Malpractice at Home: New Jersey Doctor Heads to Prison
A New Jersey doctor has lost her medical license, but it has nothing to do with how she treats her patients. What got her in trouble was how she treated the two women she employed as servants.
After being sentenced to 27 months in prison for conspiring with others to illegally recruit, conceal, and harbor two women from India to be household servants for low pay, Dr. Harsha Sahni recently had her medical license permanently revoked by the State Board of Medical Examiners. Sahni, who maintained a rheumatology practice in Colonia, N.J., admitted she knew the women were in the country illegally and that she harbored them for financial gain.
In a verified complaint and other documents filed with the medical board, the State of New Jersey alleged that Sahni required one of the victims (identified as Victim 1), who lived in her home, to work from approximately 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. for roughly $240 to $600 a month, which Sahni paid to the victim’s family in India.
The State also alleged that Sahni defrauded various entities, including a domestic violence charity, into providing free and reduced-cost medical care to Victim 1. Sahni also allegedly prevented Victim 1 from receiving treatment for a life-threatening brain aneurysm. Sahni is expected to begin her prison sentence this October. In addition to the prison term, she was sentenced to two years of supervised release and ordered restitution of $728,327. Sahni must also pay up to $200,000 for specific medical bills.
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Compiled and partly written by Indian humorist MELVIN DURAI, author of the novel Bala Takes the Plunge.
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