May 8, 2025 – On day four of the trial of US versus Cherwitz and Daedone, after lengthy discussions about what documents and videos the defense could and could not bring in as evidence, defense lawyer Celia Cohen cross-examined the government’s first witness Rebecca Halpern.
On the stand Halpern had testified about the abuses, brainwashing, manipulation, emotional distress, and financial distress that she experienced at the hands of defendant Rachel Cherwitz of Onetaste. Under cross-examination, her answers revealed a very different story.
Cohen started the cross by reminding the witness of her performance family background and her love of acting. The irony was not lost on the jury.
She went through a document Halpern had filled out listing her desires and how she wanted to grown before taking the OneTaste coaching program. She mentioned that she was manipulative, that she was an “attention whore” and that she wanted to be a famous pop star so that she could tell the entire world about Orgasmic Meditation. In the same document she also wrote she wanted to be like Rachel Cherwitz.
Cohen pointed out that Halpern dated multiple men right after Cherwitz had dated or been interested in them. The women had a lot of jealousy and competition. When Cohen asked would you say you wanted to be like Rachel?, Halpern said yes.
Reading her goodbye note to Cherwitz when she moved from New York to San Francisco, Halpern started crying in the courtroom. She was visibly moved and shaken, recollecting the love she had felt from her “family” at the time.
It was clear she missed these people and that she missed the experience that she felt a deep love for them. This is the exact opposite of her testimony the day prior, where she had called these some of her darkest times and said how distraught she was.
In direct examination the prior day, she had told a harrowing tale of being shunned by the entire community of Orgasmic Meditation practitioners in New York, that Rachel made everyone stop talking to her. Yet in cross-examination she cried again at the description of how she was welcomed by the San Francisco team, who got her favorite food, played her favorite songs, and held a welcome party for her. She confirmed that people from OneTaste, even after she left, texted with her, commented on her social media posts, sent her happy birthdays, and that she hung out with them after leaving. This disproved what she had said that the prior day about being shunned.
The prior day she had talked about moving into the Morillino house, a community house with other practitioners of Orgasmic Meditation. She had shared how everyone was forced to share beds, live together and never had alone time. She said that they had to be on a schedule, had to go to yoga and made it sound like she was forced against her will to live this way. Today Cohen went through the handbook for the house which outlined personal responsibility agreements to practices, including yoga and other events, all things Halpern had willingly signed up for in her application to the house, knowing that these were the expectations. She was clear on the reasons behind these practices, which were all for growth, something she desperately wanted. Halpern admitted that she knew there were shared rooms and shared beds and voluntarily chose that. She had her own apartment at the time she willingly left to have that experience she had a job working for her father at the time she willingly quit to work for OneTaste even for less pay because she wanted the experience so badly and wanted to be pushed to her edges.
Cohen showed a photo of Halpern suggestively lying on a bed with two co-workers to counter the allegation that Cherwitz had forced her to have a makeout with one of them against her will.
The prosecutors had shown a photo of Halpern and three women to depict them as sexy, and Cohen showed that it was actually a still from a video they had made of them awkwardly, sweetly singing. Halpern was joyfully embarrassed in the courtroom and even the judge cracked a smile.
There were many details that the defense brought up as well in cross examination, for example the prior day Halpern had made a big deal of the $12K course she was she had purchased which she said put her in debt to OneTaste. In cross-examination it came out that she got a $5,000 discount on that course, and that signing up for that course had prompted her to get resourceful and find places she could cut expenses to get what she wanted.
