The sensational lawsuit involving a female executive and her male colleague who alleged that he was made a sex slave by the female, took the most surprising turn this week. New York Post reported that ex-JPMorgan banker Chirayu Rana wants to withdraw the case from the Manhattan Supreme Court and to refile in a federal court. The lawyers representing Chirayu Rana and Lorna Hajdini (also JPMorgan) exchanged blistering notes on the case.
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Chirayu Rana's earlier lawyer left the case and Rana was representing himself for the time being. But now he has a new counsel and they want to withdraw the case from this court and to file it elsewhere. The bank's counsel said that they can't do 'forum shopping' and choose a favorable court. Rana’s “new counsel has entered this case with an approach similar to that of his prior counsel — promising the press new evidence to support Plaintiff’s claims while simultaneously seeking to delay this litigation and any accountability for Plaintiff’s lies,” lawyers for Hajdini wrote.
Rana “is not entitled to a do-over on his claims because he has retained new counsel,”JP Morgan's attorney Cardelle B Spangler of Winston Taylor,wrote. “If he no longer wishes to litigate in this forum, he is free to walk away, but he should not be permitted to re-file these claims with another court,” the filing added.
JPMorgan also demanded that the court force Chirayu Rana's former lawyer to make any disclosures necessary regarding false evidence or statements.
They said either Rana should be forced to stay in state court or be forbidden from filing it somewhere else.
Chirayu Rana said he was made a sex slave by his boss Hajdini, but the company backed Hajdini and also confirmed that Lorna Hajdini was never Chirayu Rana's boss.
In the wake of Chirayu Rana's attempt to withdraw the case, Hajdini said the allegation should be argued out before Rana was allowed to file in any new court. Her attorneys claim they asked Rana’s team to provide a draft of their federal complaint twice, but they declined to do so.
Rana’s lawyers hit back on Monday, claiming opposing counsel was making demands to the court as if it were “a genie lamp that provides her heart’s desires regardless of whether they are tethered to fact, law, or reality.”
Attorney Jon Norinsberg claimsed Hajdini’s filing is rife with “hysterics and overwrought descriptions” and “continues to exploit publicly filed court documents to smear” his client. Norinsberg dismissed claims of forum shopping and said Rana plans to comply with Thursday’s deadline of filing the suit under his real name — but in federal court. “It is a familiar playbook used by defendants,” Norinsberg wrote, “attack the survivor, distract from the allegations, and portray themselves as the victim.”
