A former JPMorgan Chase banker will no longer be allowed to proceed anonymously in his lawsuit accusing a female colleague of forcing him into humiliating sex acts, a judge has ruled. 

During a hearing on Tuesday, New York Supreme Court Judge Dakota Ramseur denied Chirayu Rana, 35, the ability to continue proceeding under the pseudonym ‘John Doe’ in his civil case against banking executive Lorna Hajdini, 37.

Rana's attorney, Daniel Kaiser, argued that because the lawsuit contains allegations of sexual assault, his client should be afforded protections similar to those granted to accusers in criminal cases.

However, attorneys for Hajdini and JPMorgan opposed the request, arguing Rana’s identity was already public and that allowing him to remain anonymous while Hajdini’s name continues to be ‘dragged through the mud’ would be highly prejudicial.

Hajdini's lead counsel, Melissa Rodriguez, pointed the judge to an interview Rana gave to The Juggernaut last week in which he publicly identified himself as the plaintiff and discussed details of the case and his background, further undercutting the request for anonymity.

Cardelle Spangler, lead counsel for JPMorgan Chase, urged the judge to require Rana to refile the complaint under his real name.

The hour-long hearing concluded with Ramseur siding with Hajdini and JPMorgan.

‘Your client's name is already out there,’ she told Kaiser. ‘You can't put the genie back in the bottle.’

Rana filed a lawsuit in late April alleging that Hajdini harassed and sexually abused him while they were working together at the bank's leveraged finance division from early 2024 to mid 2025.

The filing, which was first reported by the Daily Mail, also included claims of repeated drugging, racial abuse and coercion.

Hajdini vehemently denied the allegations, and JPMorgan previously told the Daily Mail that an internal investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing and that Rana's claims had 'no merit'. 

During Tuesday's hearing, the judge also denied Kaiser's request for a 60-day adjournment in the case. 

Hours earlier, Kaiser - who previously represented Jeffrey Epstein victims - filed a notice seeking to withdraw as Rana’s attorney, filings obtained by the Daily Mail showed.

The document, which was co-signed by Rana, stated that Rana would represent himself ‘pro se’ until a replacement for Kaiser could be found.

In response, Hajdini's attorneys filed a motion opposing the eleventh-hour withdrawal, arguing she had already been forced to respond to Rana’s lawsuit on an ‘expedited basis’ and should not face further delays.

‘The timing is highly prejudicial. Plaintiff chose to file this action anonymously, sought emergency relief to preserve that status, and forced Ms. Hajdini to respond on an expedited basis. He should not now be permitted to delay adjudication,’ the filing read.

The attorneys added: ‘Mr. Kaiser certainly should not be allowed to withdraw the very day of the hearing on Plaintiff’s own Doe Motion before the Court hears about the prejudice to Defendants.

‘Instead, Mr. Kaiser should be required to appear on Plaintiff’s Doe Motion that he himself authored and publicized to the media, even before filing the application.’

The judge declined to relieve Kaiser as counsel before the hearing because no formal motion to withdraw had yet been filed. Ramseur ruled he would remain Rana’s attorney unless and until such a motion was formally brought before the court.

Tuesday's hearing was held days after Hajdini filed counterclaims of defamation against Rana, accusing him of humiliating her with his allegations that she turned him into a 'sex slave' during his time at JPMC. 

In her response to the lawsuit, Hajdini said the allegations - which quickly went viral online - had turned her life into a daily ‘living nightmare.’

She accused Rana of fabricating the sexual harassment and abuse claims, insisting they were engineered to ‘inflict maximum pain’ and destroy her career and reputation.

She denied the claims in their entirety and said the social media firestorm that the case ignited has caused her lasting mental harm and cost her a volunteer position. 

Hajdini’s attorneys entered three emails she recently received into the docket as exhibits to further illustrate the 'havoc' Rana’s claims continue to have on her life.

In one sickening message received on April 30, a sender whose name is redacted in the filing wished vicious harm on Hajdini and urged her to commit suicide.

‘I hope you get g**g r***d to the point you wanna kill yourself after cos you realise what a worthless w***e you are,’ reads the message.

‘You f**king piece of s**t. KILL YOURSELF. I sincerely hope your family all die slow, painful deaths from aggressive cancers.’

The other two emails included lurid and detailed propositions for sex.  

In the weeks since Rana's claims were first filed, the allegations have been dissected relentlessly online, fueling viral debate and mounting skepticism.

Speaking publicly for the first time to The Juggernaut, a New York-based outlet focused on South Asian news, the Nepali-American said he believed ‘gender inequality’ was to blame for the growing doubt surrounding his allegations.

‘The biggest thing here is, if you call this fake, it’s just gender inequality,’ he told the outlet.

‘If the roles were reversed, what do you think would happen?’

Much of Rana's 45-page lawsuit consisted of detailed recollections of remarks he claimed Hajdini made to him, including: ‘If you don’t f*** my brains out tonight, I’m going to sabotage your promotion,’ and ‘I bet your little Asian, fish head, wife doesn’t have these cannons.’ 

Hajdini’s lawyers immediately refuted the claims, denying any inappropriate conduct.

JPMorgan also told the Daily Mail it conducted a thorough investigation after Rana first raised the claims internally in May 2025 and found no evidence of wrongdoing.

Sources say JPMorgan did offer Rana $1 million to settle his claims, but he rejected the offer because he was holding out for $20 million.

A spokesperson for the company voiced support for Hajdini’s countersuit last week, adding: ‘As we’ve said from the outset, we don’t believe the allegations against her or the firm have merit.’

As part of Rana’s initial filing, he accused the bank of enabling the alleged abuse and retaliating against him after he came forward with the claims.

JPMorgan issued its own legal response to Rana on Thursday, denying the allegations and insisting he has asserted a ‘series of sensational, false, and misleading allegations that do not reflect the reality of his employment with JPMC.’

The filing provided additional detail about the bank’s internal investigation into Rana’s claims last year.

Highlighting that Rana refused to cooperate with the probe, JPMorgan accused him of distorting ‘routine workplace interactions’ into wrongdoing by ‘repackaging an internet-meme reference as a sexual proposition and recasting an innocuous group text about a LinkedIn post as racial harassment.’

The company also accused Rana of having a documented history of misrepresenting facts and ‘shifting narratives’, claiming he once lied about his father’s death to get time off work.

JPMC attorney Cardelle Spangler seized on Rana's alleged shifting narratives again during Tuesday's hearing.

Stressing the importance of rejecting Rana's anonymity request, Spangler argued that public reporting on Rana and his claims had helped uncover information she said undercuts his credibility.

In addition to allegedly lying about his father's death, Spangler claimed the resume Rana gave to recruiters before joining in 2024 was missing key information.

'Through public scrutiny, we've learned of a number of other entities that he allegedly worked for and [that JPMC] were not aware of,' she said.

'He also claimed his mother operated a New York State licensed daycare business, and yet in this article from last Friday, he said his mother runs a daycare out of his home in Virginia.'

Neither Rana nor Hajdini was present in court.

The next hearing has been scheduled for June 23.