Bikram yoga founder ordered to pay $7.4M for sex harassment

Bikram Choudhury, front, founder of the Yoga College of India and creator and producer of Yoga Expo 2003, leads what organizers hope will be the world's largest yoga class at the Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Sept. 27, 2003. (AP / Reed Saxon)

LOS ANGELES -- A man who made an empire out of his high-heat brand of yoga has been ordered to pay well over $7 million to a former legal adviser who said he sexually harassed her.

A Los Angeles jury ordered Bikram yoga founder Bikram Choudhury to pay $6.5 million in punitive damages Tuesday on top of $924,000 in compensatory he was ordered to pay in the same case a day earlier.

The woman, Minakshi "Miki" Jafa-Bodden, had said Choudhury sexually harassed her and wrongfully fired her for investigating another woman's rape allegation.

"This is a good day for women," Jafa-Bodden said in a statement following the verdict.

Choudhury's attorney, Robert Tafoya, did not return calls for comment Monday or Tuesday.

Jafa-Bodden worked as head of legal and international affairs at Choudhury's Los Angeles yoga school from spring 2011 until March 2013, when she said she was abruptly fired from her six-figure position for refusing to cover up an investigation into a rape allegation.

"Jafa-Bodden faced retaliation and intimidation when she refused to stay silent about witnessing illegal behaviour," her attorney, Mark Quigley, said in a statement.

Additionally, Jafa-Bodden said Choudhury sexually harassed and inappropriately touched her, and tried to get her to stay with him in a hotel suite.

Choudhury, 69, has built an empire around Bikram yoga, a rigorous, 90-minute routine performed in a room that can reach more than 100 degrees. The technique is taught at more than 650 studios worldwide and has drawn a throng of devoted followers.

Choudhury contends he is now nearly bankrupt.

Jafa-Bodden's wrongful termination lawsuit is separate from sexual assault lawsuits filed by six other women, five of whom accuse Choudhury of raping them. One of those lawsuits is in the process of being settled while the rest are set for trial later this year.

His attorneys have said he never sexually assaulted any of the women suing him and that prosecutors had declined to bring charges in their cases.

Mary Shea, one of the attorneys representing the women filing the assault lawsuits, said prosecutors never investigated the allegations and that just because charges weren't filed doesn't mean the women aren't telling the truth.

"These are all very brave women who've had the courage to stand up against very serious opposition and public scrutiny," she said. "If anything, this (verdict) has given them the confidence to go forward and speak their truth."

Choudhury experienced another major court loss in October when he lost an appeal to copyright his sequence of 26 poses and two breathing exercises.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the sequence used in hot yoga classes is a process intended to improve people's health, so copyright law does not cover it.