JPMorgan ‘Sex Slave’ Case Is a Cautionary Tale for Abuse Claims

The allegations seemed too serious to ignore: A high-ranking executive at JPMorgan Chase & Co. was accused in a lawsuit filed late last month of forcing a junior employee to be her “sex slave,” with lurid details of drugged sex romps, racist taunts, and threats of retaliation if he didn’t comply with her demands. As expected, the complaint drew widespread media attention.

Then the questions started. First, the executive and the bank vigorously denied the allegations. Then, court records show, the summons and complaint were removed from the public docket and got listed days later as  “Returned For Correction.”  The public focus now has shifted from the sexual-abuse allegations to whether the accuser’s allegations are falling apart.

This episode should be a warning for all of us. My experience has taught me a critical lesson: Allegations aren’t facts. They are the beginning of a process, not the end of one. As a society, we should resist the temptation to latch onto allegations that aren’t proven.

Not doing so carries consequences. It harms those accused prematurely and undermines confidence in legitimate complaints, making it harder for real victims to be heard when it matters most.

Throughout my career as a federal investigator and ultimately as the inspector general of a Cabinet agency, I reviewed and led teams who reviewed countless complaints. Early in my career, I conducted investigations, many of which relied on whistleblower tips and complaints. And as an inspector general, my office was responsible for receiving complaints, researching which allegations warranted further review, and which weren’t credible. Over the years, my office received thousands of complaints, alleging a wide variety of criminal and ethical misconduct.

We had to consider that the accuser may have an ulterior motive that undermines the allegations’ credibility. Our news and social media feeds are filled with algorithm-driven racial or religious incidents, some of which turn out to be hoaxes. The formality of filing a complaint in court, like the accusations against the bank executive, doesn’t necessarily confer legitimacy or credibility, as the court system has long struggled with serial complainants or so-called “vexatious litigants.”

Further, the complainant may not be rational. My inspector general office saw our fair share of black-helicopter and tinfoil-hat complaints. Anyone can submit a complaint; there is literally no barrier to entry. So a significant portion of complaints are shelved every year because they aren’t grounded in reality.

Even with credible complaints, the evidence rarely showed a situation precisely as alleged. There are always two sides to a story, and the reality is often far less salacious or scandalous than the allegations. Complaints usually aren’t based on undeniable facts or supported by undisputed evidence, but instead are typically based on one person’s perceptions.

There’s also a serious downside to the hyperventilation over accusations: The purported perpetrator can face a variety of problems when accused of misconduct before anything has been proven. A supervisor or manager accused of wrongdoing faces the potential for their career to stall until an investigation is complete, which could take a year or longer.

Even worse, the person accused of the allegations could face public humiliation. The JPMorgan executive, Lorna Hajdini, went from private citizen to international spectacle overnight. Countless articles retold the allegations against her. Celebrity tabloid publications such as TMZ, People, and US Weekly amplified the story.

More broadly, exploiting the ups and downs of salacious allegations has a coarsening effect on society. We will inevitably be conditioned to discount valid complaints and less likely to believe real victims in the future.

The rush to amplify claims often outpaces the work required to test them. Careers can be damaged, reputations shattered, and public opinion hardened long before the truth has a chance to emerge. And when the facts ultimately prove more complicated or less sensational, the correction rarely travels as far or as fast as the original claims did.

We should expect more discipline—from the media, from our institutions, and from ourselves. That means resisting the urge to treat every allegation as a conclusion. And it means allowing investigations to run their course. In a system built on fairness and due process, judgment should follow the facts.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax, and Bloomberg Government, or its owners.

Author Information

Mark Lee Greenblatt is an attorney, former Inspector General of the US Department of the Interior and chair of the Council of Inspectors General, and author of “Valor: Unsung Heroes from Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front.”

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