“I’m really new at this, so please go easy on me. I’m not really good at this. It’s my first one I’m doing solo without my team,” Chirayu Rana — the ex-JPMorgan banker at the center of one of Wall Street’s biggest scandals — told us during our interview with him last Tuesday, May 19. During our nearly one-and-a-half hour call, we discussed everything from what he was like growing up to his hopes for the case.
On April 27, Rana filed a sweeping lawsuit alleging that Lorna Hajdini, a senior JPMorgan executive, had sexually assaulted him, drugged him, and called him multiple racial slurs — and that JPMorgan had covered it all up. “They never wanted to hear my side of the story,” he rued during the May 19 call. This was his chance to set the record straight.
Exactly one week later, on Tuesday, May 26, the case got even more complicated: Daniel J. Kaiser withdrew as Rana’s lawyer, hours before a 2:30 p.m. court session in New York City. Inside the courtroom, Kaiser looked defeated, slumped in his seat, letting JPMorgan and Hajdini’s lawyers take the lead as they read prepared statements, surrounded by thick binders. Kaiser had tried to step away, but Judge Dakota Ramseur told him he needed to finish his duties, at least for that session. So how did we get here? We pored over our interview with Rana and the May 26 court transcript for all the clues.