A los Angeles jury has ordered Bikram Choudhury, the controversial Indian-American yoga guru, to pay $924,500 to a woman lawyer who alleged that he sexually harassed her and fired her once she began investigating claims that he raped a yoga student.
Attorney Minakshi Jafa-Bodden in her lawsuit claimed that she suffered gender discrimination, wrongful termination and sexual harassment while working for Choudhury, the 69-year-old founder of Bikram Yoga. The jury returned with a unanimous verdict in favour of the attorney, The los Angeles Times reported.
Choudhury refuted the allegations of sexual assault, terming the accusations of mistreatment and abuse of Jafa-Bodden and other employees as “lies” and “big lies”. During the testimony, he said: “I don’t do that. I don’t have to.”