Brooklyn, N.Y. — Inside the Eastern District courtroom on May 28, 2025, the DOJ assembled Kayla Bensing, Kaitlin Farrell, Nina Gupta, and Sean Fern.
Judge Diane Gujarati presided.
For the defense were Celia Cohen, Michael Robotti, Kelly Lin, Schuyler Lebarge, Richard Hobbs, and Kelly Lenahan-Pfahlert — for Rachel Cherwitz.
Representing Nicole Daedone were Jennifer Bonjean, Kelsey Killion, and Ashley Cohen.
Nicole and Rachel sat quiet. But everything was moving. It was a Wednesday. The show had already been going on for several minutes if not an hour or maybe an hour and a half, it’s hard to say for the government was running long when they called the next witness.
(Left-Right) Jennifer Bonjean, attorney for Nicole Daedone, Rachel Cherwitz, and Celia Cohen, attorney for Cherwitz.
Enter a Witness to Read His Texts
The government called Kenneth Saul Blackman to the stand. A former OneTaste instructor. Blackman was sworn in and questioned by prosecutor Nina Gupta and it appears he read old texts between him and Nicole and Rachel Cherwitz, the defendants.
Blackman testified – or rather his texts showed – that Nicole Daedone once directed Alisha Price, Michelle Wright, and Madelyn Carl – three women within their community – to engage in sexual acts with Reese Jones, her romantic partner and an investor in OneTaste.
Oh, there a rustle of paper, the heavy breath of shocked prosecutors rifling through time-stamped proof. A photo. A rooftop. A house on Russian Hill.
“You stayed there?”
“I did,” he said. “Nicole lived there too.”
A courtroom, yes. But the ghosts of choices past were speaking through Blackman now.
Reese Jones. “He was her boyfriend,” Ken said, meaning Nicole’s.
It came down to this: a witness reading texts from 2011 to explain a sex triangle.
“Stroked Every Day”
Blackman read from a 2011 text exchange with Daedone in which they discussed “stroking” – the stroking of Reese Jones—defined by Blackman as a handjob.
Nicole had replied, “Make sure Reese gets stroked every day.”
Blackman read his own texts.
“Yia was kissing Kenan. Now she’s kissing Robin. Now they’re closing the door.”
Yia’s kiss, Maddie’s hand. Reese’s daily “stroke.” This is what it’s come to. The DOJ is now reading 14-year-old texts” to prove a labor conspiracy.
They joked. They flirted. They consented. There was worse to follow:
Maddie and Michelle—were scheduled to “cook.”
So here we are reading text messages in a courtroom. This one’s about dinner.
“Are you going to be at the house all day?”
“No, but flexible. What do you need?”
Two women coming over to cook dinner, and it’s forced labor.
Russian Hill Crime Scene
Imagine a quiet hillside home in San Francisco. A man named Reese lives there. Women come and go. They cook. They clean. They flirt. They stroke.
Now imagine the federal government insists this is not friendship, not choice—but conspiracy.
A house on Russian Hill, and in that house lived men and women who—according to the U.S. Government—were not lovers but laborers; though their bodies were free — their brains were forced to go.
Nicole sent a text: “How is the house?”
Ken answered “Big influx of energy… Alisha’s doing great. Michelle’s a bit shaky after stroking Reese … Maddie is getting cracked open.”
You’ve got the Department of Justice trying to regulate handjobs. Next Gupta will prosecute OSHA violations for fingering.
A man replying with talk of tears and handjobs and personal growth. You’re not in a bedroom. You’re not in a kitchen. You’re in a federal courtroom.
Gupta is prosecuting like it’s a cartel.
The 2009 Text Fight
Ken Blackman wanted a smaller class.
There were text messages between Blackman and Cherwitz about class enrollment at OneTaste in 2009 – 16 years ago.
Blackman, the instructor, resisted expanding the roster, citing course quality and intimacy. Cherwitz, in her sales role, pushed for additional enrollment. The messages filled with minor hurt, large egos,
“I’ll ask them to leave,” Ken wrote.
“Your approach is disgusting,” Rachel shot back.
Ken didn’t want more. Fourteen was enough. Rachel said there were more who wanted in. Rachel called him childish. He called her hostile. Nobody died. Nobody even swore.
And now, six thousand days later, prosecutor Gupta reads their argument like it’s a smoking gun.
This is the federal case?
There are bigger crimes in a kindergarten sandbox.
But Gupta’s reading Cherwitz’s side of the texts like it’s the Pentagon Papers. This is the case the DOJ brought. A text fight over three extra seats.
Rachel Cherwitz wanted a larger class.
But it continued. Gupta playing Rachel, reading old texts.
Rachel had barked. Ken had bristled. Nicole had instructed: Do what Rachel wants.
Gupta and Blackman, reading aloud the detritus of old ambition, fragments of long-forgotten text threads.
Gupta read as if she was Yia Vang, “Is there a backup?”
“Aubrey would be good,” Ken replied reading his text of yesteryear like it’s code for war.
But it was just a guy named Mark, missing his OM partner. Just a woman named Maddie, out of town.
The $27,000 Scandal
Then Gupta turned to finance, introducing evidence tying Reese Jones, Nicole’s boyfriend, to OneTaste’s finances. A text exchange with Cherwitz referenced a “money game” intended to repay $27,000 by July.
She wrote, “Go team, go.” That was the rallying cry. Not for justice, not for crime, but for a $27,000 deadline and a coaching intensive. They needed five people at $5,000 apiece.
It wasn’t sex trafficking. It was sales. Cherwitz wasn’t the madam of a brothel. She was the head of sales.
Reese, the boyfriend, the investor, had to be repaid. And so she texted: “Let’s go get them.”
A “money game”? Not a mortgage, not a line of credit, not a revenue strategy. A money game.
And Reese? He got $27K back with a text that ended “XO.”
That’s not fraud.
No Paperwork, No Problem—Until It’s Prosecuted
Gupta was warming up. She entered into evidence a text message in which Daedone informed Blackman she had invited a student to invest without a formal contract.
Ken replied: “Okay.”
It was Justine who actually asked Benjamin for money. Nobody got hurt. Nobody cried. Nobody said no.
Gupta didn’t understand how real people build things. A woman asking a guy for $300,000—with no paperwork—and suddenly that’s a federal case? We used to call that “Angel investing.”
You want to arrest somebody? Try Wall Street.
Daedone didn’t hide what she was doing. She texted about a $300,000 investment like most people text about lunch. Not a scam. Not a scheme. A handshake.
In a federal court, conspiracy.
Tony Hsieh, Las Vegas, and What Could Have Been
Gupta also elicited testimony about recruiting efforts in Las Vegas, targeting Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, a known patron of experimental ventures. Blackman went to Las Vegas to meet Hsieh.
OneTaste was a business. It had clients. It had a pitch. It had visionary language and, personal entanglements.
Tony Hsieh never bit. But if he had? This case might not exist.
And so the DOJ marches on. Fourteen-year-old texts. Consent redefined as coercion. Sales recast as slavery.
If you start a business, you better never text, never ask, never dream.
And never say “Go team, go.”
That’s not coaching. That’s a crime.
