Serial Harasser? Baltimore City State Attorney Candidate Thiru Vignarajah Accused of Humiliating and Abusing Staff

- The 45-year-old Sri Lankan American, who was Marylandâs former Deputy Attorney General, handled the âSerialâ podcast subject Bangladeshi American Adnan Syedâs case for the state of Maryland for years.

With a few days left for the Maryland June 19 primary, the campaign of Thiruvendran âThiruâ Vignarajah, a Democratic candidate for the Baltimore City State Attorneyâs race, is embroiled in a controversy. The 45-year-old Sri Lankan American, who was Marylandâs former Deputy Attorney General, is accused of harassing and abusing staff while working at the Baltimore attorney generalâs office.
Katie Dorian, 35, who worked for Vignarajah, almost a decade ago, at the Baltimore Stateâs Attorneyâs Office told The Baltimore Sun that Vignarajah âabused his position of authority, subjecting an impressionable young woman to mental abuse and manipulation, threatening to ruin her career if she ever spoke out and even threatening her physically.â
She told the paper that she broke her silence because Vignarajah is ânot a person who should be in any position of power and let alone that much power with that much trust.â Dorian, who now heads the organized crime unit at the Maryland Attorney Generalâs Office, also advised young women against working for her former boss.
Her accusations were reported on July 6, the same day Vignarajah released an ad bragging about Maryland Gov. Larry Hoganâs endorsement, as reported by The Sun. In the ad, Hogan said he trusts Vignarajah â to do whatâs right for us. He said Baltimore needs someone who is âa crime fighter focused on protecting victims, a real Stateâs Attorney, a proven prosecutor.â
A proven prosecutor endorsed by Governor Hogan and five police commissioners, only Thiru Vignarajah has the experience and leadership to beat Marilyn Mosby, rebuild a partnership with police, and get violent criminals off our streets. pic.twitter.com/euauAphlpA
— Thiru Vignarajah (@thiru4baltimore) July 5, 2022
A day earlier, Vignarajah and Hogan were seen marching together in a Fourth of July parade.
Wonderful morning walking the 4th of July parade with Governor Hogan. Happy Independence Day from Team Thiru! pic.twitter.com/Hltx9KQeOz
— Thiru Vignarajah (@thiru4baltimore) July 4, 2022
However, Dorian is not the only former staffer accusing Vignarajah. The Baltimore Sun has reported 15 former subordinates and colleagues at the city prosecutorâs office and the state attorney generalâs office saying that Vignarajah âpunished both men and women for perceived disloyalty and humiliated them in front of colleagues.â
Among them was A.J. Clayborne, a Harvard law student who interned for Vignarajah in the summer of 2015. He recalled being once âharshly criticizedâ in front of other interns and staff members âfor what Vignarajah called a failure to take adequate meeting notes,â adding that his former boss was enjoying it. Many also confessed to The Sun that Vignarajah was âparticularly abusiveâ toward Dorian, and they say him âyell and swear at her, while also observing that he isolated her from co-workers.â
Meanwhile, Vignarajahâs political director Anthony McCarthy told The Sun in a statement that the allegations were a âcoordinated political effortâ from rival candidates. He said the campaign is focusing on pressing issues like Baltimoreâs homicide rates. âWe will not be distracted. We will stay focused on solutions to our cityâs greatest challenges. When they go low, we go high.â
Born and raised in Baltimore, the son of retired Baltimore City school teachers, Vignarajah and his sister Krishanti O’Mara Vignarajah arrived in the U.S. as young children when their parents fled the civil war in Sri Lanka.
Vignarajah previously ran unsuccessfully for stateâs attorney in 2018 and mayor in 2020. However, for this campaign, âhe raised over $600,000 in the most recent cycle,â The Baltimore Sun noted, âmore than the other two candidates combined.âÂ
For the Baltimore state attorney race, he hasn’t been endorsed by the Indian American IMPACT or the AAPI Victory Fund.
He handled Adnan Syedâs case for the state of Maryland for years, first as the lead counsel on the case while serving as the stateâs deputy attorney general before joining DLA Piper US LLP Baltimore office as a litigation partner in January 2017, as reported at the time by The Daily Record. He has been one of the key players in the battle of Adnan Syed v. Maryland. As deputy Maryland attorney general, Vignarajah said in 2016, before Syedâs conviction was vacated later that year, that the young man was convicted due to âoverwhelming evidence,â adding, âhe did it, and the state proved it,â according to the Baltimore Sun.
Syed, now 40, of Baltimore, Maryland, has been serving a life sentence since 2000, when he was convicted of killing his high school classmate and ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, 17. Leeâs body was found in a shallow grave in Leakin Park, at Baltimoreâs western edge in 1999. Syed was arrested, and convicted of first-degree murder, robbery, kidnapping and false imprisonment in the death of Lee. Syed has maintained his innocence, and the podcast drew widespread attention to his case.
His murder trial inspired the podcast âSerial,â which debuted in 2014, featuring as its host Sarah Koenig, a former producer with the weekly public radio program âThis American Life.â Its first season focused on whether Syed had received a fair trial. It was downloaded more than 100 million times and won a Peabody Award, turning the case into a topic of a national conversation. For many listeners, âSerialâ raised doubts about Syedâs guilt.
Syed Rabia Chaudry, an attorney and friend of Syedâs family who first brought his case to the attention of âThis American Life,â which developed the podcast, took to social media to denounce Vignarajah. âThis is the man who prosecuted Adnan pro bono for five years, ensuring Adnan did not get a new trial after two courts had ordered it,â she wrote on Facebook. âHeâs now running for Stateâs Attorney of Baltimore City, the top prosecutor, and would not only put an end to DNA testing and efforts to exonerate Adnan, he would be a menace to female colleagues and other defendants. A despicable man by every measure.â
Born and raised in Baltimore, the son of retired Baltimore City school teachers, Vignarajah and his sister Krishanti O’Mara Vignarajah arrived in the U.S. as young children when their parents fled the civil war in Sri Lanka. He graduated from Woodlawn High. He then attended Yale University and Harvard Law School, earning a degree in Ethics at King’s College, London, and working at McKinsey in between, according to his website. He was elected president of the Harvard Law Review, the same position Barack Obama once held. Thiru earned judicial clerkships with Judge Guido Calabresi and Justice Stephen Breyer on the United States Supreme Court.
He began as a federal prosecutor in the Violent Crimes Section of the U.S. Attorneyâs Office, then served as Chief of Major Investigations in the Stateâs Attorneyâs Office, which was responsible for handling the âtoughest cases against the cityâs worst criminals,â his website says. He was then named Deputy Attorney General for the State of Maryland, where he made Maryland the first state in America to establish statewide discriminatory profiling guidelines. When he was named Deputy Attorney General, the city police commissioner called him a âonce-in-a-generation lawyer and leader,â his website says.
Krishanti O’Mara Vignarajah currently serves as president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. Previously, she served as Policy Director to former First Lady Michelle Obama. She also ran for governor of Maryland in the 2018 primary election, finishing fourth. However, she gained some national attention because had she won, she would have been the first woman, immigrant or person of color to be elected governor in the state. In June 2020, Vignarajah went public with her breast cancer diagnosis. In an interview with The Baltimore Sun, she said, “My hope is to do my part to lift some of the stigma and anxiety that sits around breast cancer.â