{"id":16731,"date":"2017-05-27T12:30:33","date_gmt":"2017-05-27T19:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/?p=16731"},"modified":"2017-05-27T12:30:33","modified_gmt":"2017-05-27T19:30:33","slug":"arrest-warrant-issued-for-hot-yoga-founder-bikram-choudhury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/arrest-warrant-issued-for-hot-yoga-founder-bikram-choudhury\/","title":{"rendered":"Arrest Warrant Issued for \u2018Hot\u2019 Yoga Founder Bikram Choudhury"},"content":{"rendered":"

Students practice the unique Bikram Yoga at the City Studio, March 13, 2007, in London, England. (Matt Cardy\/Getty Images)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

@Siliconeer #Siliconeer #BikramChoudhury #BikramYoga #SexualHarassmentLawsuit #IndianAmerican \u2013 A Los Angeles court has issued an arrest warrant for Bikram Choudhury, the Indian American \u201chot\u201d yoga guru who was ordered in 2016 to pay over $7 million in connection with a sexual harassment case.<\/p>\n

\n

Choudhury, the millionaire founder of global fitness chain, Bikram Yoga, has not paid the amount and last year claimed he was nearly bankrupt.<\/p>\n

Authorities believe the 69-year-old has hid his assets and left the country, ABC News reported.<\/p>\n

According to the report, the warrant allows authorities to arrest him if he returns to the U.S. or, possibly, in Mexico.<\/p>\n

In January last year, a jury determined that Choudhury had sexually harassed and then unfairly fired Minakshi \u201cMiki\u201d Jafa-Bodden, his onetime lawyer. He was ordered to pay nearly $6.5 million in punitive damages in addition to $924,000 in compensatory damages.<\/p>\n

Jafa-Bodden was general counsel to Bikram\u2019s Yoga College of India but was fired after refusing to cover up allegations that Bikram had raped and sexually assaulted a yoga student.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel vindicated,\u201d she told ABC News in 2016. \u201cI\u2019m elated.\u201d<\/p>\n

She convinced the jury that Choudhury had repeatedly sexually harassed her and subjected her to obscene comments about women.<\/p>\n

She also claimed she was fired after she tried to investigate another woman\u2019s sexual harassment and rape allegations against him. During the trial over Jafa-Bodden\u2019s allegations, Bikram strongly denied sexually assaulting any women. He also denied to ABC News ever having any sexual contact with his students or followers.<\/p>\n

Bail was set at $8 million, the report said.<\/p>\n

Choudhury was one of the pioneers of yoga in the U.S., setting up shop in Beverly Hills in the 1970s. Celebrities including Madonna, Andy Murray, Gwyneth Paltrow and Goldie have all participated in Bikram yoga.<\/p>\n

Now his yoga studios are franchised worldwide.<\/p>\n

The Bikram Yoga, also known as Hot Yoga, is a style of yoga developed by Bikram Choudhury and is done in a room heated to 105\u00b0F, this helps stretching, prevents injury and makes the body sweat which aids detoxification. The class normally involves two breathing exercises and 26 postures in a 90-minute class.<\/p>\n

Because of this consistency across the world, Choudhury refers to the practice as McYoga.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

@Siliconeer #Siliconeer #BikramChoudhury #BikramYoga #SexualHarassmentLawsuit #IndianAmerican \u2013 A Los Angeles court has issued an arrest warrant for Bikram Choudhury, the Indian American \u201chot\u201d yoga guru who was ordered in 2016 to pay over $7 million in connection with a sexual harassment case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":16696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[275,11],"tags":[3283,3284,106,3285,147],"class_list":["post-16731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-lifestyle","tag-bikram-choudhury","tag-bikram-yoga","tag-indian-american","tag-sexual-harassment-lawsuit","tag-siliconeer"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}