Prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York Failed Today to Convince a Los Angeles Judge to Stay and Seal a Key Civil Fraud Case Brought by the Company
LOS ANGELES, CA (July 19, 2023) — A Los Angeles Superior Court judge this morning rejected a request by federal prosecutors to halt proceedings in a California civil case brought late last year by the wellness company OneTaste against a former employee accused of fabricating negative stories about the company.
The suit was filed in October 2022 against a former employee the company accuses of engaging in a campaign of false allegations, which sparked a series of negative media articles, culminating in a decision by federal prosecutors last month to indict OneTaste’s founder, Nicole Daedone, and its former head of sales, Rachel Cherwitz.
Federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York (EDNY) took the unusual step of seeking to intervene in OneTaste’s suit against former participant Ayries Blanck and to seal all publicly available material related to the suit from further public scrutiny. The prosecutors also sought to block OneTaste from taking the former employee’s deposition and from pursuing other discovery that would require her to answer questions under oath.
EDNY prosecutors argued over a video link to the Los Angeles courtroom this morning that Ms. Blanck might be a potential witness as their own case against former OneTaste Founder Nicole Daedone and former OneTaste head of sales Rachel Cherwitz unfolds in the Federal courthouse in Brooklyn. Daedone and Cherwitz were charged by the EDNY in June with one count of “forced labor.”
In OneTaste’s view, as presented by chief lawyer Ed McPherson to the LA court this morning, a designation of “potential witness” doesn’t pass the legal applicability test to grind a civil case on the other side of the country to a complete halt, most especially a case that will have such an existentially profound effect on the ability of OneTaste to recover from a long series of false media reports, and get its core business off the ground under the stewardship of an ownership team that acquired the organization in 2017.
The court agreed with OneTaste’s position in full after just 45 minutes of argument.
The judge honed in on the fact that the prosecutors are not supposed to be playing hide the ball,
McPherson said at the hearing’s conclusion.
Rather, in relation to what they are trying to accomplish in Brooklyn, they are supposed to be absolutely forthright with the defense about who their witnesses are and what the evidence is to be applied to their criminal case.
They haven’t been forthright, even with OneTaste giving them more and more evidence over an extended period of time that was presented to disprove everything the EDNY has been investigating for the past five years.
So today, the judge carefully considered everything that both sides said, and he quickly came to the conclusion that, ultimately, the Government didn’t have much of an argument. As is posted on his courtroom wall for all to see, ‘Litigation is not poker. Show your cards.’ They didn’t have a hand to play today.
McPherson continued:
Now, we start our discovery, we take Ayries Blanck’s deposition, we take other depositions, and we prove our case that Ayries Blanck fraudulently entered into an agreement, and then she violated the terms of the agreement, disclosing confidential information over a lengthy period of time, and she disparaged OneTaste continually through the media.
OneTaste CEO Anjuli Ayer, speaking after today’s triumph in Los Angeles, said:
Because of the false allegations leveled at OneTaste by Ayries Blanck, it has been so much more of an uphill battle to preserve the company.
I acquired an ownership interest in OneTaste in 2017, long before a wave of accusations against us hit the media. Let’s start with the basics. My business partners and I thoroughly and painstakingly conducted a due diligence review of OneTaste prior to our acquisition of the company. I can say if we had found anything even remotely negative about the finances, the operation or the reputation of the company, we wouldn’t have moved forward.
I was fully confident in the legitimacy of the company I was investing in. That has not changed. I was fully confident we could expand the reach of OneTaste and that we could continue to bring the practice of OM to as many people as possible at little to no cost. What people won’t tell you is that at least 80 percent of OneTaste events were either free or $10, that OneTaste invested heavily in free education like instructional videos on YouTube, and that chunks of revenue were turned over to fund rigorous science to validate the benefits of Orgasmic Meditation (OM).
I am confident that the Court’s ruling today prohibiting the federal government from stymying our litigation will allow OneTaste to expose the baselessness of Ms. Blanck’s accusations as well as her illicit motives. We are simply not afraid of the truth, and once exposed, I am confident OneTaste will flourish. We have nothing to hide. We never did.
The case numbered 22STCV33093 in the Superior Court of Los Angeles will now proceed absent further impediment. It is expected that Ms. Blanck could be deposed by OneTaste’s lawyers as soon as next month.
OneTaste is a wellness and education company formed to promote women’s empowerment and to support the practice of Orgasmic Meditation (OM).
Ian Christopher McCaleb
Blue Highway Advisory
[email protected]
Juda Englemayer
Herald PR
[email protected]
