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Dr. Harsha Sahni, a rheumatologist based in Middlesex County, was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison for conspiring with others to illegally recruit, conceal, and harbor two women from India to be household servants for low pay, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said.
Sahni, who practiced in Colonia, admitted in her guilty plea that she knew the women were in the country illegally and that she harbored them for financial gain and caused them both to believe that they would be arrested and deported if they interacted with law enforcement, Platkin said.
The doctor said she provided the women food, clothing, and housing and harbored them to work as housekeepers at a price less than what she would have had to pay housekeepers had she employed them legally, Platkin said. Sahni acknowledged to instructing the women to tell immigration officials that they were members of her family and in the United States for tourism, knowing that was false, Platkin said. Sahni admitted in court that she did not pay taxes related to their work, Platkin said.
Sahni also scammed a domestic violence charity into providing free dental treatment for one of the women and later prevented her from receiving treatment for a life-threatening brain aneurysm. When the woman began developing headaches following a car crash in 2014, Sahni told the woman that rest was not permitted and if she had a headache she should take Tylenol and complete her work, Platkin said.
The headaches got so bad, the woman had to be taken to the emergency room, where a CT can showed an unruptured aneurysm in her brain and the woman was told she needed immediate surgery, or face death, Platkin said. Sahni encouraged the woman to leave the hospital against medical advice and required her to work that evening, Platkin said.
In addition to the prison term, Sahni was sentenced two years of supervised release and ordered to pay $728,327. Sahni must also pay up to $200,000 for specific medical bills.
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