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

FILE - In this Sept. 27, 2003, file photo, 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. A Los Angeles jury on Monday, Jan. 25, 2016, ordered Choudhury to pay $924,500 in compensatory damages after finding he had subjected a lawyer to harassment and retaliation. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File) FILE - In this Sept. 27, 2003, file photo, 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. A Los Angeles jury on Monday, Jan. 25, 2016, ordered Choudhury to pay $924,500 in compensatory damages after finding he had subjected a lawyer to harassment and retaliation. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)

By Associated Press January 27, 2016 3 min read

LOS ANGELES (AP) – 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.