The anti-cult movement needed a “legal precedent” to reintroduce the discredited idea that “cults” use “mental manipulation.”
by Massimo Introvigne
Article 2 of 2. Read article 1.
In the first article of this series, we saw how the FBI, after the Waco debacle, became suspicious of anti-cult theories and started working with academic experts of new religious movements, who rejected the “cult brainwashing” hypothesis.
But the FBI and State Department units dealing with trafficking in the twenty-first century were different from those handling violent groups. They had no institutional memory of Waco and became fascinated by the idea that “cults” engaged in trafficking—a notion that, as in Argentina, conveniently expanded their jurisdiction.
By the mid-2010s, Steven Hassan’s influence had seeped into U.S. federal training programs. In 2014, he presented a human-trafficking training at the Joint Regional Intelligence Organization, a DHS-FBI partnership. In 2015, the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin cited his BITE Model—dismissed by scholars as a crude resurrection of Singer’s discredited theories—in an article titled “A Victim-Centered Approach to Sex Trafficking Cases,” effectively embedding it in FBI training materials. In 2018, he presented “Stop the Game to Stop Trafficking in Persons” for the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons office. In 2021, he addressed the Labor Trafficking Subcommittee of the Los Angeles Regional Human Trafficking Task Force, a joint initiative of the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and the Department of Justice.
Paul Chang, the Department of Labor’s Federal Human Trafficking Coordinator, confirmed on Hassan’s podcast in 2023 that Hassan’s coercion framework had been adopted in Department of Justice and Department of Labor trainings and applied specifically to religious organizations. “People don’t normally think that if you are being trafficked in a religious organization, that you are potentially labor trafficked in many cases. But this is actually not unique, and it happens more often than you think.” He added: “And this grooming stage is very important… the best way to explain this is through the BITE model… this has been very useful for understanding the grooming process of human trafficking victims as well.”
Although U.S. trafficking law is more respectful of international conventions than Argentina’s, it still opens a door to brainwashing theories that anti-cultists have been eager to exploit. In “United States v. Kozminski” (1988), the Supreme Court held that involuntary servitude required physical or legal coercion and explicitly declined to extend the statute to psychological coercion alone, warning that doing so could criminalize ordinary religious, social, and economic relationships and raise serious First Amendment concerns. Congress amended the law in 2000 through the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, adding “psychological means” as a basis for forced-labor charges. But the legislative history shows that Congress intended to target specific, identifiable threats—such as deportation or legal action—rather than vague environmental influences.
Anti-cultists were slow to recognize the potential of the trafficking law, but they have now embraced it enthusiastically. Several cases are pending in the United States, including a 2025 lawsuit against an ecumenical Christian group, the Community of Jesus, in Massachusetts. Another began in 2021 with media accusations of trafficking and slave labor against the Hindu organization BAPS during the construction of its temple in Robbinsville, New Jersey. In 2025, the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey closed their investigation without charges, but anti-cult activists continue to pursue civil litigation. Some have openly stated that they hope the BAPS case will create a precedent to be used against the Church of Scientology, which also relies on volunteer labor from international members.
Hassan himself declared in his 2020 doctoral dissertation that he hoped to establish a “new legal precedent.” It appears he has now found one in the OneTaste case.
OneTaste was founded in San Francisco in 2004 by Nicole Daedone to teach “orgasmic meditation,” a blend of medical theories, controversial but endorsed by some professionals, and spiritual insights claiming to help participants—especially women—rediscover their bodies and sexuality. The nature of the practice is that a woman partially undresses and a man (or woman, but more typically a man) strokes her clitoris for a specified time frame of fifteen minutes. The “stroking” could be with a romantic partner or with someone else and was often done in a group setting. These activities were neither hidden nor secret; they were described openly in promotional materials. Women who attended OneTaste events did so fully aware of their erotic nature.
Teaching empowerment and enlightenment through eroticism is always a risky business, and anti-cultists have long insisted that any group teaching sacred eroticism is merely a front for abuse. The pattern is familiar: a handful of former members reinterpret their past experiences negatively, often years after leaving; hundreds of others testify that they were not victims and participated voluntarily; prosecutors rely on media campaigns branding the groups as “sex cults”; and anti-cult narratives about “brainwashing” are used to dismiss the testimonies of satisfied participants. This script has played out in cases involving MISA in France and elsewhere, the French shaman known as Loup Blanc, and the POYRA movement in the Czech Republic. In all these cases, prosecutors embraced brainwashing narratives—enshrined in French law—ignored women who denied being victims, accepted the stories of disgruntled ex-members at face value, and relied heavily on media and anti-cult agitation.
All these elements resurfaced in the OneTaste case. Women who had once embraced the practice later redefined their experiences as negative; testimonies from members who reported positive experiences were ignored; and a media and anti-cult campaign—including by Netflix, which has become particularly notorious for its recent lurid anti-cult productions—paved the way for prosecution.
Some disgruntled ex-clients claimed they had been pressured into sexual relationships with a man who supported OneTaste financially, R.J., and others. The FBI investigated these claims for five years, but prosecutors were unable to find sufficient evidence of any sexual misconduct to apply sex-related charges. Daedone and Cherwitz were only charged with conspiracy to force labor. After the trial, prosecutors tried to introduce allegations of sexual misconduct through a “sentencing enhancement” of sexual assault. Once again, the court rejected the request. The prosecutors then repeatedly focused on graphic (or, more accurately, pornographic) details about R.J.’s sexual preferences and alleged interest in masochism. While these sensational descriptions naturally excited some media outlets, R.J. was not accused of any criminal activity, nor were Daedone and her co-worker Rachel Cherwitz charged with sexual crimes.
It was for labor-related charges that Daedone received a nine-year sentence on March 30, 2026, while Cherwitz was sentenced to 78 months in prison. As the prosecutor stated, whether any victim actually suffered harm was “absolutely not the question of this trial.” Trafficking and “coercive persuasion” were central to the case.
Steven Hassan played a central role. He served as the personal therapist to two key government witnesses throughout the journalistic and prosecutorial process and appeared repeatedly in the media campaign against OneTaste. Ellen Huet, the “Bloomberg” journalist whose 2018 reporting triggered the FBI investigation, was featured on his podcast, and he is cited as an authority in her 2025 book, “Empire of Orgasm.” His theoretical framework formed the prosecutorial backbone of the case. This is deeply disturbing, considering Hassan’s cavalier extension of his pseudoscientific BITE model to Latter-day Saints, Seventh-day Adventists, and even MAGA and those who support Donald Trump. Will all of them be prosecuted for “coercive persuasion”?
Despite precedents like “Fishman,” the prosecution openly employed the term “brainwashing.” This marked the first time in U.S. federal case law that a forced-labor-related conviction was based solely on environmental psychological influence, rooted in anti-cult behavioral analysis, without any physical coercion involved.
With Daedone’s conviction, Hassan appears to have obtained the “legal precedent” he sought, linking trafficking, “cults,” and “brainwashing” theories. Whatever the merits of investigating specific allegations of sexual abuse at OneTaste, the trafficking-brainwashing theory endorsed by the court establishes a dangerous precedent for all spiritual and self-help groups, especially those promoting unconventional teachings about eroticism.
It represents a serious threat to freedom of thought and belief, in a country that has long been commendably active in denouncing the anti-cult movement’s excesses abroad.
Massimo Introvigne (born June 14, 1955 in Rome) is an Italian sociologist of religions. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), an international network of scholars who study new religious movements. Introvigne is the author of some 70 books and more than 100 articles in the field of sociology of religion. He was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is a member of the editorial board for the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion and of the executive board of University of California Press’ Nova Religio. From January 5 to December 31, 2011, he has served as the “Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions” of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). From 2012 to 2015 he served as chairperson of the Observatory of Religious Liberty, instituted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to monitor problems of religious liberty on a worldwide scale.
