On April 3, 2023, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York filed indictment 1:23-cr-00146 in the clerk’s office of the US District Court in Brooklyn. When I read Indictment 1:23-cr-00146, I thought a grave had opened, and Franz Kafka had come out with a new work.
I confess I have never seen anything like it. What makes this indictment incredible is not the alleged conduct of the defendants—Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz—or their company, OneTaste, but that the government brought charges without informing the defendants what they are alleged to have done. To date, this salient fact has eluded detection by the media. However, a careful reading of the indictment makes it clear that no one can determine what Daedone and Cherwitz allegedly did. The indictment charges the defendants with forced labor conspiracy. Daedone and Cherwitz each face a maximum sentence of 20 years if convicted. But nowhere in indictment 1:23-cr-00146 does the government identify how the defendants conspired to force anyone to labor, what labor the “victims” did, or when they did it. Assistant US Attorneys Gillian Kassner, Devon Lash, and Jonathan Siegel wrote this masterpiece of obfuscation and are in charge of the prosecution. To date, they have not told the defense who the “victims” are or even how many there are. Indictment 1:23-cr-00146 is over a year old, and the trial is tentatively scheduled for nine months from now. Trials take a lot of preparation.
US Attorney Breon Peace
As of now, US Attorney Peace has gamboled into a world where the government, if left uncorralled, can charge a citizen with a secret crime, secret not only to the public, but also to the defendant. Kafka wrote “The Trial” more than 100 years ago, a novel about a man arrested by unknown agents for an unspecified crime. A profoundly influential work, “The Trial,” portended a creeping totalitarian injustice. Indictment 1:23-cr-00146 tries to take Kafka’s vision to the realm of nonfiction. Let me be clear. In this unique indictment, the US Attorney will not disclose to Daedone and Cherwitz who they forced into labor, how many were forced, when they forced them, what labor the unknown “victim” or “victims” were forced to do, or even how they forced them.
Rachel Cherwitz
A federal indictment usually destroys the life of anyone indicted. Daedone’s money has been seized; both women are limited in their ability to travel. Daedone, at 57, faces a virtual life sentence, and Cherwitz, at 44, could see her entire future unravel.
Nicole Daedone
Yes, you can argue, that the defendants do not need to be told what they did. They know what they did and to whom. This is the argument of the prosecutors and it requires a presumption of guilt. Suppose we presume Daedone and Cherwitz are innocent. How would they know what, in the universe of things they did not do, what the prosecutors plan to claim they did? What do they defend against if they are innocent? As a touch of irony, the judge ordered that Daedone and Cherwitz could not speak to each other, creating an additional obstacle in their attempts to determine what on earth the prosecution alleges they have done. Granted, indictment 1:23-cr-001 may be persuasive to those who read it cursorily. The incessant recitation of conclusory allegations without a single substantive detail might persuade the gullible stenographers who often pass as reporters in the mainstream media. To me, it reads more like the prosecutors have no case. Indeed, the US Attorney has taken to advertising for victims after the indictment. And we offer his ad here in this space:
“If you believe you are or may be a victim in this case, please call the FBI New York’s main line at 212-384-5000.”
We have no idea if anyone has called. Based on the language of the indictment, we cannot be entirely sure that there were any victims before the indictment. The prosecutors may have adopted a variation of the developer’s credo – “build it and they will come,” with “indict them and victims will come.” What else can we deduce when the defendants have to make a motion before the judge to compel the prosecutors to do what all good prosecutors do without being forced – tell the defendant what they did and who they did it to? US District Judge Diane Gujarati will hear the defense’s motion in early May. The US Attorney and his team have brusquely argued they need not tell the presumptive guilty defendants until literally hours before the trial. If they want to know sooner, they can always read or watch the media reports that predate the indictment. Outrageous statements like these make one suspect that they’re talking about things of which they don’t have the slightest understanding, and it’s only because of their stupidity that they’re able to be so sure of themselves. They may not have a single victim. If they did, where is he or she? If there were victims wouldn’t the prosecutors want to disclose them to induce the defendants to take a plea deal? Those with a smidgen of discernment will see indictment 1:23-cr-001 for what it is or rather what it isn’t: It isn’t anything. It doesn’t say anything. But the fact of the indictment itself may be more than enough in the Kafkaesque world of Brooklyn. Let me therefore give the defendants some advice: Don’t make a fuss before the prosecutors, or the media, about how innocent you feel. They are very comfortable among themselves. They think you are guilty. At least they think your guilt will be proven. “But I’m not guilty,” says the defendant, “it’s a mistake.” “Oh that’s the way guilty people talk,” they will say. Indictment 1:23-cr-00146 suggests that the prosecutors in Brooklyn believe it is an essential part of the system that a citizen should be indicted not only in innocence but in ignorance. And for some prosecutors, it is not necessary for an indictment to be true. The defendant must only accept it as necessary that prosecutors must indict the innocent along with the guilty because they need convictions. They never expect to go to trial and rarely do. They expect the innocent and the guilty to take a plea deal. “A melancholy conclusion,” Kafka wrote more than 100 years ago. “It turns lying into a universal principle.” If the prosecutors had any true victims, I believe they would have filed Indictment 1:23-cr-00146 with specific conduct of forced labor, even if they had to use John or Jane Doe, or victims identified by numbers to protect their anonymity from the public (not from the defense). They would want to do this to avoid the humiliation of filing such a vacuous indictment as 1:23-cr-00146. Stay tuned for the next post in our series on the indictment of Daedone and Cherwitz. See also https://frankreport.com/2024/04/21/feds-cant-stroke-up-evidence-in-onetaste-case/
