Tinton Falls doctor sent to federal prison for harboring undocumented workers

TRENTON. A suspended Tinton Falls doctor was sentenced Monday to two years and three months in federal prison for harboring undocumented workers from India and failing to pay taxes on their wages, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Salinger said.

U.S. District Judge Georgette Kastner sentenced Dr. Harsha Sahni, 68, of conspiracy to harbor and harbor aliens and filing a false tax return, Salinger said in a news release.

Sahni, 68, who had a rheumatology practice in the Colony neighborhood of Woodbridge, pleaded guilty to two felonies in U.S. District Court in February 2023. In September 2023, she agreed to a temporary suspension of her license to practice medicine.

Sahni admitted that between 2013 and August 2021, she conspired with others to harbor and harbor two women from India whom she recruited to work for her and her family at their homes in New Jersey, and paid the victims’ families in India in exchange for their work.

Cashner also ordered Sahni to remain on supervised probation for two years after she is released from prison and to pay $728,327 in restitution to the two women who worked for her and the Internal Revenue Service. In addition, the judge ordered Sahna to pay $200,000 in medical expenses to one of the women who worked for her.

Sahni admitted in court that she knew the two women she hired as domestic workers were in the United States illegally and that she led them both to believe they would be arrested and deported if they cooperated with law enforcement.

A complaint filed with the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners seeking the final revocation of Shani’s medical license is pending.

The complaint alleges that she forced two undocumented workers to work long hours for low pay at her home in Tinton Falls in an attempt to prevent one of them from undergoing surgery for a potentially fatal brain aneurysm until the worker could find a replacement.

The complaint filed with the medical examiner’s board alleged that her actions while committing federal crimes “violate professional standards, demonstrate an egregious lack of judgment and moral character, and are of such a nature that her continued licensure would be inconsistent with the public health, safety, and welfare.”

The medical examiner’s complaint alleges that one of the victims lived in Sahni’s home and was forced to work from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. for $240 to $600 a month.

According to the medical examiner’s complaint, Sahni tried to prevent the victim from undergoing surgery for a life-threatening brain aneurysm.

When the woman started having headaches that got progressively worse after a car accident in 2014, Sahni told her to take Tylenol and keep working, according to the complaint.

When the women’s headaches worsened, Sahni told her she could not seek medical attention because she was in the United States illegally and that seeing a doctor would be too expensive, the complaint said.

When the headaches worsened enough to prevent the woman from working, Sahni took her to the emergency room at Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank in April 2021, where tests revealed a large brain aneurysm that was potentially fatal, according to the complaint .

Doctors recommended that the woman be immediately transferred to the neurological intensive care unit at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, but Sahni, who had falsely identified herself to doctors as the patient’s sister, spoke at length with the woman, who did not speak English, and then told doctors that the woman wanted to go home against medical advice, the complaint states. Sahni then drove the woman home and demanded that she continue working, the complaint said.

During a follow-up examination the next day, the woman expressed a desire to have surgery, but Sahni told her she could not until he found a replacement to work at Sahni’s home, the complaint said.

An appeal of the revocation of Sahni’s medical license is pending with the state Office of Administrative Law.

Kathleen Hopkins, a New Jersey reporter since 1985, has covered crimes, court cases, legal issues and nearly every major homicide trial in Monmouth and Ocean counties. Contact her at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on the Asbury Park Press: A judge has sentenced a Tinton Falls doctor to 27 months in federal prison