracy, forced labor, and organizing a human trafficking organization.
Dr. Riyaz Mazcuria, a Texas psychiatrist
The federal indictment said they hired female dancers in India, whom they told would perform cultural programs in the United States. Prosecutors alleged that when they got to the US, the men forced the women to dance in nightclubs in front of men for 14 hours per night, seven nights a week. Their forced labor included prostitution. The men would force the women to perform by confiscating their passports and threatening them with violence.
However, as they will probably have to do sooner or later in the Daedone-Cherwitz case, the prosecutors had to drop the case.
The prosecutors admitted in a press statement:
“We have recently learned additional facts that call into question certain information that had been relied upon at the time of the indictment and that undermine the credibility of witnesses the Government had expected to call at trial. “
Yeah, in other words, “the witnesses lied.”
The Government went on:
“Based on a review of the evidence in the case and information acquired subsequent to the filing of the Indictment, the Government has concluded that further prosecution of SABJA KHIMANI, RIYAZ MAZCURI, a/k/a “The Doctor,” RASHMIKANT PATEL, and MEHMOOD HASSANALI DHANANI, a/k/a “Sam,” a/k/a “Mehmoob,” the defendants, would not be in the interests of justice.”
Indict them. Give them nicknames. Ruin their lives, then investigate and find out it is all bullshit.
But never apologize.
How about saying, “We deeply regret falsely arresting these men, seizing their assets, ruining their careers, and placing them in terror of life in prison for our failure to investigate the bullshit claims of some disgruntled liars.”
The prosecutors dropped the case not because the defendants were innocent but because the defendants could prove their innocence.
We have a justice department incentivized by conviction stats and the recklessness that comes with no fear of making a mistake since being a prosecutor means never having to say you’re sorry.
Prosecutors can make a weasel statement like: “We have recently learned additional facts that call into question certain information that had been relied upon at the time of the indictment…” and the media does not take them to task.
And lives are ruined with sloppiness.
Like in the case of US v Daedone and Cherwitz.
