By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK, July 27 (Reuters) – The former JPMorgan Chase banker whose lurid sexual harassment lawsuit went viral added new claims and defendants on Monday, saying the largest U.S. bank’s acceptance of racism and sexual coercion irreparably destroyed his career.
Chirayu Rana said racism was ingrained in the culture of his otherwise all-white leveraged finance team, where his South Asian heritage “became the punchline for a stream of degrading jokes,” including calling him a “monkey” and “brown boy.”
“We don’t believe there’s any merit to these claims,” a JPMorgan spokesperson said on behalf of the defendants. “While numerous employees cooperated with the investigation, the complainant refused.”
In an 82-page complaint, Rana, who is of Nepali descent, added allegations that colleagues suggested he transact in rupees, and one texted that he should “run before we call ICEE {sic} on your family,” referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Rana also renewed allegations that the defendant Lorna Hajdini, a JPMorgan executive director, coerced him into sex and demanded his submissiveness as a condition of advancing his career, repeatedly saying she “owned” him.
Once a “leading” deal originator paid “well over” $2 million a year, Rana has been “effectively blackballed,” the complaint said. “His reputation has been destroyed, his professional relationships shattered, and the career he spent years building reduced to rubble. This was not an unintended consequence of defendants’ misconduct. It was its intended result.”
MULTIPLE CASES BRING UNWANTED ATTENTION
Hajdini has also denied Rana’s claims and countersued him for defamation, saying his lies “wreaked havoc” on her life, subjected her to around-the-clock ridicule, and were designed to attract maximum press coverage.
Lawyers for Hajdini did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The case is one of several matters involving JPMorgan employees to permeate social media this year, generating unwanted attention for a bank that generated $37.6 billion of profit in the first half of 2026.
JPMorgan is challenging a $4.25 million arbitration award to a former wealth manager who was fired after expensing a Super Bowl platter, while a former employee was caught on video dumping out and then walking away with a commemorative trash can during a parade for the NBA champion New York Knicks.
THREE NEW DEFENDANTS
Rana filed his lawsuit in Manhattan federal court, after a state judge on July 16 dismissed a version filed in April so Rana and his new lawyers could add claims.
The new complaint adds JPMorgan managing directors Brandon Graffeo and Jon Wolter as defendants.
Rana said Graffeo “led” his degradation, while Graffeo and Wolter campaigned to poison his reputation in the private credit and leveraged finance industry after he resigned under pressure last October, causing his subsequent employer to fire him in April.
JPMorgan associate Kelly Crowe was also added as a defendant, with Rana saying she called him “brown boy” and an “HR liability.”
It was unclear why some new allegations were not in Rana’s original complaint.
Rana’s 21-count complaint seeks unspecified compensatory damages, punitive damages, front and back pay and other remedies from various defendants for alleged violations of federal civil rights laws, the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, and New York state and city human rights laws.
The claims include sexual and racial discrimination; harassment and retaliation; a defamation claim against JPMorgan, Graffeo and Wolter, and a sexual assault claim against Hajdini.
“JPMorgan has fed the public a false and misleading narrative,” Rana’s lawyer Jon Norinsberg said in a statement. “We intend to hold the defendants fully accountable in a court of law for the catastrophic harm they caused to Mr. Rana’s career, reputation and life.”
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
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