wall street
JPMorgan ‘Sex Slave’ Saga Takes Another Twist
By
Michael Calderone, deputy editor of Intelligencer
May 22, 2026
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Photo: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Former JPMorgan banker Chirayu Rana’s sexual-assault claims against executive Lorna Hajdini, and her countersuit this week, have ignited chatter inside 270 Park Avenue — and provided fodder for tabloid headlines and online memes beyond. To recap: Rana
claimed in an April 27 lawsuit that Hajdini pressured him to be her “sex slave,” drugged him, and made racist remarks, demands, and threats, including, “If you don’t fuck my brains out tonight, I’m going to sabotage your promotion.”
JPMorgan, which is also named in the suit, has said that Rana’s claims have “no merit” and Hajdini
countersued for defamation earlier this week, asserting that Rana’s allegations are “entirely false, malicious, and fabricated” and “concocted for the improper purpose of personal enrichment at the expense of defendants and others.”
The saga was likely to next unfold on May 26, when a preliminary hearing is scheduled, but the Juggernaut, an outlet that covers the South Asian diaspora, published an extensive profile of Rana on Thursday that includes fresh comments from him on the case. “The biggest thing here is, if you call this fake, it’s just gender inequality. If the roles were reversed, what do you think would happen?” Rana said
in an interview with Tulika Bose, which hit upon several matters in the suit and recently in the press.
Settlement talks
The Wall Street Journal reported that JPMorgan offered to settle Rana’s claims for $1 million after he filed a complaint in May 2025 and was placed on leave; a representative for Rana reportedly sought approximately $22 million to settle. Rana suggested in the Juggernaut interview that the bank’s reported willingness to settle with him speaks to the veracity of his claims: “If it was fabricated, why did the settlement rise?” he said.
Then things take another turn. Bose wrote that “throughout his interview with us, Rana claimed he possessed extensive evidence supporting his allegations,” including “forensic analysis of devices, internal HR complaints, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filings, and additional anonymous witness affidavits,” and referenced “documentation tied to settlement negotiations, including that JPMorgan increased its offer ‘after more evidence was discovered.’”
According to the Juggernaut, Rana did not provide the documentation, and Bose recalled his response when she followed up on it: “I think there has been a clear mistake here … I’ve never shared any information with you and your team. We are speaking with Verizon now. My account has been compromised.” Bose wrote that Rana “then proceeded to block our number.” (A lawyer for Rana did not respond to
New York’s request for comment.)
AskALawyerOnCall messages
The New York
Post reported earlier this month that Rana was identified as the user posing questions ten months ago to the online legal-advice platform, AskALawyerOnCall.com. “I was raped, secually assulted [sic], harassed, and forced to do drugs by my former boss at Morgan Stanley,’’ read the message. The user referred to the alleged abuser as “he,” noted the
Post. When asked by the Juggernaut about screenshots from the legal-advice site, Rana said he had “no idea what that is” and suggested they were “deepfakes.”
In her countersuit, Hajdini also claimed that Rana’s conduct is “part of a broader pattern and scheme in which he has repeatedly advanced knowingly false and deeply offensive accusations for personal gain” and has “made up eerily similar fabricated allegations of sexual misconduct against a supervisor at a prior place of employment — specifically, that he was sexually assaulted, drugged, and raped by that supervisor.”
And as for one particularly vivid allegation
In his suit, Rana alleged that Hajdini once said, “I bet your little Asian fishhead wife doesn’t have these cannons.” When asked about the remark, Rana told Bose, “Was I quoted saying that?” When told it was allegedly what Hajdini had said, he responded, “Oh yeah, I can’t comment on other people’s quotes.” Incidentally, Rana said he had a serious partner at the time of the alleged incident but was not married.
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