Key points
- On September 25, 2026, Professor Eugene Volokh and Matt Kezhaya filed an amicus curiae brief in the Second Circuit in United States v. Cherwitz, the appeal of Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz.
- Volokh argues that the government's theory of "spiritual coercion" violates the Free Exercise Clause, and that the government put the legitimacy of OneTaste's spiritual beliefs on trial.
- He asks the Second Circuit to vacate the convictions and dismiss.
- Read the full brief (PDF).
On September 25, 2026, Professor Eugene Volokh, one of the country's leading First Amendment scholars, filed an amicus curiae brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the appeal of Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz. He wrote it with attorney Matt Kezhaya of Kezhaya Law PLC.
The brief opens:
"Under the Government's theory of spiritual coercion, people who at one point believed that volunteering for a religious organization is the path to enlightenment or salvation, but who later become disillusioned with their former beliefs, can be found to have been retroactively 'coerced' into providing that labor. The same logic could apply to nuns who had felt religious pressure to do the educational or nursing work that their order was known for, or to monks who had felt religious pressure to do agricultural work that supports the monastery. Any religious organization that runs a monastery, convent, or any other institution where adherents are expected to work as part of their religious vocation could likewise face felony prosecutions." (Br. at 6.)
Background: the OneTaste prosecution of Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz
OneTaste is an educational company that teaches Orgasmic Meditation (OM), a mindfulness practice. Alongside the company is a spiritual and philosophical practice community of people who practice OM, documented by the World Religions and Spirituality Project. In 2023, federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York charged two of OneTaste's former leaders, Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz, with a single count: conspiracy to commit forced labor under 18 U.S.C. § 1594. No substantive forced labor offense was charged, and no physical force was alleged. The government's theory was that "brainwashing," "gaslighting," "lovebombing," and similar hazy psychological terms amounted to a scheme to force labor. The government tied this to the defendants' religious and spiritual beliefs that are derived from staples of Buddhism such as the notion of aversion. That what you avoid can cause as much suffering as what you grasp for and you can find liberation in consciously facing both. Its own witnesses were nine college-educated adults of a total of 35,000 in-person participants who testified that they joined voluntarily and were free to leave.
A jury convicted both women in June 2025 after a five-week trial. They were sentenced on March 30, 2026, and appealed to the Second Circuit, where the appeals are docketed as Nos. 26-943 and 26-944. They are represented on appeal by Alexandra Shapiro of Shapiro Arato Bach LLP. It is the first federal criminal conviction premised on psychological coercion alone as the mechanism of a forced labor conspiracy. The appeal asks whether that theory can stand under the forced labor statute and under the First Amendment's guarantees of free speech and religious freedom.
The government put belief on trial
Volokh's argument is that the government's case was built on religious belief itself. Its theory relied on the idea that people were influenced by spiritual teachings and by their attachment to a spiritual community, and it treated those forces as criminal coercion:
"Liability in this case turned precisely on the religious nature of the allegedly coercive conduct, and was imposed in the absence of any secular coercion such as violence or the threat of violence." (Br. at 6.)
The government told the jury that the essence of the charge was that "the defendants indoctrinated the victims to believe that Nicole Daedone was a guru and that her teachings were the path to enlightenment and spiritual growth." (Br. at 10.) Volokh's answer:
"The complained-of 'indoctrination' and 'teachings' is the very essence of religion: leading adherents to accept doctrines as spiritual truths." (Br. at 10.)
On that theory, the ordinary features of a committed religious life become a felony. Living in community becomes isolation. Volunteering becomes unpaid labor. Devotion becomes dependence. Volokh points out how much of religious life the government's theory reaches:
"By definition, any follower of any monastic tradition could be described as having their personal relationships 'disrupted' or becoming 'isolated' from their less committed friends and family." (Br. at 12.)
"Many Christians preach eternal damnation without Christ. Buddhists preach eternal suffering without dharma. Latter-day Saints encourage extensive participation in church callings, missionary service, and a tightly integrated congregational life. Countless religious traditions promise spiritual fulfillment, enlightenment, or eternal happiness through faithful adherence to their beliefs and practices." (Br. at 14.)
"If each of us are to be entrusted with the right to enter and exit our chosen religions at will, then each of us must also accept the risk that our chosen religions may cause us to donate time, money, or goods." (Br. at 14.)
The people the government called victims "freely admitted that they voluntarily joined the organization," and "freely admitted that they voluntarily left it." (Br. at 11.) They "knew full well that their services would be unpaid, and they still chose to volunteer their efforts." (Br. at 12.)
"The Government simply cannot put the legitimacy of religious or spiritual ideas on trial." (Br. at 18.)
Who is Eugene Volokh?
Eugene Volokh is the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus at UCLA School of Law and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He was born in Kyiv in 1968 and came to the United States with his family at 7. By 12 he was working as a professional computer programmer and had entered UCLA. He graduated with a degree in mathematics and computer science at 15, and worked as a programmer before law school.
After law school at UCLA, he clerked for Judge Alex Kozinski on the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. UCLA hired him as a law professor in 1994, at 26, and he taught there for thirty years.
He is one of the most-cited legal academics in the United States. HeinOnline's 2026 Scholarly Impact Rankings place him among the thirty most-cited authors in American legal academia, and courts have cited his work in more than three hundred opinions. He wrote the casebook The First Amendment and Related Statutes and the standard guide Academic Legal Writing, and founded UCLA's First Amendment Amicus Brief Clinic. In 2002 he founded The Volokh Conspiracy, now hosted at Reason (and previously hosted on the Washington Post), which is read daily by judges, law clerks, appellate lawyers, and legal academics.
The Mischaracterization of OneTaste
OneTaste's teachings were spiritual teachings, and everyone at trial knew it. Volokh draws them from the trial record in the words of the people who held them:
"'We believed that … your path to God was through your orgasm.'" (Br. at 9, quoting A-977.)
"OneTaste's doctrines addressed distinctions between the physical and spiritual realms in a dichotomy between the 'third dimension' and the 'fourth dimension.' They addressed issues of worldly suffering and promised both enlightenment and transcendence through ceremonial rites." (Br. at 9.)
Orgasmic Meditation, or OMing, is a practice "which adherents of OneTaste regard as a mindfulness practice, a 'meditation on sensation without a goal.'" (Br. at 10.) One of the government's own witnesses described her time living in OneTaste's community as "one of the greatest experiences of my life." (Br. at 11–12.)
The prosecution took that spiritual vocabulary and recast it as the language of indoctrination. Volokh restores what the words meant, and identifies what the government did with them:
"She emphasized the specialized use of words or phrases 'TurnON' (which seemed [synonymous] with the yoga phrase 'state of flow'), 'muggles' (meaning non-adherents of OneTaste), 'matrix' (referring to 'my fake reality of problems'), and 'tumescence' (in the specialized spiritual sense of 'bad energy that you were holding onto'), and the dichotomy between the 'third dimension' (the 'concrete world') and the 'fourth dimension' ('the higher plane'), and asserted these words or phrases were being used to 'indoctrinate the victims.' ... This argument directly invited the jury to judge unfamiliar or strange religious concepts as proof of religious illegitimacy, which neither prosecutors nor jurors may do." (Br. at 15–16.)
Note: In fact, the term "muggles" was not meant to refer to people who did not participate in OneTaste, but to people who lacked a certain ability to see the magic in life. People with this ability to see life as play could be found in all domains. It was not attached to participation at OneTaste, though OneTaste's programs are aimed at developing these faculties, which all have.
"Religions routinely use specialized phrasing like 'saved,' 'possessed,' 'called,' or 'enlightened,' which may appear unacceptable or incomprehensible to outsiders. That strangeness does not deprive OneTaste of First Amendment protections and certainly cannot underlie a felony criminal conviction, especially when the phrasing refers to spiritual or transcendental concepts." (Br. at 16.)
The prosecution called OneTaste a "sex cult," a label Volokh describes as "inherently pejorative," used "with the impermissible goal of suggesting the illegitimacy of a particular set of religious beliefs and practices." (Br. at 17.) It told the jury that OMing was not "actually spiritual," and that the defendants "connected OMing to spirituality for legal protection." (Br. at 17.) Volokh:
"But what forms of meditation are 'actually' spiritual and what are just 'so-called' spiritual is not for secular courts to decide." (Br. at 17.)
Sex was beside the point
The government made much of the sexual nature of OneTaste's beliefs and practices. Volokh sets it aside:
"The sexual subject matter and conduct inherent within OneTaste's beliefs and practices is beside the point. The forced labor statute is not limited to sexual labor. 18 U.S.C. § 1589. Rather, it generally prohibits any 'labor' obtained through 'threats of serious harm.' 18 U.S.C. § 1589(a)(3). Indeed, the 'labor' subject of this charge was ordinary, non-sexual administrative work entailed in running a religious organization that features events and communal living." (Br. at 7.)
The government never disputed that the beliefs were religious
The government did not contest that OneTaste's beliefs were religious, or that the company and the witnesses held them. It relied on it:
"And the Government did not seriously contest OneTaste's religiosity; instead, it acknowledged, and even stressed, the spiritual and religious nature of OneTaste's activities." (Br. at 10.)
"That these supposed victims ordered their lives in accordance with OneTaste's beliefs and practices is evidence of spiritual and religious belief, not of criminally punishable coercion." (Br. at 10–11.)
The jury was never instructed on the First Amendment:
"The District Court even warned defense counsel against referencing Defendants' First Amendment rights: 'I'm not going to let you instruct the jury or even come close to instructing the jury on the First Amendment.'" (Br. at 18 (citation omitted).)
Volokh closes with the Supreme Court's warning in United States v. Ballard:
"If one could be sent to jail because a jury in a hostile environment found those teachings to be false, little indeed would be left of religious freedom." (Br. at 19, quoting United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78, 87 (1944).)
Vacate and dismiss
"Because the Government's theory of coercion rested in part on 'indoctrination' into religious and spiritual beliefs and threats of excommunication from a religious and spiritual community, these criminal convictions cannot withstand Free Exercise Clause scrutiny. WHEREFORE the Court should vacate the convictions and dismiss." (Br. at 21.)
Frequently asked questions
Who filed the brief? Professor Eugene Volokh, the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus at UCLA School of Law and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, with attorney Matt Kezhaya of Kezhaya Law PLC.
What is OneTaste? OneTaste is an educational company that teaches Orgasmic Meditation (OM), a mindfulness practice. Alongside the company is a spiritual and philosophical practice community of people who practice OM. Volokh's brief treats its beliefs and practices as religious, and records that the government "did not seriously contest OneTaste's religiosity."
What were Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz convicted of? A single count of conspiracy to commit forced labor under 18 U.S.C. § 1594, in the Eastern District of New York, in June 2025. No substantive forced labor offense was charged, and no physical force was alleged.
What is the status of the OneTaste appeal? The appeals are pending in the Second Circuit as Nos. 26-943 and 26-944. Volokh filed his amicus brief on September 25, 2026.
What case is it in? United States v. Cherwitz, Nos. 26-943, 26-944 (2d Cir.), the appeal of Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz from their convictions in the Eastern District of New York.
What does it argue? That the government's theory of "spiritual coercion" violates the Free Exercise Clause, because liability "turned precisely on the religious nature of the allegedly coercive conduct," and that the trial put the legitimacy of OneTaste's spiritual beliefs before the jury.
What does it ask for? That the Second Circuit vacate the convictions and dismiss.
Case information
- Appeal: United States v. Cherwitz et al., Nos. 26-943, 26-944 (2d Cir.)
- Brief: Amicus Curiae Brief for Eugene Volokh, filed September 25, 2026 (Dkt. 56.1 in No. 26-943; Dkt. 29.1 in No. 26-944) (PDF)
- Counsel for amicus: Matt Kezhaya, Kezhaya Law PLC
- Counsel for Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz on appeal: Alexandra Shapiro, Shapiro Arato Bach LLP
Sources
- Amicus Curiae Brief for Eugene Volokh, United States v. Cherwitz, Nos. 26-943, 26-944 (2d Cir. Sept. 25, 2026) (PDF)
- Eugene Volokh, faculty profile, UCLA School of Law
- Eugene Volokh, profile, Hoover Institution
- The Volokh Conspiracy, Reason
- Kezhaya Law PLC
- Shapiro Arato Bach LLP
- OneTaste, World Religions and Spirituality Project
- United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78 (1944)
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