A former JPMorgan banker claims that a top executive sexually assaulted and harassed him, often while referring to him as "brown boy" or "brownie," court documents show.
The banker, identified by the New York Post as Chirayu Rana, 35, refiled his accusations against Lorna Hajdini in New York County Supreme Court on Monday after the filing was abruptly removed last week.
"Ms. Hajdini leveraged her seniority over plaintiff to harass and coerce him to engage in non-consensual and humiliating sex acts with her -- acts he literally begged her not to force him to engage in -- through express threats that she would ruin his career if he did not submit," the filing reads.
The alleged threats, which JPMorgan and Hajdini forcefully deny, included the female executive vowing to "ruin" Rana unless he submitted to her advances.
"If you don't f me soon, I'm going to ruin you," Hajdini said, according to Rana's lawsuit. "Never forget I fing own you."
Attorneys for Hajdini, an executive director at JPMorgan and Rana's former supervisor, have flatly dismissed the allegations, as well as those lodged by an anonymous friend who claims he was invited for a threesome with the pair following a concert in September 2024.
"Lorna continues to categorically deny the allegations," Hajdini's attorneys told Newsweek in a statement provided by JPMorgan Chase. "She never dated this individual, never had a sexual or romantic encounter with him of any kind and never gave him any drugs. She maintains that his false claims are entirely fabricated and tarnishing her reputation."
JPMorgan investigated Rana's claims but didn't find "any merit" to the accusations, company officials said.
"While numerous employees cooperated with the investigation, the complainant refused to participate and has declined to provide facts that would be central to support his allegations," a JP Morgan spokesperson told Newsweek in a statement last week.
Rana's filings on Monday include two anonymous witnesses who said they saw Hajdini victimizing their friend, including one instance at a New York City apartment where he was allegedly awakened by the "completely naked" executive.
"Ms. Hajdini sat on the couch and lit a cigarette," the affirmation signed in July reads. "She then asked me to come to the bedroom with her and 'join them.' I told her no. She again said, 'come join, come join.' I again told her no. She then said, "you know, I own [redacted], so you'd better come join. I continued to say 'no.' Eventually, Ms. Hajdini got up from the couch and went back into the bedroom and closed the door."
The witness then heard Rana pleading with Hajdini to stop and leave the apartment, according to the filing.
"I heard him say, 'No, no, no, you have to leave,'" the affirmation reads. "'I'm not going to do this. Please stop.'"
After Hajdini left the apartment, Rana allegedly relayed how Hajdani “constantly harassed him” and forced him to engage in sexual activity.
“He also told me that she frequently said to him things like, ‘I am in charge of you and I will get what I need from you,'" the filing says. “And ‘if you don’t comply, there will be trouble.’ He told me that this had been a big problem going on in his life for some time.”
The witness also claimed to have spotted Hajdini being very “handsy” with Rana at a concert in Brooklyn earlier that month. A second anonymous witness additionally alleges to have seen Hajdini kissing Rana’s neck during the summer of 2024.
“She had her face in his neck and appeared to be kissing his neck,” the filing reads. “I also saw her grab his rear end.”
The second witness also claims to have spotted Hajdini and Rana entering her apartment building sometime in September 2024 while she appeared to be intoxicated, the filing shows.
“As I passed them, I heard Ms. Hajdini say something about ‘owning’ and ‘brownie’ that sounded like, ‘I own you Brownie,’ or something similar to that,” court documents read. “I was startled because this occurred as we were passing each other, and at first I thought she was speaking to me.”
Newsweek has reached out to Rana and his attorney, Daniel Kaiser, for comment.
Kaiser also filed a separate three-page affirmation on Monday stating that Rana, who wants to proceed anonymously in the case, has been diagnosed with PTSD by a mental health professional because of the "workplace abuse" he suffered.
Rana's claims went viral last week, prompting some social media users to recreate videos using AI to depict the alleged unwanted sex acts as well as commercials featuring Hajdini to new potential JPMorgan hires.